By Susan Gately - 22 January, 2014
Two new diocesan committees for Eucharistic Adoration have been established in the last four months in Ireland. This brings to twenty-one the number of diocesan committees with just five dioceses not having a Eucharistic Adoration committee at diocesan level.
The new Committees are in the diocese of Clonfert, just east of Galway and Killaloe. Members of the Apostolate of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration have been working in both dioceses for months to establish the committees, completing the process this January.
“There has been a phenomenal response,” John Howard, National Co-Ordinator with the Apostolate of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration told CatholicIreland.net. Thirty people make up the Clonfert committee and forty eight the Killaloe one, which has the challenge of being a large geographical region with an area stretching from the Clare coast, right into County Offaly, he says.
John Howard, National Co-Ordinator with the Apostolate of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration
Committee members will now begin the process of visiting parishes to encourage them to set up committees at parish level to promote ‘viable Eucharistic Adoration’. This means that when Eucharistic Adoration is taking place in a church, convent or monastery, there should be a minimum of three to four people signed up to pray before the Eucharist for each hour of the rota.
Both Clonfert and Killaloe dioceses already have many centres of where there is exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Ennis alone, has twenty four parishes with Eucharistic Adoration, says Mr Howard. “Please God new centres will be born. It is the wish of the bishops that every parish will have viable Eucharistic Adoration.”
This year the Apostolate plans to expand the committees in the diocese of Tuam and Galway, and is also due to visit the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin to expand their committees with a view to having “a greater spread of centres of Adoration” in those dioceses.
Interior Adoration Chapel, St Mary’s Church, Navan
The Apostolate of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration has its office in Navan, Co Meath. In the diocese of Meath there are 100 centres of adoration, including one in each of its sixty- nine parishes. The parish of St Mary’s in Navan has Eucharistic Adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day involving over 400 people.
John Howard believes that the strength of adoration in his own diocese is one reason why Meath diocese has had vocations to the priesthood.
Since the 1980s there have been one or two ordinations each year. This year, two men are due to be ordained. Another three or four should be ordained in 2015.
“The first prayer intention for the adorers is a prayer for vocations in the diocese,” Fr Mark English, Vocations Director with the diocese told CatholicIreland.net. He believes that Adoration is not the only factor, but it is “a contributing factor” to vocations to religious life. “Prayer never goes astray,” he says.
