Partnered with Saint Benedict’s Parish, Benedictine College offers students the opportunity of attending perpetual adoration. Above is Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the altar. At St. Benedict’s Parish, students can sign up for a regular weekly holy hour or just come and spend a few moments in prayer as they please. I chose to photograph Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament because He is the center of the story, as He is the one being encountered and encountering the adorers. He is the gift given to each student here at Benedictine College.
Emma Howell is a sophomore at Benedictine College and a regular adorer. I photographed her spending time in contemplative prayer because she said, “Most of the time being in prayer is how my time is spent, mostly without books, mostly without scripted prayers.” I captured this moment of contemplative prayer with hands of prayer and receptivity because that is her favorite way to pray in adoration. Howell also said, “One of the best things I like about adoration is that it’s not a precise set of prayers or a rulebook you have to follow, so within the context of adoration, you’re really able to be attentive to what the Lord wants in that moment and just be able to follow that, and having an hour also helps with that because there’s lots of things he wants you to do.”
Rocky Insinga is also a sophomore at Benedictine college who regularly attends adoration. I photographed him spending time in his go-to type of prayer. “I try to dedicate a majority of the time to mental prayer so just speaking quiety to our Lord, not necessarily reciting prayers,” Insinga said.
Insinga also said, “It’s tough because at home you might live 20-30 minutes from a church, so when you visit the Blessed Sacrament, it’s kind of a special occasion, but here you can do it multiple times a day and because Our Lord is present, not even just at the parish but all over campus, you kind of have a responsibility to do that. It can be a unique opportunity to just live your life from visit to visit. That’s been a really amazing part of being a student here.”
