St. Thomas the Apostle
Mass Schedule
Mon. - Sat. 8 AM
Saturday 5 PM
Sunday 8 & 11 AM
Holyday Masses
Day Before 5:30 PM
Holyday 8 AM
Confessions
Sat. 3:30 - 4:30 PM
Adoration Chapel
Mon. - Fri.
9 AM - 11 PM
Blessing of expectant mothers and families after Mass on the 1st Sunday of each month.
Irondequoit Catholic Community
Celebrating 100 years
Irondequoit Catholic Community Web Site
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 | A wonderful opportunity for Eucharistic Adoration. A peaceful place to spend time privately with Our Lord. Sign up for regular hours for daily or weekly adoration or feel free to drop in at any time for however long you wish. May God bless you. |
- Why Eucharistic adoration?
- Why is exposition necessary?
- What are the benefits?
- Does my Holy Hour help?
- Why is this the laity's mission?
- Adoration and Reparation --- by Fr. Robert F. McNamara
- Beginning of our Weekday Adoration --- Article by Fr. Robert F. McNamara (Written for the Fifth Anniversary)
"The church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic Adoration. Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of love. May our adoration never cease." Pope John Paul II
"I know I wouldn't be able to work one week if it were not for the continual force coming from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In our society we begin our day with Mass and Holy Communion, and we end it with one fall hour of Adoration. All of us know that unless we believe and can see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see Him in the distressing disguise of the poor. Therefore, these two loves are but one in Jesus." Mother Theresa
The Church strongly encourages both private and public devotion toward the Eucharist and teaches that prayer before the Lord sacramentally present in the Eucharist actually "extends the union with Christ which the faithful have received in communion." It helps them to live in a more Christian way, trying "to maintain in their lives what they have received by faith and by sacraments" (The Rites of the Catholic Church).
So, you could not stay awake with me for even an hour? Be on guard, and pray that you may not undergo the test. (Mt. 26:40-41).
In addition to items of public adoration, we can each - as often as possible according to our personal schedules and circumstances - draw great nourishment from times of private adoration.
The Most important thing to realize about making a private Holy Hour is that you don't have to do anything. You don't have to say any particular prayers, or read, or sing, or anything else. All you have to do is be present to the One who is present to you. Certainly, bodily presence is a first step - at times that is all we are capable of - but we should also try to be present with our hearts. This means a loving awareness of who is present. Many times, we need to be silently present, not analyzing.
The Eucharistic Chapel located in the north wing of the Parish Center is open for private adoration Monday thru Friday from 9:00 am until 11:00 pm.
We are in need of some new adorers who would be willing to sign up for a specific time or to be a substitute at certain times. Contact the Parish Center for assistance.
The Quiet Hour
My heart is tired tonight -
how endless seems the strife!
Day after day the restlessness
of all this weary life!
I come to lay the burden down
that so oppresses me,
and, shutting all the world without,
to spend an hour with Thee,
Dear Lord,
TO spend an hour with Thee.
I would forget a little while
the bitterness of fears,
the anxious thoughts that crowd my life,
the buried hopes of years;
forget that mortal's weary toil
my patient care must be.
A tired child, I come tonight
to spend an hour with Thee,
Dear Lord,
One little hour with Thee.
I'm foolish, wayward, yes, I know -
so often wandering;
a weak, complaining child - but oh!
forgive my murmuring;
and fold me to Thy breast,
thou who hast died for me,
and let me feel 'tis peace to rest
a little hour with Thee,
Dear Lord,
one little hour with Thee!
When we as individuals or as a community take time our of our hectic lives and give a little to our Lord we proclaim to everyone that Jesus, Our Lord, is truly present among us. We attest to the importance of prayer in our lives. The more we avail ourselves of presenting ourselves before the Lord in his Eucharistic Presence, the more we respond to his invitation "Could you not watch one hour with Me?" By our prayer and presence we bring Christ to His people.
The difference between spending time before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance, rather than in the tabernacle, is the same difference between conversing with a friend face-to-face instead of having a closed door between you. Most people say that seeing Jesus in His Eucharistic Presence is much more conductive to intimacy than having Him hidden in a tabernacle. It helps one to be faithful to their scheduled hour because they know that Jesus cannot be left alone in the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a monstrance. The scheduled prayers are guardians of the Blessed Sacrament, so their presence is necessary. But by far the most compelling reason for exposition is because the Holy Spirit asks for it. During his Eucharistic discourse, Jesus made this unmistakably clear:
" Indeed this is the will of My Heavenly Father, that everyone who looks upon the Don and believes in Him, shall have eternal life. Him I will raise up on the last day." John 6:40
Each person that spends time in the presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament grows in holiness. Communally, increased mass attendance, conversions, return of fallen away Catholics, vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and religious life, better confessions are just some of the many fruits of Eucharistic Adoration. Through our Holy Hours of prayer the Holy Father declared that we are contributing to "the radical transformation of the world," the "establishing of everlasting peace," and the coming of Christ's kingdom on earth.
The Holy Eucharist is the mystery of our faith. Jesus said that faith can move mountains. One person coming before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament represents all of humanity. Praying before Jesus changes us, we are changed more and more into Christ's image the more we continue to worship him. It is impossible to be faithful in our prayer and not be changed, not become more holy.
Every man, woman and child on the face of the earth receives some new, wonderful effect of God's goodness, of God's mercy, of God's grace, of God's love when they put their faith into action and come to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
When you come before Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, He appreciates so deeply that you are there, that you release the power of his love and graces to all His children throughout the world.
Why is this the laity's mission?
Vatican II emphasized the importance of lay involvement and lay prayer in the mission of the Church. Eucharistic Adoration is the cornerstone of commitment. We are all to pray before undertaking any task, and what better place to pray than before Jesus.
“Who Would Not Love for Love Repay?”
God had no need to create man. He did so out of sheer generosity, in order to share with Adam and Eve and their descendants His divine love. Because of this gift of life, He had a strict right to mankind's loving service.
Tragically, our first parents, out of pride, disobeyed God. Their sin was a personal insult to the Creator, and lost for their race the friendship of the Holy Trinity.
It is true that even as He ejected our first parents from the Garden, God in His irrevocable love promised that one day “the woman” would crush the head of Satan, the Serpent that had tempted them. But what alienated scion of sinful Adam could restore God's friendship? Man was like a person sucked downward by quicksand: his own frantic struggles simply made him sink deeper. No, his rescuer had to come from outside.
God's mysterious promise at Eden's gate was fulfilled in the Incarnation. The Creator Himself would be the Redeemer. So, in the fullness of time, the Father lovingly sent His Word, His Son, to ransom Adam's stock. The Son took a human body and soul in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In obediently suffering death on the cross, Jesus, being truly man, was able to offer His human life to the Father for man's redemption. God the Father, having bound himself to accept this sacrifice, thereupon restored forever the bond of friendship with the human race.
Through the Cross, therefore, we have earned Christ's assurance, “I have called you friends” (Jn 15, 15). But although Jesus accomplished redemption in general, each of us must qualify for it individually. We do this by professing our belief in Jesus and His words, and being baptized into His Church, as members of the Mystical Body of which He is the head.
Now, as members of His Body, we have certain duties. Not only must we remain faithful to His commandments; we must also work in solidarity with Jesus to make His kingdom come.
One of our Christian duties is to make continuous reparation to God for the sins of wayward men: our own sins as well as others, for in giving us all free wills He has enabled us to do wrong as well as right. How can we contribute to this expiation to God for mankind's continuing choice of wrong over right? Not only by faithfulness to His laws but by voluntary good works of charity, of self-denial, and of prayer.
Works of charity help make amends, for they are acts of love towards our neighbor. Jesus Himself has assured us that whatever loving deed we do to the needy, we do to Himself.
Works of self-denial also make amends, for in them we take up our crosses and follow our Lord. Self-denial includes not only positive acts like fasting and abstinence; it also includes cheerfully offering up all our frustrations: the many trials of body and soul that daily befall us.
All prayers unite us more intimately with God, hence prayer is the best form of making amends. Of the many types of prayer, three are especially effective for reparation. The first is the Morning Offering. In it we hand over to God all the “prayers, works, joys and sufferings” of the dawning day. The second is Our Lady's Rosary. In it we ponder the very mysteries of our Redeemer's life, and invoke the aid of Mary our Co-redemptrix.
The third and the supreme prayer is, of course, the Holy Eucharist. By devout participation in the Mass and devout Communion with this unbloody representation of the sacrifice of Calvary that saved us, we associate ourselves directly with Christ's expiation. When we adore Christ in the Eucharist Host, we are also sharing in that sacrifice, for it is the Mass that has made Jesus sacramentally present on the altar.
Now, God also sometimes asks us, through holy people, to make reparation for particular types of sin. Thus, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus counters ingratitude to our Savior; devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary counters insults to the compassionate love of Our Lady. Both of these devotions are approved by the Church.
Devotion to Jesus' heart dates particularly from the 1680s, when Christ appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, revealing to her His heart burning with redemptive love for mankind. Because of the coldness and ingratitude men were showing to His love, especially through disdain for the Blessed Sacrament, he instructed the Saint to encourage the faithful to make amends by monthly confession and Communion on nine consecutive first Fridays. God was once more reaching out for our human love.
Devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart dates principally from 1925, when Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucia dos Santos, the sole survivor of the three children to whom Mary appeared at Fatima in 1917. The Christchild, appearing in 1925 with Mary, said to Lucy, “Have compassion on the heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” Then Mary herself, showing Lucy her heart ringed with thorns, asked the nun to propagate the practice of confession, Communion and the rosary on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, to make amends for the “blasphemies and ingratitude” shown her by the human race as she strove to bring souls to her Son. (We may not be aware of it, but many today insult Mary by denying her sinlessness, her virginity, her very right to the title “Mother of God.” What cruelty to this “Blessed among women”!)
The people of St. Thomas the Apostle parish are particularly equipped to respond to their Christian duty of reparation. In the rectory chapel, we have Eucharistic Exposition daily (except weekends) from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Rich spiritual gifts await those who pray for the conversion of sinners and who help make amends for those that reject the saving love of Jesus and the compassionate love of His mother. As the hymn to the Heart of Jesus asks us, “Who would not love for love repay?”
--Father Robert F. McNamara
March 28, 1993
Our 5th Anniversary
St. Thomas Chapel of Eucharistic Adoration (1992-1997)
By Father Robert F McNamara
When Father L. James Callan retired as pastor in 1995, he left St. Thomas the Apostle a precious institution of his own creation: a program of extended Eucharistic Exposition in a special Eucharistic chapel. This year, 1997, we are observing the 75th anniversary of the foundation of St. Thomas parish. Nineteen ninety-seven also marks the fifth anniversary of our flourishing "Daytime Adoration". In memorializing the parish's diamond jubilee we must not fail to celebrate as well the fifth birthday of this devotion, one of its most notable achievements.
Vatican II spoke with special clarity about the sacramental presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the consequent need of reverencing that Presence both within the Mass and in Eucharistic devotions outside the Mass. Unfortunately, in the years since the Council, reverence for the Bread of Angels has tended to decline rather than increase.
St. Thomas the Apostle parish has always been staunch in Eucharistic piety. I have noted that well during my 43 years of close association with its activities. I recall, for example, the faithfulness to Nocturnal Adoration of Msgr. Richard K. Burns, pastor 1954-1982. Sleepy-eyed but resolute, he would drive off to the assigned church with Don Foley no matter how wee the hour assigned. I also recall how, in a day when many pastors had abandoned as no longer fruitful the Forty Hours and other times of exposition, Father Callan steadfastly promoted them. True, some other pastors had lately been brave enough to set up successful parish centers of perpetual adoration: St. John of Rochester (May 1990) and St. Joseph's, Rush (December 1990) in Monroe County. Their efforts doubtless gave some encouragement to the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in his stance.
Improved attendance at our Forty Hours in 1990 and at Holy Thursday adoration in 1991 seemed to vindicate Father Callan. Providentially, in August 1991, a woman of the parish suggested that Fr. Callan establish at St. Thomas' itself a program of round-the-clock Eucharistic adoration. An ideal locale for it already existed, she said: the chapel of St. Thomas' rectory (i.e. the former convent, built in 1958).
The proponent happened to be a member of the "Marian Cenacle of the Twin Hearts of Jesus and Mary," a lay prayer group organized at St. Thomas' on September 10, 1990, with the support of Father B. Thomas Celso. Fr. Celso, a Rochester diocesan priest, had spent his diaconal year at St. Thomas the Apostle and was well acquainted with the convenience of the convent chapel.
Marian "Cenacles" were affiliates of the "Marian Movement of Priests," an apostolate confided by Our Lady in 1972 to the Italian priest Don Stefano Gobbi. The aim of the M.M.P. is to establish a worldwide cadre of priests, religious and laity who have consecrated themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and create of them a cohort to assist Mary to "lead all men back to God." Since its foundation, the St. Thomas' Cenacle had been observing a Monday-morning hour of common prayer in the parish church. Their prayers for priests and priestly vocations were strongly Eucharistic as well as strongly Marian.
Already in an optimistic mood about reviving Eucharistic piety, Fr. Callan was attracted to the proposal of an adoration center as not only worthy but feasible. He therefore mentioned this new proposition in the parish bulletin of August 25, 1991, inviting comments. The comments he received must have been favorable, for in the bulletin of September 29, 1991, the Pastor revealed that the chapel of St. Thomas rectory was indeed to be designated a chapel of "perpetual adoration".
To change the rectory chapel into a chapel of "perpetual adoration", two procedures were of immediate importance: 1) to enlist the adorers and substitutes and provide them with a few basic regulations; 2) to make whatever structural changes were necessary to accommodate the chapel to its new use.
The first task was consigned to an "Organizational Committee" of parishioners, largely members of the Marian Cenacle: Bernice Baker, Helen Bates, Ann Bennett, Joan Burns, Peggy Campbell, Joseph Halecki, Loretta Hansen, Germaine Hill, Irene Klim, Jane Kuchman, Mary Jo Lauriat, Angela Mahonsky, Mary Jo Maurer, Bill and Margaret McWhinney, Christine Mishia, Don and Mary Murphy, Rosalyn O'Connor, Doris Oliver, Dr. Helen M. Owens and Mary Sanders.
Father Callan himself supervised the structural accommodations.
Our Lord used to invite his disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while" (Mk 6:31). Our chapel was a modern expression of just such a place of retreat: sequestered and quiet, yet accessible; intimate; rich in religious environment. At the same time it was not too ascetical. There was air conditioning for the summer and good heat for the winter (except on those rare occasions when the temperamental furnace of the rectory went on strike). Only two new constructions proved to be necessary: a small partition in the corridor to provide the chapel with a separate vestibule and at the same time guarantee privacy to the rectory; and a new type of tabernacle incorporating both a compartment for the ciborium and a permanent eucharistic throne, equipped with its own doors, for the monstrance.
Luckily, the parish could boast of craftsmen able to create these new appointments. Robert A. Schaeffer, a retired engineer, devised and installed the little partition and its sturdy door. Arthur Bennett, a skilled cabinet-maker, following the Pastor's concept, designed the split-level tabernacle and executed it handsomely in ash wood stained to blend with the marble altar's triptych of Our Lady of Mercy. (Admiring the way that Bennett had solved the tabernacle's intricate locking system, I asked him how he had ever worked it out. "St. Joseph helped me," Art replied.)
Both men have since been called to their reward, but I will always think of the divider as "Bob's partition" and the tabernacle as "Art's tabernacle".
Two movable furnishings were also placed in the new little vestibule. One was a simple lighted stand to hold the sign-in register of the adorers. Behind it was hung a hand lettered, hand-decorated inscription, the work and gift of Rita Christianson. Its fitting text was from the prophet Habakkuk (2:20): "The Lord is in His holy temple; silence before Him, all the earth." Here, truly, the faithful could come to "seek His face".
Father Callan had hoped to begin the program at least by January 1, 1992, but he postponed doing so because not enough people had yet volunteered for the "night shift". Without that coverage the adoration could not be considered "perpetual". Finally, however, he decided to start adoration on a reduced daytime schedule, with the hope of eventual extension around the clock.
The chapel was crowded for the inaugural Mass on Monday morning, March 2, 1992. After that, the adorers and the substitutes, well over six-score in number and from several parishes, began their hourly stints between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. or (11:00 p.m. after the first three weeks). From the start, Father Callan excluded Saturdays and Sundays from the schedule. That allowed the rectory chapel to be used on Saturdays for special services like the fifteen First Saturday devotions conducted by the present writer between October 1992 and June 1993; or also simply for tidying up the premises. But although St. John of Rochester, St. Joseph's, Rush (and after May 1992, St. Theodore's, Gates) have been able to maintain their programs of adoration around the clock, St. Thomas has never achieved that goal. It remains a "weekday chapel of Eucharistic Adoration".
Nevertheless, our Irondequoit Eucharistic program has been blessed with five successful years. Pay the chapel a visit during the regular hours and you will experience a sense of silent, deep devotion. These worshipers are obviously here because they want to be. No wonder Father Callan has termed our chapel of adoration "a godsend to the parish". No wonder Father Bradler, his successor, calls the prayers of its participants a true "sacrifice of praise".
Almighty God can only be touched by this demonstration of Eucharistic love, and turn its consolation to good purpose. For in a world too ready to say NO to God, these good souls are saying YES! YES! YES!
