I'm 58, ordained for 27 years. I grew up in the seventies, so Eucharistic adoration and exposition was something that I was absolutely unfamiliar with. I don't recall ever seeing it in my life through grade school or high school. I went to Catholic schools, but adoration was never part of my life. It wasn't a devotion I was familiar with. However, I got into the habit very young of praying daily. And then, by the time I went to the seminary, somebody had helped me get into the habit of praying an hour every morning, although it wasn't always before the Eucharist. 

I mention that because what happened to me next could only have been from God. It wasn't some sort of attempt to reclaim a nostalgic moment from my youth, because I was totally unfamiliar with adoration. 

After I had been ordained about a year and a half, I was at Divine Child in Dearborn and, from very early on, I got involved teaching RCIA. We took a group of maybe 30 or so folks on retreat for a weekend and two highlights of the retreat that everybody loved were the opportunity to celebrate Mass in what I might call a leisurely, prayerful way (with no one having to rush out to make room for the next Mass crowd coming in) and simply having lots and lots of time to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Each night, I would expose the Eucharist for hours and hours and God was acting incredibly powerfully in peoples’ lives. It was great for me to see, because I was a brand new priest and I had no real experience with this. So, I was very moved by that. We were leaving the retreat and some of the folks said, “Is there a way to hold on to this when we go back to the parish?” I said, “Well, yeah, I think we could do that. I'll talk to the pastor.” I asked him, “Hey, would you be open to us starting an evening Mass once a week, where we can just take our time? And he said, “Sure, that's a great idea.” We started having this weeknight Mass and we offered prayer ministry afterwards. A couple of folks and I would pray with people after Mass for like 3 hours. That was a great grace, but at the same time it began to get kind of laborious for the people having to wait for hours – and for us who were praying, too!

After having done this for a number of months, I was praying one morning before Mass while reading a series of reflections from Sr. Briege McKenna, an Irish nun. She recounted a story about when she was preparing to give a talk and she found herself one night unable to sleep. She headed down to the chapel to pray, and as soon as she knelt down before the Lord she heard Him say to her, “Briege, there's too much breeze. They don't need you. They need me.” 

And as soon as I read that, I knew exactly what the Lord was saying to me. The next week at the evening liturgy, I told everybody, “We're going to change things up a bit tonight. At the conclusion of Mass, we're not going to pray with people afterwards. Instead, I'm going to expose the Blessed Sacrament out on the altar and rather than having prayer ministry, we can go right to the Divine Physician.” After distributing communion, I placed two kneelers in the sanctuary right in front of the altar, and I invited people to feel free to approach the Lord if they felt so inclined. 

No sooner had I exposed the Eucharist and knelt down, I looked up and saw 30 or 40 people, all of whom had all more or less run into the sanctuary to get close to Jesus. I was just overcome with wonder and awe. And then I “saw” something. I don't know how to describe this, so I'll just tell you how I experienced it. My eyes were going back and forth from the people to the Blessed Sacrament. And after a certain moment, I “saw” Jesus standing on the altar, where the monstrance was, looking out towards the people. I just stared at Him for some time and then suddenly He turned towards me and elegantly bowed with His hands wide open before Him. As He did so He said, “John, don't you see how easy this is? You just have to put Me out and I'll work.” 

That was 26 years ago, and it changed my life as a priest. From that moment on, everywhere I've gone, we've built an adoration chapel. I've started doing exposition every morning and inviting people to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. And encounter after encounter after encounter after encounter has happened because God wants this more than we do.