The teachers invited me to organize the Adoration for their classes, so I put together a basic outline. The classes had about 40 minutes in the chapel before the Lord, so I sprinkled in bits of input to break up the periods of silence, trying to facilitate a positive experience for a rather unchurched generation that has trouble with silence and pieties. We started with the sign of the cross and a simple prayer and invitation to approach Adoration with any of many kinds of reverent quiet. Every ten minutes, I offered something - a reading from 1 John 4 (God is love!), a rendition on guitar of Psalm 23: I Will Walk in the House of the Lord (Warner), a reading from the Gospel of John (I am the Bread of Life), and simple petitions.
As I tried to time the final prayers and concluding Our Father to beat the end of the period, I found an awkward delight in the fact that a loudspeaker for our school intercom is right in the middle of the chapel ceiling. At one point, our Dean broke into our silence to summon a couple dozen students to the office. But my favorite was the unapologetic, blaring noisiness of the period bell.
Whereas in the stark silence of monastic prayer, the abbot will firmly clack his ring against the wood of the choir stalls to signal the end of communal prayer, here in our all-too-small chapel, an utterly obtrusive five-second beep tells us to go forth. It's just one of many ways that a school is not a parish; rather than a church intermittently housing regular worship and support staff, it is a bustling, crowded, loud place, packed with activity and youth everywhere. Teachers walk past the door to make copies; students pass by on their way to the bathroom; maintenance workers go by corresponding by walkie-talkie.
As I sat in my place, kind of in the corner of our square chapel, sort of behind Jesus, I would occasionally glance around the chapel at the students, something I quickly stopped doing. Thinking back to my Adoration visits at Notre Dame, the silence and reverence for Christ and others' prayer was stark - no one said a word; the door was closed gingerly; and, prayerful postures and gestures abounded. A high school is neither a parish nor a university, so the postures and expression were different, and I had to resist temptation to label it as worse.
Looking around, it was much easier to tell which students were unfocused or uninterested than to identify the ones who were invested and reflecting. The repulsive postures, vacant facial expressions, and less-than-subtle snoring easily tempted me to think all of those students were not into Adoration. I had to stop myself, let them be, and leave it in God's hands.
As the periods went on - I was with six groups of students throughout the day - I would consider what their thoughts and attitudes might be as they sat there. As a campus minister and a faithful believer, I wanted badly for this to be a positive, enriching prayer experience, or at least the seeds of something yet to grow.
I looked to the monstrance (Also called an ostensorium!? I learned something today.) and thought - what a beautiful sacramental to emphasize the reality of Christ's closeness, and within it, Christ is present in the form of bread... why doesn't He do something crazy and awesome and miraculous to get these kids hooked!? How cool would it be if Jesus just spoke audibly from the host or leapt forth from the monstrance and embraced the students?!
And as I pored over the potential possibilities, I realized - man, Jesus is so much better than that.
Some people want a God who is wildly present in our lives and does sensational things like he did with the Israelites - the pillar of fire, commandments on stone, or raining bread. Yet, for us, God became man, lived, suffered, died, and rose from the dead to give us eternal life, and until He comes again, He gave us the Church and Eucharist, with the Holy Spirit. WE HAVE A LOT. And we're still obstinate in being luke-warm, half-way, lazy humans, putting the onus on God to come get us because we don't have time, attention, focus, or energy to discover Him and deepen our relationship with Him.
Jesus could do something crazy in Adoration, but that would likely lead to a cheap, shallow faith, based on something miraculous, yes, but not deeply rooted. Sure, it could be the start of something broader and deeper, but Jesus has already done A LOT of crazy stuff. Like becoming man. Like coming to us repeatedly in the Eucharist to sacramentalize that once-and-for-all sacrifice and His presence with us always in the Holy Spirit.
Getting teenagers and modern Americans there is the great challenge. The BuzzFeed culture has shortened our attention span and led us to avoid that which is not in bite-sized portions organized into best-of lists with punchy captions. We want stuff that's ready for quick, instant digestion that we then cast aside as we move to the next thing. How can bishops, priests, and lay ministers work with the rest of the faithful to realize the fullness of our Christian faith?
In our case today, we sat them in front of Jesus for forty minutes, fed them Scripture and song and a bit of formal prayer, and left them in the Lord's hands. We will continue to try many different things in the chances we have to bring them to the Lord and the Lord to them. At some point in each encounter with something, the Chrome tab closes; the iPhone gets locked and pocketed; the school bell rings.
Jesus doesn't wait until we're ready or deserving. He doesn't depend on our paying attention or insist upon winning our focus. He is working always, past every app, past every smartphone, past every bell. Jesus is looking for them, me, and you before we even find Him. But let's not wait. Find space in your life - you do have time, whether it's in a solemn monastery or a bustling place - to go before the Lord.
