End of the Year of the Eucharist

The Year of the Eucharist has ended and Pope John Paul II's last gift to the Church has come to a close. I love the statement from the bishops at the end of the Eucharistic Synod:

"At the end of this Synod", they wrote, "we experience that peace full of hope which the disciples of Emmaus, with burning hearts, received from the Risen Lord. They arose and returned in haste to Jerusalem, to share their joy with their brothers and sisters in the faith. We hope that you will go joyfully to meet Him in the Holy Eucharist, and that you will experience the truth of His words: 'And I am with you until the end of the world'."

This is the essence of the Eucharist, that it will be create burning hearts like those at Emmaus so that all will go joyfully and spread his truth to all. I haven't been able to go to Eucharistic adoration as much as I wanted to but I do know there is a groundswelling at my Parish to have a full day each week with eucharistic adoration and we got a new priest who is devoted to adoration and may be helping that cause. Also a new type of eucharistic adoration has slowly been working its way around Catholic parishes here and that is worship and adoration - Life Teen calls it XLT and that is what has come to my parish. What XLT is (I haven't experienced it yet myself, but my wife told me about it) is a combination of worship music and adoration - I first thought it was together which I thought was different but may work, but I have found out that it is like side by side, worship music is first and then adoration. As a charismatic Catholic, I see this as a beautiful coming together of two great ways to show your love to God - worship and adoration - also I can see that the worship will build up a love and emotion for God that will be poured out in adoration and make it a truly spiritual experience. I do think our culture is changing to one of noise, people are more at peace with noise nowadays and so the worship music brings the noise into adoration so it isn't a totally boring situation for most young people. I am excited about this and hope it causes more devotion to the eucharist and to the Church and ultimately to the love of Christ for all people.