ATLANTA—While many Georgians are sleeping at night, Catholics across the Archdiocese of Atlanta are awake praying before the Blessed Sacrament. This practice is known as nocturnal adoration.  

This devotion invites Catholics to spend nighttime hours in prayer and eucharistic adoration. It is practiced nationally and globally, and many parishes in the archdiocese participate within their own groups.  

On Aug. 29, an archdiocesan council of the National Nocturnal Adoration Society was installed during a Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King to represent adorers in the archdiocese.  

Bishop Bernard E. Shlesinger III celebrated the Mass. Members of the society filled the Atlanta church, participating with joy as they sang and prayed together. Several carried the group’s flags during the celebration. 

An altar server carrying a gold and silver crucifix leads the eucharistic procession on the streets of Buckhead as a sea of NNAS Society flags and members followed behind. The procession followed an Aug. 29 Mass. Photo by Julianna Leopold

The Mass was followed by an outdoor procession around the cathedral. Bishop Shlesinger carried the Blessed Sacrament as members followed, singing as they walked. 

The day included talks by Father John Thomas Lane, SSS, a national adviser to the Society of Nocturnal Adoration, and Carmen Rosado, president of the archdiocesan council.  

For Rosado, the installation represents a new chapter for the ministry of nocturnal adoration. 

“We have been here in the Archdiocese of Atlanta for many years,” she said. “This installation is very important to us because there will now be a solid group that will be supporting the archdiocese.”  

The new council is one of several apostolic groups present in the archdiocese. Groups that are installed establish a core team to coordinate their activities across participating parishes. The archdiocesan council will include Rosado as president, Rolando Ortiz as vice president and Father Juan Carlos Villota Viteri, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Cleveland, as spiritual director.  

Rosado said that the team will help affiliated groups work together and support parish leaders. Since several parishes practice nocturnal adoration, Rosado hopes the council will encourage unity, she said.  

“We can belong to different parishes and have different customs or ways of working,” she said. “But there is something much greater that unites us, which is our faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and our love for eucharistic adoration.”  

Nocturnal adoration draws from Jesus’ invitation to his disciples to keep watch with him in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion.  

Members of the National Nocturnal Adoration Society kneel in prayer at the August installation Mass for the group’s council. Photo by Julianna Leopold

Rosado said that members divide the night into shifts so that the Blessed Sacrament is always accompanied. Their prayer includes adoration, thanksgiving, petitions and reparations for offenses against God. Members use a prayer book associated with nocturnal adoration that includes prayers and elements of the Liturgy of the Hours. 

“We dedicate the night to prayer and contemplation in silence with Jesus in the Eucharist,” she said. “It is a time to adore, listen to the Lord and present our intentions and pray for the needs of the Church and the world.” 

Nocturnal adorers, said Rosado, pray for the Church, priests, vocations, families, young people and those who are suffering or have become distant from God.  

These intentions are what make nocturnal adoration so important for parish life, Rosado said.  

“A parish needs people of prayer,” she said. “It needs people who are willing to get on their knees before Jesus and pray not only for their own needs, but for the community.” 

For information about the National Nocturnal Adoration Society in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, contact NASConsejoarquidiocesanoatlga@gmail.com, or Carmen Rosado at 305-979-3294.