St. Peter, Schulte, demonstrates graces of adoration

Certain tasks, events, and workouts often look better in hindsight. Essentially, life is full of instances in which it feels more satisfying to have done something than to be doing it.

For some, that may be true for Eucharistic adoration, and is not unusual, say some from St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Schulte. 

However, after three decades of adoration experience, it is also not unusual for regular adorers to discover how a practice that once felt like a spiritual “eat your vegetables” exercise mysteriously became the sort of figurative meal that they not only enjoy, but also crave. 

An oasis

When Jana Driscoll’s family joined St. Peter several years ago, she recalls, her schedule kept her from committing to a specific holy hour, but she signed up as a possible substitute, which brought her into the adoration chapel often. And like a long-term substitute teacher who becomes the regular teacher, Driscoll eventually locked into a time she had been frequenting.

“Two hours on early Saturday morning turned into two permanent hours for me. I recently picked up a third,” she said. “About three years ago, I picked up two more hours early Sunday morning.”

And now, at times when life gets in the way to prevent her from keeping that running appointment with the Lord, Driscoll says she cannot wait to resume it. “I can simply attest to the fact that the occasional times I have to miss, I am in desperate need to get back to my regular weekend schedule,” she said. “My soul longs for these visits. I cannot explain why or how the Holy Spirit has simply graced me with this need to be in the Lord’s presence. I can, without a doubt, state that the hours seem like minutes, and I yearn for more. I cannot imagine my earthly life without these visits.”

St. Peter Pastor Fr. Curtis Hecker acknowledges that many people may be intimidated at the thought of pledging to spend a specific hour of each week in adoration. Even so, he assures, adorers tend to find that the obligation becomes a joy.

“That hour, which at first may be difficult to commit to, quickly becomes an indispensable oasis of reprieve and the building block around which the rest of the week revolves,” he said. “Fortunately, there are so many excellent resources out there now for learning what to do during a holy hour and how to spend that time. So even if you don’t think you know how to fill a whole hour of prayer, it’s so much easier than you might expect.”

St. Peter celebrated 30 years of Eucharistic adoration earlier this summer, which included a rededication of the parish’s adoration chapel. According to Fr. Hecker, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament began at St. Peter in summer 1995, when Fr. Dan Spexarth was pastor, and ran from noon on Sundays until 8 a.m. on Mondays. 

When a new church was dedicated in October 1997, the new structure included an adoration chapel, for which available times ran from noon on Sundays until noon on Mondays. That continued until July 17, 2002, when the pastor at the time, Fr. Patrick York, instituted perpetual adoration. Since then, it has paused only for certain holidays, extreme weather, and the Easter Triduum. 

“Crunching all of these numbers, St. Peter has offered approximately 215,000-210,000 hours of adoration since 1995,” Fr. Hecker said.

Abundant grace

Helping get those initial, temporary adoration periods off the ground were parishioners Carol Siegrist and Sherry Robben. As people responded, they continued to think bigger. “We asked for more adorers in the bulletin, and people stepped up. They were very willing,” Robben said. “We worked as a team and became known as ‘the Praying Ladies.’”

It was the Praying Ladies on whom Fr. York relied when the time had come to expand adoration to 24/7. He recalls that the parish was still in the midst of adding other new buildings to its grounds and needed plenty of heavenly help. “We had a beautiful chapel, but it was only being used one day a week,” he said. “I perceived that if we wanted to be successful in the building project and capital campaign, then we had better start praying, first with individual prayer in perpetual adoration. I looked at them and said, ‘You all figure it out.’”

Although perpetual adoration was not as prevalent in the Diocese of Wichita at the time, Fr. York says finding parishioners willing to signup for a holy hour proved remarkably easy. Siegrist concurs. 

“We had no trouble filling the hours,” she said.

Fr. York points to the Prayer Ladies. “Both of them, in their own ways, are hard to say no to,” he said. 

Furthermore, he adds, “The parishioners were very faithful and prayerful people.”

“Having perpetual adoration in a parish is an absolute game-changer,” Fr. Hecker said. “You have 168 individuals (or families) spending an hour with the Lord, week-in and week-out.”

Not only does that benefit the individuals offering those prayers, he continues, it also showers grace on the entire parish, which has seen nine of its sons and daughters ordained to the priesthood or consecrated to the religious life in the years since perpetual adoration began. “We are the body of Christ, and when one member grows in holiness, it affects all those around them as well,” Fr. Hecker said. “I think one metric that we could use to measure the effect that that has had at St. Peter is by the number of priestly and religious vocations that have come from our parish.”

He adds that he speaks from experience, since adoration played an immense role in his own vocational discernment. Although the parish in which Fr. Hecker grew up, Sacred Heart in Arkansas City, was too small to maintain perpetual adoration, adoration was available for 24 hours once a week. “When I was in high school, my family adoration hour was 3 p.m., but oftentimes I was the only member of the family who was able to make it, so it became my personal holy hour with the Lord,” he said. “It was during these hours of silence that the Lord was able to speak to me in the silence and invite me to consider a priestly vocation.”

Of course, the Lord does not limit his communications to the matter of one’s calling. St. Peter adorer Kelly Draut, who has participated in the devotion for more than 15 years and currently carries at least two adoration hours a week, takes all her weightiest matters into the chapel. “For me, all my life’s most difficult questions are answered in the presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist,” she said. “My prayer life has improved significantly, and I have learned the importance of being still to simply listen. It is never a one-way conversation with Jesus. I have come to rely on the peace I feel in my heart whenever I step into the chapel, and I could not imagine my life without it.”

Nevertheless, even an adoration veteran such as Siegrist acknowledges that the feeling of keeping an important, but humdrum, commitment still resurfaces at times. Even so, she also insists that she has never left the adoration chapel regretting an hour spent with Jesus.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to go,” she said. “But I feel much better after I do.”

According to Fr. Hecker, adoration is a matter of learning by doing. “If you are on the fence about whether to take an hour, just try it out,” he said. “Give it a month. See what you think. There really is something to be said for a consistent hour of prayer, rather than just a desire to pray, but that is never acted upon.”

And if an hour still seems like too much, Fr. York suggests people should pop in for 15 minutes here and there. “Catch your breath, spend some time with our Lord, and start developing a habit of prayerfulness,” he said. “That might be easier than jumping in for a full hour.”

The Diocese of Wichita is blessed to have so many adoration chapels, Fr. York concludes. “It’s also a blessing that so many people hunger for an intimate relationship with the Lord, which adoration fulfills,” he said. “People are responding in a magnificent way to the call of the Father to be disciples of the Son by participating in Eucharistic adoration. It’s amazing.”