Dear Friends at Saint Frances Cabrini Parish and Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish: Praised be Jesus Christ! Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration is a long-standing Catholic custom that involves spending time in prayer before an exposed, consecrated Host displayed in a special vessel called a monstrance. It is a lovely way to pray but it is also a labor intensive undertaking because it requires coordinating adorers to take dedicated time to spend in front of a monstrance. Here in West Bend we have managed to pull this off quite successfully for over a decade now which is a real testament to the dedication and faith of our parish communities. Many years ago a regular schedule of Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration took root at Holy Angels Parish, and it grew to become a sustained prayer presence of adoration all night and all day for five days at a time. In more recent years, the location Exposition and Adoration remained at Holy Angels, but the group of scheduled adorers was intentionally expanded to encompass many members from Saint Frances Cabrini and Saint Mary’s Parishes as well. In this way it truly became a West Bend-wide prayer effort. Covid19 forced a radical shrinking of this dedicated prayer time, but it has hung on as a vital part of our regular area prayer routine. Now that we have made cultural steps to return to as many pre-Covid19 routines as we can, we now want to re-build and even expand our Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration ministry here in the West Bend area. In order to do this, Father Howard and I thought that now would be a good time to consider if there is a different location for a dedicated adoration space in West Bend than the beloved Holy Angels cry room that has hosted it for so long. Holy Angels has some legitimate needs for a dedicated sacristy space that need to be addressed, and it is also true that the cry room space that everyone is used to has always suffered from some liturgical limitations that made extended Exposition and Adoration difficult. Knowing these things, we began looking for a new location for Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration with the understanding that wherever we located it, this would continue to be a West Bend-wide ministry supported by all the parishes. We are excited to announce that Saint Frances Cabrini is able to offer a new space for an adoration chapel here in West Bend. The final plans are still working their way through the formal approval process required by the Archdiocese, but enough voices have already weighed in to allow us to begin the move to the new location. The new adoration chapel will be located in what is currently the large main sacristy adjacent to the Cabrini narthex. Changing this space over from a sacristy to a dedicated adoration chapel will require some light construction work, but all of it appears do-able. We will begin work on this change-over this fall, and if all goes well, we hope to be able to begin regular adoration in the new space by mid to late winter. This move will allow us to have a space for Eucharistic Exposition and Adoration in West Bend that is dedicated only and solely to this type of prayer, enabling us to strengthen and even expand this ministry. We are very excited that this will be possible knowing it is a blessing to all of our area parishes. More details will be made available in the weeks ahead.