Saints John & Paul Church

Saints John and Paul Church
Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Phone: 401-821-5764
Fax: 401-828-5351
341 South Main Street
Coventry, RI 02816

Father John V. Doyle School
Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Phone: 401-821-3756
Fax: 401-828-8513
343 South Main Street
Coventry, RI 02816

A milestone silently passed by with very little notice a few weeks ago, to which I’d like to call your attention. Friday, August 2nd was the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Body of Christ Adoration Chapel, located on the corner of Washington St. (Rt. 117) and MacArthur Blvd here in Coventry.

The building the chapel is in is owned by Our Lady of Czenstochowa Parish, and for many years, the parish sextant lived on the second floor, while the first floor was an auto paint store. When the paint business moved down the street in 1994, the pastor of OLC at the time, Fr. John Dreher, took the opportunity to build an adoration chapel in the back of the building, with an apartment attached to the side of the chapel in which a religious sister could live. For many years, it was the residence of Sister Jane Culligan, a Sister of Charity, who took care of the adoration chapel.

OLC had a parish mission to promote the chapel, and soon there enough people signed up to have adoration Monday to Friday from 8AM to 11PM for many years. (These days, the chapel is open 10AM9PM, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.)

For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, an adoration chapel is a place where the Eucharist is exposed for an extended period of time in a Monstrance, a large gold reliquary. Whenever the Eucharist is solemnly exposed in this way outside of a tabernacle, church law requires there to always be someone there praying and adoring Jesus, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. So people commit to be “adorers” by signing up to pray the same hour each week (for example, each Wednesday from 23PM). In addition, adoration chapels have “Rangers” who are willing to fill in for adorers who can’t make their assigned hour one week.

Some chapels have “perpetual” adoration, which means that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are always 2 persons signed up at all times to do a Holy Hour.

For a quarter of a century, the Body of Christ Adoration Chapel has been a powerhouse of prayer for our community. If you’ve never been, or it’s been a long time, I’d encourage you to pay Jesus a visit there! And say a prayer for me while you’re at it! I go there for my Holy Hour each week on my day off. The chapel is always looking for new adorers to commit to a weekly Holy Hour. If you are interested, call OLC Rectory at 8217991. Our modern world has lately begun to extoll the value of “mindfulness” as an essential part of a person’s well being, in addition to diet and exercise. The Catholic Church has, for two thousand years, practiced mindfulness of the best kind ~ that of silently, peacefully, and mindfully kneeling or sitting in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist!



God bless, Fr. Woolley