ther in an ineffable joy — boundless, indestructible,
personal, and divine — that is the Holy Spirit. The
whole work of Christ is to bring us into union with
Himself, so that through Him, with Him, and in
Him, we might stand before the Father, even as He
stands before the Father in the glory of heaven and
in the hiddenness of tabernacles all over the globe.
The life of perpetual adoration is a participation,
by grace, in what Saint John reveals in the opening
lines of his Prologue: the Word with God, and the
Word facing God. “At the beginning of time the
Word already was; and God had the Word abiding
with him, and the Word was God. He abode, at the
beginning of time, with God” (John 1:1–2). This is
the essence of perpetual adoration. For the monk, as
for every Christian, it begins when one begins to live
facing Christ, magnetised by His presence, fascinated by His beauty, illumined by His
truth, conquered by His goodness,
and drawn irresistibly into the
light of His Face. And where on
earth is this Face to be found,
if not in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar?
Alexander Taylor Carroll
of the Diocese of Tulsa, you
came to this life gradually
and over a period of years:
discovering the Catholic
faith as a curious young
Lutheran; looking first at
the diocesan priesthood, and
then at a young lady in view of
marriage and family life, and,
in the end, you said like Jacob,
“Surely the Lord was in this place
and I did not know it. This is none
other than the house of God, and this is the
gate of heaven” (Gen. 28: 16–17). You remind me,
Alex, of a certain prophet to whom the Lord came
and said: “What dost thou here?” Why, he answered,
“I am all jealousy for the honour of the Lord
God of hosts; see how the sons of Israel have
forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars,
and put thy prophets to the sword! Of these, I
only am left, and now my life, too, is forfeit.”
Then word came to him to go out and stand
there in the Lord’s presence; the Lord God
himself would pass by. (1 Kings 19:9–11)
Has not the Lord called you, Alex Carroll, to
stand in His presence, even as Christ, the Eternal
High Priest stands before His Father, offering Himself as a spotless victim?
James Pio King of the Diocese of Meath, you
came to Silverstream Priory after having traveled
much and suffered a certain emptiness within,
not unlike that of one Augustine who said, “Thou
hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is
unquiet until it come to rest in Thee.” (Confessions,
ch. I) You are something of a romantic, James, a