Dear Brothers and Sisters, The parish in Ireland that I spent most of my Childhood and early adulthood in, was dedicated to the Good Shepherd. Every year on one of the Sundays after Easter the forty hours adoration started. The Forty Hours Adoration is a devotion where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for forty hours and people spend time before it in quiet prayer. When I was a kid there was a quiet rivalry between parishes in trying to outdo each other in the flowers and decorations. The Altar would be laden with candles and flowers and there would be devotions and benediction at set times . Sadly it’s a devotion that got lost when the language of the liturgy changed to the vernacular and parishes started to have Sunday evening Masses. We need to be reminded of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist particularly as we approach the time of First Communions. The Eucharist is a sign and a sacrament and it is Jesus coming to us truly present. If we forget that we are forgetting one of the foundations of our Faith. The reading what Paul from Corinthians that we hear every year on Holy Thursday reminds us of that” I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was handed over took bread and after he had given thanks, broke it and said This is my body that is for you do this in remembrance of me……..” For over two thousand years this has been the faith of the church . The mystery of Faith as we say every time we celebrate Mass. This is the mystery that you sons and daughters will receive next week end in this parish the real body and blood of Christ. Lord I believe help my unbelief. The Journey of Faith continues, Fr Karl