ADORATION CHAPEL

 

Eucharistic Adoration Chapel

 

Our Adoration Chapel is open from 5:00 am until 11:00 pm daily.
  
Our Eucharistic Adoration Chapel is open from 5:00 am until 11:00 pm daily. Come spend some time with Jesus.

Please see our adorer schedule below. The red boxes indicate where we need additional adorers. We need at least two committed adorers for each slot before we can reopen during the night. Yellow slots are times throughout the day when we have only one committed adorer; additional commitments are needed here to fortify the daytime schedule. Green indicates two or more adorers are present. If you would like to sign up for a timeslot, please call the parish office at 847-825-7605 or email 

adorationchapel@spc-church.org indicating the time you prefer.

Thank you for your support of this wonderful opportunity at our parish!
 

ADORATION SCHEDULE

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The following hours are ones where a substitute is frequently needed:

Monday @ 12:00pm
Tuesday @ 4:00pm
Wednesday @ 11:00am
Thursday @ 4:00pm
Friday @ 12:00pm
Saturday @ 7:00pm
Sunday @ 8:00pm

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THE HISTORY OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

All content we share about the history comes from EWTN and will appear in quotation marks. You can access the full reading here.
  
IS EUCHARISTIC ADORATION FOUNDED ON CATHOLIC DOCTRINE?

Yes! “It is authentic Catholic doctrine, and it rests on the unchangeable truth of our revealed faith. But it needs to be explained, and the explanation is a classic example of what we call development of doctrine.

 

By development of doctrine, we mean that some divinely revealed truth has become more deeply understood and more clearly perceived than it had been before. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to send to teach us, the Church comes to see more deeply what she had always believed, and the resulting insights find expression in devotion of the faithful that may have been quite uncommon in the Church's previous history. The whole spectrum of Christology and Mariology has witnessed such dogmatic progress. Adoration of the Eucharist, therefore, is simply another, though dramatic, example of doctrinal development.

 

Always implied in such progress is that, objectively, the revealed truth remains constant and unchanged. But through the light of the Holy Spirit, the subjective understanding of the truth becomes more clear, its meaning becomes more certain and its grasp by the believing mind becomes increasingly more firm.
Our purpose in this short study is to show how the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist has undergone a marvelous development over the centuries. We are now witnessing what can only be described as the work of the Holy Spirit, Whom Christ promised, "the Father will send in My name. He will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you" (John 14:25).”
 
WHAT ROLE DID ST. PAUL PLAY IN THE HISTORY OF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION?

From EWTN, “Belief in the real, physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist grew out of the teaching of the evangelists and St. Paul. They made it plain to the apostolic Church that the Eucharistic elements were literally Jesus Christ continuing His saving mission among men.

 

John and Paul were especially plain. The skepticism of Christ's followers, when He preached the reality of His Body and Blood as food and drink, made John record the fact that "many of His disciples withdrew and no longer went about with Him." Seeing this, Jesus asked the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave me?" Simon Peter did not understand any more than those who left Christ, but his loyalty was more firm. "Lord," he answered, "to whom shall we go?" (John 6:66-68).

 

Paul's letter to the Corinthians rebuked them for making the Agape, which should have been a beautiful sign of unity, into an occasion of discord. He reminded them that the Eucharist is no ordinary food. It is actually the Body and Blood of Christ according to "the tradition which I handed on to you that came to me from the Lord Himself" (I Corinthians II: 23-26).”
 
WHAT DO HERMITS HAVE TO DO WITH EUCHARISTIC ADORATION?

From EWTN, “At the turn of the first century, Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom in Rome, had to warn the Christians not to be taken in by the Gnostics - a good modern term would be "visionaries," who denied the Real Presence. Ignatius said these people abstained from the Eucharist because they did not accept what true Christians believe, that in the Eucharist is the same Jesus Christ Who lived and died and rose from the dead for our salvation.

 

Under the impact of this faith, the early hermits reserved the Eucharist in their cells. From at least the middle of the third century, it was very general for the solitaries in the East, especially in Palestine and Egypt, to preserve the consecrated elements in the caves or hermitages where they lived.

 

The immediate purpose of this reservation was to enable the hermits to give themselves Holy Communion. But these hermits were too conscious of what the Real Presence was not to treat it with great reverence and not to think of it as serving a sacred purpose by just being nearby.”
 
WHAT IS THE CUSTOM OF THE FERMENTUM? 

 

“Not only did they (hermits) have the Sacrament with them in their cells, but they carried it on their persons when they moved from one place to another. This practice was sanctioned by the custom of the fermentum, that certainly goes back to as early as 120 AD. The rite of fermentum was a particle of the Eucharistic bread (sometimes dipped in the chalice) transported from the bishop of one diocese to the bishop of another diocese. The latter would then consume the species at his next solemn Mass as a token of unity between the churches. It was called a fermentum not necessarily because leavened bread was used but because the Eucharist symbolized the leaven of unity which permeates and transforms Christians, so that they become one with Christ.

 

Already in the second century, popes sent the Eucharist to other bishops as a pledge of unity of faith; and, on occasion, bishops would do the same for their priests.”
 
SO, EARLY ON THE EUCHARIST WAS RESERVED IN CAVES OR HERMITAGES. WHAT CAME NEXT?

From EWTN, “As early as the Council of Nicea (325), we know that the Eucharist began to be reserved in the churches of monasteries and convents. Again, the immediate reason for this reservation was for the sick and the dying, and also for the ceremony of the fermentum. But naturally its sacred character was recognized, and the place of reservation was set off from profane usage. From the beginning of community life, therefore, the Blessed Sacrament became an integral part of the church structure of a monastery. A bewildering variety of names was used to identify the place of reservation. Pastoforium, diakonikon, secretarium, prothesis are the most common. As far as we can tell, the Eucharist was originally kept in a special room, just off the sanctuary but separated from the church where Mass was offered.