“O Come Let Us Adore Him!” This phrase is heard so often during the Advent and Christmas Season. What does it mean to adore? If we break the word down, “adore” comes from the Latin “adorare” which means to speak to formally; to ask in prayer; to beseech. Let us Adore Him, is so much more than looking at the sweet newborn baby who is “adorable.” Perhaps the phrase should say, “O come let us pay honor to the One who deserves all praise”. Or better, “O come let us spend time face-to-face with the living God.” It might be best to say, “O come let us spend time gazing at Him in love and awe.”
When we make the sign of the cross – if done with reverence, it can be a moment of adoration, we can encounter His blessing and His love. Another sign of encounter is the incense that is used to show honor to the presence of Christ among us. Psalm 141 verse 2 says, “Let my prayer be incense before you”, the incense rises like our prayers to God. Incense is meant to call us deeper into worship of Our Lord.
When we adore the Lord in Eucharistic Adoration, we can increase our desire to receive Christ in the Eucharist at Mass. Pope Benedict XVI teaches us in his letter, Sacrimentum Caritatis, “In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; Eucharistic Adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration.”
During prayer and reflection time, adore Him, adore Christ. Do we believe that He is truly present in the Eucharist? Do we trust Him with our whole life, our future? Could we trust Him more? Are we grateful for what God has done in our life? Especially during this season of Advent, let us be intentional in our prayers and take time to find Him, to spend time with Him and to Adore Him.
Here’s what the Scriptures have to say:
Psalm 95: 1-5 – Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord: cry out to the rock of our salvation. Let us greet him with a song of praise, joyfully sing out our psalms. For the Lord is the great God, the great king over all gods, whose hand holds the depths of the earth, who owns the tops of the mountains. The sea and dry land belong to God, how made them, formed them by hand.
Revelation 4:11 – Worthy are you, Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things; because of your will they came to be and were created.
Luke 4:8 – Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.’”
Ephesians 3:14 -19 – For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.