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Fr. Michael Reinhardt celebrates March 17 Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glendale.

Last night I covered one of the greatest events so far this year: Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glendale officially began perpetual adoration.

What’s funny about perpetual adoration — or even adoration in general — is that it seems ridiculous if you don’t believe in the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. I mean, think about it. There’s this little piece of bread in this huge, ornate monstrance and you kneel before it and adore it. If you believe, you wonder why you spend time anywhere else. But if you don’t… well, you’re not likely to spend much time in adoration at all.

Parishioners had been talking about perpetual adoration for a good long while at the Glendale church, but it just didn’t seem to work out. Then, when the parish celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe last December, some 2,000 turned out.

Fr. Michael Reinhardt, the pastor, turned to Deacon Bob Meyer after the Dec. 12 celebration and asked him if it wasn’t time to reconsider perpetual adoration. Well, turns out it was.

The chapel will sit around six adorers.

With the strength of the parish’s Hispanic community, some 840 adorers signed up. Three months later, perpetual adoration is happening. It really is incredible. More than 800 people signed up to adore our Lord in the Eucharist, 24 hours a day, all year long (except during the Triduum).

My photos, on the other hand, are not incredible. They’re terrible. The procession of 800 behind Fr. Reinhardt around the church grounds — from the altar to the perpetual adoration chapel in the school — a sight to behold. But you had to be there. My photos won’t help. The emotion of the Catholics there to mark the beginning of a perpetual adoration that will never end, the reverence of Fr. Reinhardt as he blessed the congregation with the monstrance, the heartfelt singing of “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum” — I won’t soon forget it. But there’s no photos for it. They’re all dark. I tried flash, but alas, no luck.

You’ll have to take my word for it.

I did take some shots during the installation of the Blessed Sacrament in the perpetual adoration chapel, along with some video. I post it here because most of the 800 Catholics who turned out didn’t get a chance to be there.