In one of the CRCC Board meetings, the Chair asked what else we could do to move the project ahead. Another Board member immediately said, “Let’s ask all our friends to join us in Eucharistic Adoration.” The idea grew and became even more ambitious; we decided to launch the “Lenten Challenge of 1000 hours of Eucharistic Adoration.”
Thanks to all of you, we exceeded our goal by almost 200 hours!
People were encouraged either to come to Crestwell or Glenwood centres on particular days or go to parishes where there were Perpetual Adoration chapels. It was very moving to see how, when we explained the reasons for the challenge, everyone was up for it. Every Wednesday and Thursday the flow of people coming to the centres was steady, and when there were fewer people, close to dinner time, a university student came and kept the Lord company. Helen, who spent the last weeks of the challenge in the hospital, was always there at times when there were fewer people.
Thinking of Helen brings to mind how much support we had from those who were sick. One lady from El Salvador who is confined in a wheel chair was taken by her two daughters every day to do two hours of adoration in their parish! This meant that not only she, but her daughters prayed for the project. Another lady with advanced cancer sent us a note saying she had done thirteen hours of adoration with her friends. To them we feel very grateful, knowing, as St. Josemaria wrote in The Way, that the prayers of the sick are very agreeable to Our Lord.
After the first week, however, we had the stark realization that we could not do this alone. One thousand hours meant 200 hours a week, and after the first week we had recorded only fifty hours at both centres! Even counting adoration done at the parishes, we realized that we might not achieve our goal.
However, when we accept a challenge to launch out into the deep for Our Lord, He helps us fill our nets. The idea came to ask all the centres of Opus Dei in Canada to join us. And they did! People we did not know sent us emails like, “Count three hours more, my husband, my son and I each did one hour.” The next week, the same message arrived. Many friends from Montreal, Quebec and Calgary sent messages reporting on the number of hours they and others we did not even know had done. One of our centres in Toronto organized an all-night vigil and reported fourteen hours of prayer for Copper Ridge.
From El Salvador we got reinforcements, and from Singapore! One lady did twenty-six hours of prayer! Even after Lent when the Challenge was over, we kept receiving hours. At the end, the final count was 1188 hours of Eucharistic Adoration!
We are convinced that Our Lord must be very happy with all those hours of prayer, and will grant us what we asked: the completion of the Copper Ridge project and the fruits for souls from the activities organized in this amazing apostolic instrument.