Phoenix parish marks 20 years of perpetual adoration

Published: 2007-03-13

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (CNS) -- In the wee hours of the morning, Mary Kay Longo wipes the sleep from her eyes and drives to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. She passes people coming home from a night on the town on her way to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament. "You see kids getting arrested. It's so sad," she told The Catholic Sun, newspaper of the Phoenix Diocese. "So I go and pray for them." Longo is one of nearly 300 parishioners dedicated to perpetual adoration. Over the last two decades, the parish has logged more than 300,000 hours before the Eucharist. "God always answers us, one way or another," said Ed Curtis, the adoration coordinator for more than 15 years. "We don't always understand it, but he answers." Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted recently celebrated a Mass to recognize these parishioners. Even when Catholics come to perpetual adoration with heavy hearts, they do not leave the same, he said in his homily. "Adoration fills us with awe and wonder in the presence of a love that words cannot capture," said the bishop, who spends an hour before the Blessed Sacrament each day.

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .