As Catholics, what do we understand by Adoration?
One of the characteristics or marks of all the baptised is the worship of God, the proper and true adoration of the Trinity. Through the water of Baptism, we are set aside to worship and adore God alone as His priestly people. The true worship and adoration which we give to God the Most High is the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, the Sacred Eucharist, where in this Sacrament of Love we unite with Christ’s sacrifice, and offer our sacrifice to Our Heavenly Father. Every time we come to Mass, we are at the foot of the Cross, ready to receive from Christ all the graces He bestows upon us to make us more into His likeness.
How fortunate we are to be able to receive Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist, which is the source and summit of Christian faith (cf. CCC 1324), whenever we can. He is our true Bread of Life that sustains us on our earthly journey towards the Heavenly Promised Land. Therefore, He deserves our true adoration, praise and worship. St. Maximilian Kolbe says, “If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.” In the Sacred Eucharist, we draw life from Him, we have access to His Divine love, His Divine being; we unite ourselves with Him, we are one with Him. Let us not take this wonderful gift, which Our Lord Jesus left for us, His Sacred Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, for granted. By receiving Him in the Sacred Eucharist, we become more like Him and ready to offer up our very selves to God. The more we come to understand what Jesus went through in His Passion and death on the Cross, the more we come to embrace our sufferings with complete trust in God.
With this background in mind, we turn to the message which the Angel of peace gave to the three shepherds of Fatima; we come to understand the purpose of their mission: to pray, to adore Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament with great zeal, reverence and love, and to embrace their sufferings and unite them with Jesus’s sufferings and offer them to the Father for the salvation of poor souls. This message is not only for them but also speaks and applies to us. We are called to continue to make the message of the Angel alive today in our time. We are invited to continue to pray, to adore Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and worship Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass daily, and to make sacrifices for the salvation of all humanity.
We may ask the same questions as the children did, “How are we to make sacrifices?” Let the answer which the Angel of Peace gave to the children speak to us as well, “Make everything you can a sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. Above all, accept and bear with submission the suffering which the Lord will send you.” We have to fulfil our duty as priestly people of God: to give worship to God as Christ, Our High Priest, does and to pray for others as Christ does. We have this great opportunity to be in the presence of God every day; let us not miss it.
Article written by Sr Mary Goncalves 3 March 2026
Daughters of Divine Charity
