I am happy to announce that we now have the Blessed Sacrament exposed at St. Mary's 24 hours a day. Liturgical law requires that we close the tabernacle door during Mass because the focus is on the Eucharist being celebrated. The key pad entry on the handicapped accessible door is now operational (use 308, the house number of St. Mary's re. Call the rectory for the combination. You can come in for a visit in front of the Blessed Sacrament anytime day or night. Thanks to a gracious donor, all this has been donated. The Eucharist is secure behind a thick plexiglass window. We don't have enough parishioners to have perpetual adoration, but perhaps we can have people at prayer during the days. The greatest obstacle to perpetual adoration is making sure that there is someone in the church at all time. This requires that someone stay in the Church an extra hour if the next person does not show up. This is often a significant inconvenience and difficulty fHowever since the Eucharist is securely locked in the tabernacle we are able to have adoration available and do not need to worry if someone is not in the church.
   In October Pope Francis talked about Eucharistic Adoration at his daily Mass. Immersing oneself in silent Eucharistic adoration is the secret to knowing the Lord, Pope Francis said last Thursday morning at Holy Mass in the chapel of his residence at Santa Marta. “ One cannot know the Lord without being in the habit of adoring, of adoring in silence,” the pope said in his homily. Yet, he lamented, “I believe, if I am not mistaken, that this prayer of adoration is the least known among us; it is the one we engage in the least. “To waste time — if I may say it — before the Lord, before the mystery of Jesus Christ. To adore, there in the silence, in the silence of adoration. He is the Lord, and I adore Him.”