Eucharistic adoration at St. Edward Church in Little Rock is expanding from one day per week to 24 hours a day beginning Easter Sunday. More than two-thirds of the 450 parishioners who signed up for adoration are Spanish speakers.Perpetual eucharistic adoration continues to be a popular devotion in the Diocese of Little Rock.
On Holy Thursday, the day the Church recalls the institution of the Eucharist, pastor Father John Kerr will officially bless the new adoration chapel at St. Edward Church in Little Rock and transfer the Eucharist to the tabernacle. On Easter Sunday, April 16, adorers will begin to pray before the Blessed Sacrament 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Rose Anne Smith, the English-speaking adoration coordinator, said the parish has received blessings from eucharistic adoration on Tuesdays. Since Advent 1999 Smith has coordinated adoration from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the church. About 30 to 35 people participate each week.
Smith said she was taken back when Father Kerr asked her if she was interested in coordinating a perpetual adoration chapel. Smith, of course, said yes.
“I love adoration,” she said. “It has been a joy in my life.”
Father Kerr said many factors, including the Year of the Eucharist ending in October, played a role in his interest in expanding adoration at St. Edward.
“Just think of the blessings this church has received from one day a week,” he said. “I just knew it would work.”
Father Kerr and Smith relied on the input of lay evangelizer Taffy Council of Benton to help with the process of opening a perpetual adoration chapel. Council has been invited to several parishes to open chapels over the past six years.
At St. Edward’s, the first step was recruiting Sister Emma del Refugio Piedra, MCP, the Spanish-speaking coordinator.
Council invited Mary Smith of Maryland, who speaks Spanish, to join her in giving evangelization talks during Masses one weekend in February. Council and Mary Smith spoke about the blessings of adoration and invited parishioners to sign up for at least one hour a week.
“There are 168 hours in the week,” Council said. “Jesus is asking us for one hour.”
Council, who is also the chapel coordinator at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Benton, said she hopes her passion for the Eucharist is “contagious” and it encourages more people to sign up for adoration hours.
“I will never be the same since I began making regular holy hours,” she said. “It is my food. The Mass has just exploded in my spirit.”
The St. Edward parishioners were immediately convinced of the importance of adoration.
“We had 450 people sign up,” Rose Anne Smith said. “We were just blown away.”
Because more than half of St. Edward’s parishioners are Hispanic, great attention has been taken to be inclusive. Two-thirds of those who agreed to attend adoration are Hispanic.
Smith and Father Kerr said they hope adoration will be an activity that can unify the parish.
“That separation is there,” Smith admits, “and this will bring us together.”
“If we can’t be unified in Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we can’t be unified anywhere,” Council said. “It doesn’t matter what country you are from or what language you speak.”
