The Archdiocese of Philadelphia this week opened a new perpetual adoration chapel, one that Archbishop Nelson Pérez said is meant to draw “Catholics and non-Catholics for prayer before Christ” 24 hours a day.
The Sacre Coeur Perpetual Adoration Chapel was opened on the property of St. Denis Church in Havertown on the western edge of the city. Pérez was the principal celebrant at the Mass during which the site was dedicated an archdiocesan shrine.
In his homily the archbishop called attention to the liturgyʼs first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which Moses tells the Israelites that God “set his heart on you and chose you.”
Pérez said the description of “the heart of God” grants “a very human attribute to a divine being.”
Christ himself “is the very incarnation, the visible being, the manifestation of the very heart of God,” Pérez said.
The prelate also noted the example of the 17th century nun St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who was responsible for spreading the devotion of the Sacred Heart through the Western Church.
“She had an incredible heart for the Lord from a very, very, very young age,” the archbishop said. “And at a young age, she promised Our Lady that she would consecrate her life to the heart of Christ.”
“She had a big heart,” Pérez continued. “Big hearts feel deeply. The biggest heart of them all is actually the heart of Christ, the heart of all hearts right from which all our hearts flow.”
The archbishop predicted that the faithful “will come from all over the place” to the Sacre Coeur chapel, where they will “speak to the heart of Christ so beautifully present in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
“And at that moment — watch out,” he said. “Watch out. Because God will do what God will do.”
Sacred space will ‘hopefully bring people to the Lord’
The chapel came about in large part because of the work of Ward and Kathy Fitzgerald, two Philadelphia residents who several years ago identified the need for such a site in the city.
Ward, the CEO of the I Am the Vine Foundation — a capital charity initiative — told “EWTN News Nightly” on June 12 that his wife Kathy had realized that “there were 12 parishes in Philadelphia within about a three mile radius that did not have perpetual adoration.”
“The vision was to make a place that was beautiful and comfortable,” he said. “[W]e not only want people to be at peace when theyʼre talking to the Lord because of the beauty around them, [but] we also want to attract people that arenʼt [part of] the Church today.”
“We felt that an adoration chapel was a way to bring meditation [and] conversation with the Lord without technically participating in the sacraments,” he said. “And many people that are either members of the Church and donʼt participate in the sacraments, or theyʼre not members of any church … still their hearts are restless.”
At the dedication on June 12, Archbishop Pérez commended Ward and Kathy for their “big hearts” after their work to bring the chapel to life.
“What a gift,” he said. “God will do what God will do, and only God knows right in his big, enormous heart what will happen in that chapel — how people will be touched, conversations will be had, [and] hearts will be healed.”
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