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I was looking back through my journal and came across a reflection I had written while in Adoration earlier this year. It felt very timely to relive this experience, since our Church is inviting us to return to the Eucharist – the source and summit of our faith – during the National Eucharistic Revival.

I want to share part of it with you.

I always seem to have a problem with distraction in Adoration – turning my head to look when someone new comes in, immediately reaching for my journal or rosary, wanting to put in my headphones and listen to a podcast. I use an hour in Adoration like an hour at work, with its own checklist of to-do items. Read a chapter, write a letter, pray a decade, check off a podcast episode, knock out a journal entry.

The Lord calmed that desire today and He gave me a simple thirst for His presence. He is enough.

“Just sit here with me. Spend some time with me. Be here with me. Focus on me. This is what I want. I want nothing more than to just be with you,” He says to me.

Distractions faded to the background, peace settled within me, and tears rolled down my face. A small miracle, a small conversion happened in Adoration today.

Reading this was a beautiful reminder of why we pray.

The Lord desires us – every part of us – and wants us to learn how to be loved by Him. The Christian life is a journey of surrender, of learning how to be in relationship with Christ, of growing into the person He created us to be. We get to know our truest selves by knowing Him, and we get to know Him by spending time with Him.

This kind of life demands a constant conversion of our hearts into the heart of Jesus.

He is waiting for us, longing to spend time with us, desiring to teach us how to live the abundant life to which we are called. How do we increase the desire for Him? How do we grow in relationship with Him? How do we allow ourselves to be loved by Him? How do we respond to this love as we ought?

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”