Eucharistic Adoration is one of the more popular devotions among Catholics today, and it’s not hard to see why. The Second Vatican Council calls the Eucharist the “source and summit of the Christian life.” If you think about what that means, it’s pretty amazing. It means that the Eucharist is both where our life of faith begins and simultaneously the highest pinnacle to which we can ascend here on earth.
It rightly calls to mind Jesus saying, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev 22:13). The Eucharist is the source and summit because the Eucharist is truly Christ present among us.
The normal context for celebrating and receiving the Eucharist is in the liturgy of the Mass, so where did the practice of Eucharistic Adoration start? According to Fr. John Hardon, SJ, in The History of Eucharistic Adoration, there is evidence of hermits keeping the Blessed Sacrament reserved in their cells from at least the third century. Since the earliest faith of the Apostolic Church testifies to belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it follows that the reserved Eucharist would become a focal point of prayer and worship.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, adoration is defined as “the first act of the virtue of religion” and the acknowledgement of God as “God, the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists” (CCC 2096). In other words, adoration is what we commonly call “worship” today. Eucharistic Adoration simply means worship of God present in the Holy Eucharist. This is true whether the Eucharist is exposed on the altar or veiled within the tabernacle.
The Church encourages the faithful to make frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament reserved in parish churches and chapels in order to “draw them into an ever deeper share in the paschal mystery” (Order for the Solemn Exposition of the Holy Eucharist).
Even if a church has limited scheduled times for Eucharistic exposition, any time spent worshiping Jesus sacramentally present in the tabernacle is a time of Eucharistic Adoration.
That being said, the practice of exposing the Eucharist on the altar for veneration by the faithful is to be encouraged. There are certain requirements for Eucharistic exposition, however. Even though there is a great degree of flexibility in what sorts of prayers or devotions may take place exposition, the rite of exposition is regulated by the liturgical norms of the Church.
The ordinary minister of exposition is a priest or deacon, although “if they are prevented by some good reason” the Eucharist may be exposed by “an [instituted] acolyte or by another extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, or someone deputed by the local Ordinary” (HC 91). Only an ordained minister may impart a blessing with the sacrament, which we call “benediction.” Most importantly, exposition of the Eucharist “may take place only if a suitable number of the faithful is expected to be present” (HC 86). The Church does not envision Eucharistic exposition as something done for individual devotion, but as an act of communal worship. There can be no adoration without adorers.
The liturgical texts of the Church allow for various forms of Eucharistic exposition, some more solemn and others more simple.
Many are accustomed to seeing the Eucharist exposed in a monstrance – a liturgical item that resembles a sunburst. Alternatively, the Eucharist may be simply exposed on the altar in a ciborium (the vessel used to hold the consecrated Eucharist in the tabernacle).
Whether simple or solemn, silent or full of Scripture and song, the time spent in prayer before Christ in the Sacrament is meant to, in the words of the Church, “extend that union with him, which [we] have reached in Communion, and renew that covenant, which urges [us] to maintain in [our] morals and [our] life what [we] have received in the celebration of the Eucharist” (HC 81).
In other words, the practice of Eucharistic Adoration is meant to extend our worship of Christ that flows from the sacrifice of the Mass, to deepen our desire for Holy Communion, and renew our commitment to live in such a way that bears witness to the presence of God among us and within us.
Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the author of “The Devout Life: A Modern Guide to Practical Holiness with St. Francis de Sales,” available from Sophia Institute Press.
We are now in the final month of the 2025 Jubilee year, which will officially conclude on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, on the Feast of the Epiphany. Pope Francis opened this Jubilee in December 2024 with the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope.” In this Advent season, I find myself reflecting on the relationship between the Jubilee, hope and the coming of Christ.
For us to understand what a Jubilee means for us today, we have to first understand what it meant to the people of Israel. According to the Law of Moses, every seventh day was to be observed as a day of rest. This is a pattern we are still familiar with, as the Church has retained the practice of maintaining a day of rest once each week to worship God. But in ancient Israel, the idea of a sabbath rest was not limited to a weekly observance. The people observed a sabbath year of rest every seven years.
This might sound nice at first, but it was not a year-long vacation. Think about what a year of no work meant to the people of that time. It meant fields didn’t get planted. It meant vineyards were not pruned. It meant crops were not harvested. The land itself was allowed to rest. That made sabbath years times when Israel had to learn to trust God to provide for them and for their needs.
A sacred year
Every 49 years, Israel would complete a full cycle of seven sabbath years, so the year after that, the 50th year, was something very special. That was the Jubilee Year that we read about in Leviticus. “You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to your own property, each of you to your own family” (Lv 25:10).
The restoration of ancestral land was of extreme significance. Every tribe of Israel had received a portion of the land of Canaan that was to be their inheritance. The land was something sacred that had been given to them by God. If economic hardship forced any family to sell or trade their land, it would be restored to them on the Jubilee. This guaranteed no tribe would ever be displaced by another.
This was a great blessing for the people because it meant that the hardship of losing your land would never be permanent.
Something similar was done for human labor, with slaves being set free on Jubilee years. In ancient Israel, the institution of slavery existed as a safeguard for people who were destitute. If someone could not take care of themselves, they could enter into indentured servitude of a more prosperous family. In exchange for their service, their basic needs would be met. But the hardship of entering bonded servitude was also temporary. No person can ever own another because we all belong to God. So every slave was to be set free in the Jubilee year.
Hope in times of struggle
Jubilee years were more than just times of rest. They were times of liberation and restoration, reminders that God has sovereignty over His land and His people and that nothing would really be lost forever. Eventually everything would be restored, no matter how bad things might get in the interim. That was the Jubilee promise of God. Trust in that promise would nurture in their hearts the virtue of hope.
But eventually, the hope instilled by the Jubilee year would look ahead past another 50 years for its fulfillment to some future year of grace. Things would get bad for Israel. The tribes of Israel began to war among themselves, tearing the kingdom in two. Their kings turned to worship of foreign gods. The Assyrians would invade, wiping the 10 northern tribes off the map. The Babylonians would follow, sending Judah into exile. The walls of Jerusalem were torn down. The temple was destroyed. What would be rebuilt would be just a shadow of its former glory. Then would come the Greeks and later the Romans to rule over them.
How could a Jubilee year restore land that was occupied by a foreign invader? How could it restore freedom to a people enslaved by a pagan empire? What does hope for restoration look like for a people in exile? You see the challenge here. But the hope instilled in their hearts by God did not die. It just looked further ahead to a future time of restoration when all would definitively be set right; not just for a year, but for all time.
This future messianic kingdom of justice and righteousness is prophesied in many places in the Hebrew scriptures. Isaiah speaks of a shoot from the stump of Jesse blossoming forth (cf. Is 11:1), saying, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’” (Is 9:6).
Later in Isaiah we read of the promised messiah saying, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God” (Is 61:1-2). This “year of favor” would be a Jubilee to end all others; the ultimate time of restoration which all the Jubilees of the past foreshadowed.
Luke’s gospel records Jesus entering the synagogue in Nazareth and reading this passage from Isaiah. Then, in what is perhaps both the shortest and most profound sermon ever preached, he says to the assembly, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:20).
The fulfillment of Israel’s hope arrived in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago when a child was born to a virgin. He is the fulfillment of our hope, as well. We look around and continue to see war, poverty, disease and death. But we also see the light of Christ shining into the darkness, like the dawn of a coming day, and the darkness will not overcome it.
Like the season of Advent, Jubilees foster a longing for a time when God’s kingdom is made fully manifest, and at the same time they remind us that the promised kingdom is already here, in the Church founded by Christ, and in the sacraments He gave us to sustain our hope until the day He comes again in glory. Come, Lord Jesus!
Deacon Matthew Newsome, Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and regional faith formation coordinator for the Smoky Mountain Vicariate, is the author of “The Devout Life: A Modern Guide to Practical Holiness with St. Francis de Sales,” available from Sophia Institute Press.