JS: Volunteers pray round-the-clock for 30 years straight

While you're snug in bed, there's someone praying at the Perpetual Adoration Chapel at St. Mary's Visitation Parish in Elm Grove.

When the weather is cold and snowy, there's someone at the chapel. When terrifying world events paralyze us with shock, there's someone praying harder still.

Even during Packers games, a volunteer sits quietly in the presence of the consecrated host, the Blessed Sacrament, the very presence of Jesus, as Catholics believe.

As of Wednesday, the adoration has been going on for 30 years, 24 hours every day, a marvel of round-the-clock commitment and coordination. The church is celebrating with three special Masses this week.

"Over 260,000 hours for the past 30 years, there's been someone there praying, for their own needs and parish needs and the world," St. Mary's pastor, Rev. Peter Berger, told me when I visited the parish this week. "Some people pray rosaries. Some bring a spiritual book they want to read. Some people just sit and think and pray."

Bottom line: "There always needs to be at least one person in there. Always," Berger said.

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HT CCC

Patroness of Mercy Coming to Elm Grove

As part of the Vatican's efforts to prepare the world for the Extraordinary Year of Mercy, the relics of the beloved St. Maria Goretti are coming to the United States for the first time.

Their only stop in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with be at St. Mary's Visitation Parish in Elm Grove, October 17th (9am-12pm & 6pm-11pm) and October 18th (12:30pm-5pm).

There will also be a Solemn Holy Mass (Ordinary Form) offered in honor of the St. Maria Goretti at 9am on the 17th.

More information is available at The St. Mary's Visitation website or the official website of the pilgrimage.

Her relics will also visit the Diocese of Madison on October 16th and will be at a number of places in the Archdiocese of Chicago the previous week.