Every year Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate surveys those being ordained as religious/diocesan priests as well as religious making their final vows. The survey asks about prayer practices pursued regularly before entering seminary or religious life.

The responses show a clear connection between Eucharistic Adoration and vocations.

For example, 67% of religious who made final vows in the 2024 Report participated in Eucharistic Adoration before entering religious life. 63% of religious priests and 77% of diocesan priests ordained in 2023 regularly attended Eucharistic Adoration before entering seminary.

 

These are the average numbers. In some years, as many as 73% of religious, 74% of religious priests, and a whopping 80% of diocesan priests regularly engaged in Eucharistic Adoration during their vocational discernment!

So, as vocation promoters, we should seriously consider how to make Eucharistic Adoration available and ongoing.

The Catholic Church offers clear guidelines for Eucharistic Adoration. For example, the exposed Blessed Sacrament can never be left alone. Second, there must be a sufficient number of people present before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. It might take only one priest to expose the Blessed Sacrament, but it takes many people to carry out Eucharistic Adoration on a regular basis.

Do we want discerners to have many opportunities to attend Eucharistic Adoration? To develop a habit of visiting the Blessed Sacrament? To make Eucharistic Adoration a “regular” part of their prayer? We do, because there is an clear link between adoration and vocational discernment!

That’s where we come in. Let’s say we want to establish the ideal situation: 24-hour Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. We will need a sufficient number of people to commit to being present before the Blessed Sacrament. Two adorers x 24 hours x 7 days a week = 336 one-hour “slots.” Getting lots of people to commit hundreds of hours to weekly Eucharistic Adoration will take ongoing personal and communal commitment.

This year, consider how you can help start Perpetual Adoration in your area. If not perpetually, what about one day a week or one extra day a month?

Or maybe there is already Eucharistic Adoration happening near you. How is it doing? Perhaps people are still needed to commit; perhaps people need to be reminded of the importance of Eucharistic Adoration. If you don't already, consider committing to one or more hours of weekly Eucharistic Adoration, and encourage others to commit themselves.

What a practical way to support vocations with such clear fruit! In fact, there is no more powerful way we can promote vocations than by making Eucharistic Adoration regularly available to discerners.