Stepping inside the perpetual adoration chapel at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church is like entering an oasis for the soul. The busyness of the world fades away. Silence opens the heart to meditation, prayer and simply being. Jesus, present in the exposed Blessed Sacrament, has your undivided attention — and you, also, have his.
Hundreds of faithful have come since 1998 to adore the Blessed Sacrament at the Pearl City parish, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the devotion, a milestone that will be commemorated with a special weekend of events at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church Sept. 28-29.
The parish’s Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament ministry team will host a “Life in the Holy Spirit” retreat on both days. Bishop Larry Silva will celebrate Sunday Mass at 5 p.m.
According to Pearl City parishioner Pat Pait, there are currently more than 400 registered devotees of the perpetual adoration chapel. “Committed” participants maintain regular adoration hours during the week. “Non-committed” participants serve when they are able. There are also numerous “walk-ins” who have not signed up with the ministry, but whose names fill the chapel’s guestbook.
Pait has seen the devotion grow from its first days at the church. Prior to the opening of the tiny chapel, the parish offered eucharistic adoration with very few people. It was “the Lord,” she said, who suggested to her the need for round-the-clock exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
With the help of a friend who frequented adoration at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, Pait worked on a proposal for perpetual adoration at Our Lady of Good Counsel. After a preliminary run, she was inspired by the number of people eager to take it on.
“I think there were about 150 adorers at that time,” Pait said.
They received approval from then-pastor Father Dan McNichol and began perpetual adoration on Oct. 2, 1998.
Adorers initially gathered at the empty convent near the parish school. Later, Capuchin Franciscan Father Jack Niland — a pastor known for his love of the Eucharist — suggested bringing the Blessed Sacrament up to the church. Parishioners worked to convert a crying room into the chapel there today.
“This is where our Lord has been housed since then,” Pait said.
Community members turned the chapel into a spiritual sanctuary with donations of rugs, flowers, religious statues, curtains and a wooden case to display the Blessed Sacrament in its gilded monstrance. Shelves in the chapel’s foyer are filled with prayer books for adults and children.
The chapel seats about a dozen faithful. On some occasions, like the monthly gathering for homeschool kids and their parents, it’s standing room only.
Four shifts a day
Unlike adoration chapels where the Blessed Sacrament is stored in a tabernacle, perpetual adoration exposes the Eucharist in a monstrance and requires at least one person to be present with it at all times. To ensure this is being done at Our Lady of Good Counsel, the day is divided into four shifts: 6 a.m.-noon; noon-6 p.m.; 6 p.m.-midnight and midnight-6 a.m. Each shift is overseen by two or three “shift leaders,” whose job is to make sure an adorer is assigned for each hour.
According to shift leader Lisa Santos, it is most difficult to find volunteers to cover 10 p.m.-4 a.m. Nonetheless, there are faithful who have committed to being with the Blessed Sacrament even at those times.
Lisa’s husband Robert served as an adorer at 3 a.m. It is a sacrifice, he said, but he has seen people come in that early and appreciate the consolation of Jesus’ presence.
“You see people who look like they’ve lost family members in the hospital,” Robert said. “You see brokenhearted people that come here for comfort. I think that’s what I find is the beautiful part, because you have to schedule the adorers who actually give the chapel that availability for anybody.”
Perpetual adoration at the Pearl City parish has drawn people of other faiths as well. Lisa Santos said two non-Catholic sisters once came to the chapel during her shift. She walked them through the practice of adoration, and after frequent visits to the chapel, the sisters eventually converted to the faith.
Adoration is a powerful devotion, Lisa said. Even a few minutes alone with the Blessed Sacrament can have a profound impact on your spirit.
“God gives us 24 hours a day; what’s one hour” to spend with him, she said. “It’s a holy hour to just be.”
‘One hour with me?’
For parishioner Gina Maki, the importance of adoration comes from Jesus’ question to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Could you not watch one hour with me?” Maki is a shift leader and also volunteers as an adorer on Thursday evenings. She uses her time in the chapel to reflect and writes a weekly letter to Jesus, which she places in the chapel’s prayer box.
“I call it my respite,” she said.
Pait said a younger generation is also learning the value of adoration. She has heard stories where children have seen the face of Jesus in the Eucharist at the chapel. Several parish youth and young adults have formed the Ambassadors of the Blessed Sacrament group to spread word of the devotion.
Those involved in the adoration ministry at Our Lady of Good Counsel are grateful for the decade-and-a-half of prayers and personal miracles they have been able to be a part of. They hope that as they celebrate the chapel’s 15th anniversary, more faithful will sign up to keep going an unending cycle of love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
“I tell people this is where heaven meets earth, when you’re there in the chapel,” Pait said.
For more information about the adoration ministry at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, call the parish office at 455-3012.
