Young people from Spanish Night Worship seek to reinforce their vocation

The youth section of Spanish Nocturnal Adoration (ANE), a reality that was founded almost 150 years ago, has just celebrated its XX National Meeting, in which they have tried to reinforce and deepen their vocation.

Gathered in the seminary of the Archdiocese of Pamplona-Tudela (Spain) under the motto The night, time of salvationa representation of young night worshipers from different parts of the country, around 50, have lived an experience of communion.

The meeting had the help of the Vicar General of Pastoral and Vicar for the Clergy of the Archdiocese of Pamplona-Tudela, Miguel Larrambebere, and the vice spiritual director of ANE, the priest Juan Manuel Melendo.

Javier Ruiz, head of the youth section of ANE, explains to ACI Prensa that nocturnal adoration consists of “a specific vocation to watch while people are resting, which has a sacrificial and atonement background for offenses and sins against the Blessed Sacrament. Sacrament”.

Ruiz emphasizes that this expiatory dimension “is a very important part of our vocation, which is unfortunately forgotten.”

The ANE has some 17,000 worshipers distributed in the different dioceses that commit to carrying out a monthly worship shift that, in principle, should last all night, although it is not always possible depending on the circumstances.

The location also varies: “There are dioceses where almost all shifts are done in a chapel that may even be owned by ANE, this was the original idea. But for several decades it has been spreading to the parishes, where groups of worshipers are usually incardinated,” explains Ruiz.

In addition, each liturgical year three extraordinary vigils are celebrated on the occasion of Corpus Christi, Holy Thursday and All Souls’ Day.

Night worship: The night, time of salvation

In his presentation, Father Larrambebere addressed the meaning of the motto of the twentieth ANE youth meeting, explaining that “the night is a space that suggests insecurity” and that often “the darkness of the night serves to forget moral brakes.” However, he emphasized, “God can fill the night with meaning.”

This is possible in the first instance due to the nocturnal silence, “a privileged space for prayer, to rest in God.” Also because the time in which the sun is hidden “is a vehicle for the manifestation of God to men.”

Thus, he detailed numerous occasions in which God’s action throughout the history of salvation is evident during the night, both in the Old Testament and the New, highlighting key moments.

Thus, he drew particular attention to the night of Passover in which the Jewish people are freed from the slavery of Egypt and undertakes the exodus and the night of the Passion of the Lord which begins with the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

Father Larrambebere explained to those present that “since then, darkness can never win, because there has been a night as bright as the sun. The sun, which is Christ, has risen and dispelled all the darkness of the night of humanity,” which is reflected in the Easter proclamation, he recalled.

At the end of his speech, the Vicar General of Pastoral Affairs of the Navarrese archdiocese encouraged those present to internalize that the nocturnal worshiper has “a special grace, a special charisma of understanding that the Lord is there in the Eucharist and that it is worth being there.” with the”.

At the same time, he urged that this grace not remain personal, but that to worship “we bring the whole world with us. And we want this to flood the world and for the night of the world, the night of the family, the night of education, the night of laws, the night of the media, the night of international relations, to be flooded with “this light of the risen Christ, alive in the Eucharist.”