Time stops A time-honored tradition is renewed in Holy Innocents Chapel in Duluth
Treacy, Ann O'Brien
'THE LAST WORD TIME STOPS Amw O'Brien Treacy Eut for a chance attendance at Mass on a first Saturday of the month, I might never have signed up for perpetual adoration. In small ways, it has...
...The benefits have spilled over into the other days of my week...
...Sleep...
...Even a name for the chapel came easily...
...Just go...
...My daughter and I attended the dedication Mass at which our bishop presided...
...But I got more than I bargained for...
...In our modest chapel that seats eight, at 5 a.m., I am rarely alone...
...Ann O'Brien Treacy, a graduate of the College of Saint Catherine, is a clinical dietician...
...My good friend and Saturday breakfast companion told me she'd be available after Mass, so I decided to walk the mile to church and meet up with her there...
...Why not...
...My silent hour in this chapel has an other-worldly feeling, retreat-like in its solitude...
...I was eager to put some prayer time back in my life...
...After Mass, when the sign-up sheets were passed pew-to-pew, my friend and I decided to share an hour...
...That morning my good angel, whispering very convincing thoughts of her own, had sway...
...The winds coming off Lake Superior are the same winds that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald...
...Of course, by the time he visited us only the least choice times were left...
...A new exterior entrance was created to lead directly into the chapel...
...I was wrong to suspect the initial interest would eventually wane...
...An interior designer donated her services, as did an architect...
...and the need for additional people from other parishes to keep vigil round the clock...
...You know the hours, midnight to 6:00 a.m...
...We would be back home in plenty of time to make the children's lunches and get to work...
...People and parishes donated things, services, and money...
...I believe you are what you pay attention to...
...We would each go every other week, she one Thursday morning, I the next, and so on...
...There is nothing to pay attention to but God...
...Been there, done that...
...It's been over fifteen months now, and people seem attracted by the high degree of commitment involved...
...A former storage room of the old church was renovated...
...As is so often the hallmark of our relationship-thinking the same thoughts, finishing each other's sentences-our first choice of days was also identical...
...You don't need to be signed up in order to pray at a chapel of perpetual adoration...
...It is unlocked twenty-four hours a day...
...Whenever I'm asked about the hour vigil I keep, my answer is the same: It's worth it...
...Good angel/bad angel battles are commonplace in my mind...
...The advantages of giving time to prayer are as tangible as making time to exercise...
...Not guilty, exactly, just out of tune...
...A large, consecrated host is left visible on an altar, usually held by a monstrance (a footed cross with a glass window in its center...
...prayers for the newly opened abortion clinic three blocks from his church, within his parish boundaries...
...He spoke of the benefits and of the needs-the needed prayers for world peace...
...I didn't attend that Mass to hear the priest from a neighboring parish speak about a chapel he hoped to open for eu-charistic adoration...
...I went for breakfast...
...But if you find yourself returning regularly, you may want to contact the pastor and get your name on the coordinator's list...
...I never find myself tired those days that I get up at 4:14 a.m., and I've been drawn to return many times in addition to "my" hour...
...My bad angel reminded me I live in Duluth, where it's cold in winter, all ten months of it, especially in the dark of night...
...I find myself praying more at home...
...When I do neither habitually, I feel the same feelings-out of shape...
...Inspired by its troubled surroundings, it's simply called Holy Innocents Chapel...
...We chose 5:00 to 6:00 a.m...
...For those who don't know, perpetual adoration is the constant exposition of the Eucharist...
...Time stops here...
...I find myself looking forward to going...
...I'm a mother, I've had new-borns...
...A small ornate altar found in the church's own basement fit perfectly into the tiny space...
...Father Patrick McDowell described the "oasis of prayer" he was attempting to establish at the urging of several of his parishioners...
...When I pray regularly I feel spiritually fit like the physical well-being I derive from routine walking or jogging...
...In small ways, it has changed my life...
...Father Pat explained how the chapel just "came together...
...People are enlisted to keep company with Jesus 168 hours per week because, as the word "perpetual" implies, this is adoration that never ceases...
...No thanks, I thought...
...The traditional evening prayers of my youth had slowly been replaced by something else...
Vol. 123 • April 1996 • No. 8
