Charles M. Murphy - Eucharistic Adoration

Msgr. Charles Murphy invites us to rediscover the riches of adoration.

Cardinal William Levada

Former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Do not read this book: pray this book. An extraordinary combination of biblical study, knowledge of giants in the Catholic tradition, and profound spiritual insights borne, no doubt, of the authors own practice of Eucharistic adoration. An incomparable companion for ones experience of the worship of the Eucharistinvitational, poignant, and pastoral. Murphy draws us into appreciating what is never totally appreciatedthe experience of communion in and with the Eucharistic Lord. An excellent companion to anyone on the journey to deeper conversion and joy in the Eucharistic Lord.

Msgr. Kevin W. Irwin

Former Dean

School of Theology and Religious Studies

Catholic University of America

Msgr. Murphys book calls forth a profound desire to gaze at the Eucharistic Heart and to sit at his school to become witnesses of his love.

Mother Adela Galindo, S.C.T.J.M.

Foundress

Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Using Jesus last words and the virtuous qualities of Christian witnesses, Msgr. Murphy invites readers into a deeper relationship with our Eucharistic Lord. A great prayer resource!

Rev. Kevin Russeau, C.S.C.

Novice Master

Congregation of Holy Cross

What a wonderful gift! Msgr. Murphys book will help everyone who reads it enter into deep, meaningful contemplation! I will recommend it to every parish where I speak on perpetual adoration.

Katie Pfeffer

CatholicAdoration.com

Excerpts from The New Jerusalem Bible, copyright 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd., and Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Used with permission of the publisher.

____________________________________

2012 by Charles M. Murphy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Ave Maria Press, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.

www.avemariapress.com

Paperback: ISBN-10 1-59471-308-1 ISBN-13 978-1-59471-308-8

E-book: ISBN-10 1-59471-352-9 ISBN-13 978-1-59471-352-1

Cover image Agnus Images

Cover by Brian Conley.

Text design by Katherine Robinson Coleman.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Murphy, Charles M.

Eucharistic adoration : holy hour meditations on the seven last words of Christ / Charles M. Murphy.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59471-308-8 (pbk.) -- ISBN 1-59471-308-1 (pbk.)

1. Lords Supper--Adoration--Meditations. 2. Jesus Christ--Seven last words--Meditations. I. Title.

BX2233.M87 2012

232.9635--dc23

2012022137

For

Peter L. Gerety

Archbishop Emeritus of Newark

Mentor and Model of Priestly Virtue

on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday

CONTENTS

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

:

Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do.

Today you will be with me in paradise.

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

Woman, this is your son. Son, this is your mother.

I thirst.

It is finished.

FOREWORD

W hen one thinks of adoration of the Eucharist, or Blessed Sacrament, one almost cannot help but conjure up the image of a quiet church: colored rays of gentle light streaming through stained-glass windows, the monstrance set atop the altar amid the flicker of candles, all inviting our contemplation and true resting in the Lord. One does not, on the other hand, think of the crowds of Hyde Park in central London! And yet, in his 2011 annual Christmas address to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict XVI recalled this very image of tens of thousands of mostly young people gathered there in eloquent silence around the Eucharistic Lord. The witness of those young people reminds us that, in a world deafened by noise and saturated with lights other than that of the Gospel, it is adoration that stills us, attunes our hearts to the voice of God, and enlightens our eyes with the vision of charity. In the words of the Holy Father, adoration is the remedy for the faith fatigue so many Christians are experiencing today.

Surely, that prayer vigil of adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in Hyde Park in September 2009 stands as one of the more exceptional examples of eucharistic adoration in modern memory. But each and every moment of adoration is exceptional because of him whom we adore! Whenever we approach the Lord in adoration, we are in the presence of the risen Lord Jesus who loves us, heals us, and raises us up. We are confronted with the reality of love incarnate, not with some mere notion about God.

In these reflections on the seven last words of Christ developed for eucharistic adoration, Monsignor Charles Murphy invites us to rediscover the riches of adoration. These meditations are unique because of their setting. Like Hyde Park, the setting of Golgotha is anything but tranquil. In the Eucharist, Christs dying and rising are present in mystery. In his presence we are invited to that emptying of self that roots our Christian life in humility before God and his mighty worksa humility that St. Paul hymned in his letter to the Philippians, urging us to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who... emptied himself to take on our human form and humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:58).

As we listen to Jesus words and contemplate his dying on the cross, we experience the power of his obedient love of his Fathers will and purpose for him, a love that impels him to empty himself for us and for our salvation. We are spontaneously drawn to pray the refrain of the devotional Way of the Cross: I adore you and bless you, O Lord, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

May these meditations be for all of us a rediscovery of Christian joy in the exaltation of Jesus rising and a source of renewal for us as we are buoyed up by the inner happiness and strength that arises from time spent in communion with Gods tangible love for us. As society seems to move toward an ever more cynical view of faith and religion, surely the rediscovery of the great value of the prayer of adoration before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament will open minds and hearts to the compelling beauty of Gods love for us. Thus can faith fatigue give way to lasting joy.

Cardinal William Levada

Vatican City

January 2012

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am most grateful to Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his generosity in supplying the foreword to this book.

The writing of this book was a delight for me, combining as it does reflections upon the passion of Christ and the adoration of its memorial in the Eucharist. I began the writing in the hospital, recovering from surgery. It was my small sharing in Christs own sufferings. Surrounded by my books, I wrote the first pages in longhand supported by the hospitals bed table. Among those books were the two volumes by the eminent scripture scholar Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah , published in 1994. Father Brown lived with us at the North American College in Rome while he was doing much of his research. As he read every single scholarly commentary on every detail of the passion, which was his method, we would frequently ask him, Where are you now, Ray, in the story? I am indebted to him for his scholarship and most of all to the persons I name as witnesses beneath the cross, many of whom, as is obvious, I came to know personally.