Adoration Returns to St. Joseph Chapel

On Thursday, Feb. 18, weekly Eucharistic Adoration resumed in St. Joseph Chapel, intentionally beginning right after Ash Wednesday. The return of these weekly opportunities for prayer, reflection, and confession in the presence of the Eucharist have been eagerly awaited by regular attendees and newcomers alike. 

While Adoration is a long-standing tradition on-campus, last semester it had been restricted to two one-hour sessions per week due to COVID-19 restrictions. In an effort to continue offering Adoration through the Spring 2021 semester, several Catholic clubs on campus collaborated to schedule weekly Adoration.

Representatives from the Sons of St. Patrick, Gratia Plena, BC’s Knights of Columbus council, Liturgy Arts Group (LAG), and Christian Life Community (CLC) collaborated to create a plan to schedule Adoration and increase attendance. To encourage members of each group to attend and increase weekly attendance as a whole, the group representatives created a weekly rotation for each group to “sponsor” a session per month. When a club is sponsoring, its members are asked to attend as if it were a regular club meeting.

On Thursday, February 25, Adoration will be sponsored by CLC and LAG. The first half of the evening from 5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. will be a silent Adoration and the second half from 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. will be praise and worship Adoration, where exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is supplemented by Christian worship music, most usually with a worship leader and guitar. Praise and worship Adoration was not held last semester, but it had been a student-led occurrence in years prior, most recently taking place before Candlelight Mass.

Weekly Adoration will continue each Thursday from 5-6 p.m. in St. Joseph Chapel through the remainder of the spring 2021 semester. Adoration is limited to an hour per week as a COVID-19 precaution alongside requiring attendees to log the time they enter and exit the chapel and present their BC Check results. Despite the limitation, the groups hope that in the near future it could be expanded to an hour and a half or two hours.

In a change from last semester, a priest will be present at each session to hear confessions and also expose, repose, and offer Benediction. Fr. Matt Monnig, S.J., presided over the February 18 session and Fr. Michael Magree, S.J., will preside over the February 25 session. The other priests who are scheduled to preside over future Adoration sessions are Fr. Nate Romano, S.J. and Fr. Juan Carlos Rivera, S.J.

The weekly rotation for club sponsorship of each session is as follows: the first Thursday of each month will be sponsored by The Sons of St. Patrick, the second by The Knights of Columbus, the third by Gratia Plena, and the fourth jointly by CLC and LAG. This rotation aims to increase community involvement in Adoration and respond to an increasing desire for this devotion on campus––matching a charism that many high schoolers are becoming devoted to through programs like Life Teen and Steubenville Conferences, and then searching for outlets for this devotion in college. The groups also hope their collaboration in organizing weekly Adoration will provide a groundwork for more sustainable and supported effort toward making the Eucharist available to the Boston College community.

Featured image courtesy of Olivia Colombo