Eucharistic Adoration; We are Bonded to Him through each moment spent in His Real Presence!

A small amount of the hormone oxytocin is released every time you make eye contact with someone. It is for this reason you come to trust other people. Now all you'll be able to think when you make eye contact with someone is "Oxytocin. Oxytocin. OXYTOCIN".

So, I've been wondering... is oxytocin released during Eucharistic adoration?

The hormone oxytocin is released during sex, childbirth and breastfeeding. It is a bonding agent. So, during these instances, not only are you bonded physically and spiritually, but chemically too. It makes sense, right?

A small amount of this hormone is also released every time you make eye contact with someone. It is for this reason you come to trust other people (see here and here for more info). Now all you'll be able to think when you make eye contact with someone is "Oxytocin. Oxytocin. OXYTOCIN."

You're welcome.

So, I've been wondering... is oxytocin released during Eucharistic adoration?

Okay, okay I know - Woah! Hold ya horsies, Michaela! Can we at least get a linking sentence?

Let's take a few steps back then, starting with the Eucharist:
"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him." (John 6:53-56)

"As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food... For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before... since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species-beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place." (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei ¶46)

Though we recognize God in each of us and "where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20), Jesus can be present to us in different levels (hear more about this from Fr Robert Barron here). Through the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus becomes fully present to us.

Therefore, when we place ourselves in Eucharistic adoration, we place ourselves in the true presence of Christ. Like a date with a loved one, there He sits before us.

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"During Eucharistic adoration, it is not only we who behold Christ, but it is also He who beholds us. When we adore the Blessed Sacrament, we are not just gazing at a beautiful but inert object. The contemplative mode of prayer that we learn during adoration presupposes that Christ returns our gaze." (Archbishop Aug DiNoia)

So, thus I wonder... as Christ gazes back upon us, does our brain release oxytocin? And if this is the case, then are we not bonded further to Him through each moment spent in His Real Presence? There have not yet been to date any experiments to prove this but what we can look at is the result of Eucharistic adoration on people's lives. I can personally attest to the change that has been made in me by spending an hour a week in adoration.

I call you, Catholics, spend regular time in Eucharistic adoration - only good can be done. And all you other peoples, I dare you: find a local Catholic Church and go to their holy hour. See if your life isn't changed.

A birth foretold: click here to learn more!

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