Adoration is a time for our soul

Feb 20, 2019

Making time for adoration at the Blessed Sacrament is growing in popularity amongst Catholics. Despite hectic daily schedules, we find that for some of us, there is a desperate need for a place of silence, especially with Eucharist. Every now and then, I see a number of our parishioners, as well people from other Faiths, regularly coming and going into our Church, praying silently with their eyes fixed on the Blessed Sacrament. Even in the scorching heat, people make themselves available to be with the Lord.

For the past four years, I have been thinking seriously about setting up a Eucharistic Adoration room. This idea has now come to fruition and we have decided to name this room “St Joseph’s Adoration Room”. Monsignor James Gnanapiragasam given the honour to blessed the room after the 6.45 am Mass on Tuesday, 19 February 2019.

Many of our parishioners may still remember the very old tiles, with the three distinctly unique designs, which were laid along the aisle of our Church in 1928, during the time of the late Rev Fr Victor Antoine Herman, who initiated the extension and rebuilding of the Church of St Joseph, Sentul. These 91-year-old tiles were removed from the aisle when our Church underwent major renovations in 2013. All these sentimental tiles were safely stored for re-use in the future. We then reused some of these tiles when we built St Joseph’s Shrine, located next to the parish office, in June 2015. We then kept the remaining tiles in storage, until a proper use for these was identified.

When the time came to set up an adoration room, we selected 417 tiles and these are now used as a flooring for the Adoration Room. We have laid them in the same manner as they were originally laid along the Church’s aisle, back in 1928. We are indeed blessed to have a small but meaningful token of our Church’s past, still being used in a relevant and significant way. It is important to repurpose these tiles, so that a part of our Church’s history remains. There are still a few more old tiles available, which, though not in perfect condition, will be laid out at the grotto in couple of weeks time.--SJC