The Real Presence

Willard Cheng, one of my ABS-CBN colleagues, asked me Thursday night about the existence of "Perpetual Adoration Chapels" in most churches. As far as I know, adoration chapels and the practice of holding continual vigils before the Blessed Sacrament enshrined in each chapel is rooted in the belief of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

For non-believers, the Blessed Sacrament is a wafer, a mere piece of bread adored by Catholics. Although it is true that the human eye can only see the host, the lowly wafer in all its imperfect state, Catholics believe that the Blessed Sacrament IS Jesus Himself. As far as I know, and believe, the host is transformed into the Body of Christ when the priest recites the words of institution that Jesus Himself enunciated during the Last Supper: "This is my body...this is my blood." I will not go to great lengths to explain the Dogma of Transubstantiation so may I refer the readers to this link from a Catholic encyclopedia : (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm )

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, meantime, is loosely rooted to the scene in the "Agony in the Garden" where Jesus finds the disciples who accompanied Him to Garden of Olives asleep. The account in Luke 24:45-46 reads:

45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,
46	and he said to them, "Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

...to mean that Catholics should not fall asleep and keep vigil with the Divine Master in the Adoration Chapel where He is present...even for just an hour.