Computer Resources for
Eucharistic Adoration

 I hope that you’re all getting the idea that bringing adoration to your parish in a small way or a big way is a real possibility!  I am a long time parishioner at St. Elizabeth Seton, and member of the planning team for our chapel. 

 When I looked at the church calendar for September 6 many months ago, I was delighted to learn that for this Eucharistic Adoration workshop we would be together on First Saturday.  We ask Our Lady on this holy day to specially bless our efforts to honor her son, Jesus, in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  Let us all pray the Memorare together….

Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intersession was left unaided.  Inspired by this confidence we fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, our mother.  To thee do we come, before thee we stand, sinful and sorrowful.  O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not our petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer us. Amen.

Today I am going to talk to you about how you might use a computer to get started and to maintain the ongoing scheduling of your chapel.  You will also be receiving a couple of CD’s to take home for each of your parishes.  Think of these CD’s as a treasure chest of files that will help you in studying, starting, opening and operating your chapel. 

 If you or someone on your committee or team is not a computer expert, don’t worry!! This phase is optional and I am sure that we have people right in this room who have opened and are running chapels without the help of a computer.  You’d be surprised, too, how the Holy Spirit just brings together the gifts that are needed to accomplish this worthy goal.

 Since my by background is computers, however, and I very much enjoy being able to use this gift for the greater glory of God, I would like to share some of the resources that you could use.  But, don’t feel like you must.

 I look at a computer as a tool to help you with four big tasks in ministry:

      Word processing – easily producing nice looking letters, reports and materials

      Scheduling your adorers

      Finding current Catholic resources via the Internet

      Communicating with committee members and other parish chapel folks

 You’ll be sending letters and writing bulletin articles, maybe making posters for the bulletin board around your parish, making sign up cards, and on and on.  After you study the manual that Connie has explained, go to the CD and find forms and sample artwork to make your task easier.  We are giving you loads of files that are a starting point for bulletin articles, letters to your parishioners, etc.  Use them as is or change them as you feel led.

 Celine has shared with you some of the incredible “on line” resources that are available on the Internet today.  Our Holy Father has, on several occasions, exhorted Catholics to use the technology of today responsibly and for the Glory of God!  He encourages those who are Catholics to build useful and fruitful web sites to further the kingdom of God.  It can and should be an outstanding tool for evangelization purposes. 

 There are, indeed, wonderful Catholic resources online. There is talk of naming a patron saint of the internet – the leading contender at this time is St. Isidore.  One of my heroes, however, is St. Maxilmilian Kolbe, the saint of evangelization. His wish was to conquer the world for the Immaculata through the use of modern technology!  He believed in the early part of the 20^th century that technology was a gift and that we can use that gift to spread the good news of salvation.  He was a pioneer and a wonderful example and my hero!   

 You’re getting two cd’s – one is a radio show from Catholic Answers on Promoting Eucharistic Adoration.  You can listen to it in the car on the way home.  It is Father Goedert talking about all the things that you’re wondering about right now.  There are many other radio shows online that you can hear from your computer if you’d like.  I encourage you to visit the Catholic Answers website – catholic.com and click on their radio archives.

 The workshop CD that you’ll receive for your parish will contain sample files for

o       Education of the parish.

o       Bulletin articles

o       Prayer resources including some prayer books that you can print and bind for your parish library

o       A library of clipart and photographs of Eucharistic art

o       Rosary art

o       The entire PEA Manual – a step by step outline for starting adoration

o       Sample forms

o       Sample newsletters to adorers

o       Articles about adoration

o       News stories about adoration

o       Resources for Scheduling adorers

 

 Let’s jump ahead for just a few minutes and imagine that you’ve had a wildly successful Sign Up Sunday after a very enriching and fulfilling phase of educating your parishioners.  You’ve got dozens of filled out cards filled out and ready to schedule.

 As you make the calls to verify times with each adorer, you’ll be penciling in their time onto the large poster schedule. It is good to make the calls from one location and use one master schedule poster.  One of the first things you’ll want to do is take the poster and transcribe it onto a small useable schedule form to share with others.  There is a sample form on the cd. Your committee will need a small working copy of it to make final calls.  Once you’ve finalized the opening list of adorers by hour by day, you can make copies for the chapel and probably for each adorer.  

 This schedule can be done by hand or can be printed by a computer.  At SES we use Microsoft Excel to do a spreadsheet.  I put the 4 divisions on 4 sheets and print 4 pages each time we do a major update, which is about every 3 months or so.  I also have a master Excel Data Base of adorers including their name, address, phone, email address, substitute times, etc.  We do some attendance recording in each person’s record, as well.

In a few minutes, we’ll have an open discussion on how other chapels are doing scheduling and you’ll see the many ways there are to accomplish this.  Basically, you need to keep track of the hours of the week by division in a schedule and you need to be able to know who your adorers are and when they adore plus how to contact them.  I’ve laid it out on the CD how we’ve done it at SES using Excel.  There are some really neat features but there are some short comings, too.  I have included some templates to maintain your schedule in Microsoft Access Data Base - from another parish in Minnesota. 

 It was interesting, how we got our scheduling put together – I made a lot of phone calls to gather information from chapels that were up and running and got lots of stories – each was doing it a little differently.  Many were doing scheduling with pen and paper. 

I have belonged to an online message list from the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament for many years.  You can ask a question or post a comment and dozens or hundreds of subscribers will read it; some will comment on your message or ask another question.  The group consists of like-minded individuals who are committed to Eucharistic Adoration and share their resources online. 

 They also share their prayer power.  I have asked several dozen chapel coordinators all over the world to add the petition of the success of this workshop into their book of prayers and to ask their adorers to pray for you today. 

 As I was preparing the schedule, I got help from a person in California who sent it to me – Virginia – Minnesota and Florida.  It felt as if we were part of a divinely led production.  I won’t bore you with nuts and bolts details of this part of opening your chapel but know that when you get to this point, you can ask, you can call The Real Presence or me or any of the other chapel committees and get answers to your questions.    

 Be at peace and know that the Holy Spirit IS in charge here and will provide you with the people with the gifts that are required in the time that is right for your parish.  Stay connected with the people that you’re meeting in this room.  I’d be happy to collect your email address so that we can share important information.  I have a feeling that all of us may get together for another such gathering in the future and you’ll have a new set of stories to share.   Keep praying and keep telling your stories!! 

 Appropriately, yesterday (First Friday), the Universal Church prayed this response to Psalm 100: “Come with joy into the presence of the Lord!”  

 R Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
R Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
For he is good,
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R Come with joy into the presence of the Lord.
 

Our committee prayhas prayed for you and your pastors and your parishes for the past 15 months that you might be emboldened to share that presence with the people of your parish who are yearning to come into the presence of the Lord. 

 Thank you! And may the Lord bless you abundantly!