Priest and three young adults visit 16 adoration chapels in one day

Ethan Green, left, Lucy Merth and Father Jonathan Meyer kneel in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament on July 22 in the perpetual adoration chapel of St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis. The three and another young adult visited all 16 perpetual adoration chapels in the archdiocese that day. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

Father Jonathan Meyer was honest. He called it “a crazy idea.”

But it’s one that he and three young adults embraced wholeheartedly. In the process, they witnessed the beauty and power of prayer from one end of the archdiocese to the other.

The four made a pilgrimage by visiting all 16 perpetual adoration chapels in central and southern Indiana in one day on July 22. They started at 6 a.m. at the chapel on the St. John the Baptist campus of All Saints Parish in Dearborn County and completed it at 8 p.m. at the chapel at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Aurora.

Over the course of the day, the tour was livestreamed in a series of short videos on All Saints Parish’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@allparish/shorts.

They spent 15 minutes in prayer in each chapel, interceding with God for specific intentions in each place, totaling four hours of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament across the day. Over the course of the day, the four spent 10 hours driving across the archdiocese.

“It’s been a powerful experience,” said Father Meyer at about 12:30 p.m. at St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis. Its adoration chapel was the 11th one he and the young adults visited that day.

Father Meyer was ordained in 2003 and in every place that he’s ministered there has been a perpetual adoration chapel, including St. Luke where he served as parochial vicar from 2006-08. He currently serves in the four parishes in Dearborn County.

Father Meyer’s close connection to these chapels has also come about through him establishing three of them. He began perpetual adoration at St. Mary Parish in North Vernon in 2010, at All Saints in 2017 and at St. Mary in Aurora in 2024.

“My entire priesthood has known nothing but perpetual adoration,” Father Meyer said. “All I can say is that it bears fruit, and it works. It changes people’s lives.”

‘The powerhouse of prayer’

It certainly changed Lucy Herth’s life. Herth, 28, is the youth minister at All Saints Parish. She was one of the three young adults on the pilgrimage on July 22.

Of the 16 adoration chapels that she visited that day, the one at St. Patrick Parish in Terre Haute meant the most to her.

“It was the first adoration chapel where I regularly spent time with the Lord,” Herth said in an e-mail to The Criterion of her time when she was a college student in Terre Haute. “It was there that my relationship with Jesus deepened and where I began to recognize his call to serve him in ministry. Returning after so many years felt incredibly personal.”

Herth was amazed at the unique beauty of each chapel she visited during the day.

“Each one reflected the love and care that a parish had poured into creating a sacred place where people could encounter Christ,” she said. “Although every chapel was unique, each one pointed to the same eucharistic Lord.”

At the adoration chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Bedford, Merth, Ethan Green and Rachel Fairfield, the other young adults on the pilgrimage, and Father Meyer saw beauty in grief being shared by strangers in what Herth described as “God’s perfect timing.”

At that chapel, the pilgrims were praying for people suffering in any way. Just before they were getting ready to leave to go on to the next chapel, someone knocked on its door.

Father Meyer spoke about the experience in a homily during a Mass the next day at All Saints’ St. Joseph campus, viewed by The Criterion in an archived online video.

The priest opened the door and met a young adult man from Evansville, Ind., who was in Bedford on a work project. He was looking for a place to pray after learning that he and his girlfriend had just lost their unborn daughter to a miscarriage 16 weeks into his girlfriend’s pregnancy.

“And then he started crying and fell into my arms,” Father Meyer recalled. “He would not let go. I just put my hands on his shoulders, I looked him in the eye and I told him, ‘You are in the perfect place. God loves you and you’re a good father. … You have a child in heaven right now that sees her father because he’s grieving. Your child is rejoicing that you love the Lord.’ ”

As Father Meyer and the young adults prepared to leave for the next chapel, he turned to a woman praying in the chapel who was there for her weekly hour of adoration.

He brought the young man into the chapel and introduced her to him. She immediately sat beside him to console him and pray with him.

“This is why adoration is so awesome,” Father Meyer said in his homily. “It is the powerhouse of prayer. We were at St. Vincent de Paul to pray for people who are suffering and here’s a man who’s grieving. He goes to the church and finds people there who are praying 24 hours per day.”

The gift of eucharistic adoration

The pilgrims also experienced some lighthearted moments of fun in their travels across the archdiocese.

“There was so much laughter, singing, storytelling, praying and simply enjoying one another’s company,” Merth said.

She recalled how the pilgrims called a phone number on the side of a business van they were behind just out of curiosity about what work the company did.

The driver of the van answered the call.

“When we drove past the van,” Merth recalled, “the driver noticed the large Jesus decal on Father Meyer’s vehicle and laughed, saying, ‘Hey! You have Jesus in your car! I’ve been looking for him! You’ve had him this whole time!’ ”

That moment of fun and laughter led Merth to prayerful reflection later.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about those words,” she said. “Isn’t that true for so many of us? We spend our lives searching for Jesus, while he waits for us so faithfully in our adoration chapels.”

In his ministry in parishes across central and southern Indiana, Father Meyer has witnessed the power that adoration chapels can have, especially given the fact that hundreds of people will come to pray in them from day to day and week to week.

“I don’t know anything else that brings so much life to a parish,” he said. “It’s a silent ministry. It’s very different from a festival or a school. People just come in, they love the Lord and they leave. But their lives are changed.

“Perpetual adoration works. I’ve never met a priest who opened an adoration chapel and then said, ‘That was a bad decision.’ It’s such a gift.”

(For an online list of perpetual adoration chapels in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, go to archindy.org/perpetual-adoration-chapels.) †

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Prayer intentions during adoration chapel pilgrimage

Father Jonathan Meyer and three young adults made a pilgrimage on July 22 in which they visited all 16 perpetual adoration chapels in the archdiocese in one day.

At each chapel, they prayed for a specific intention that often was related to the patron saint of the parish. Here are the intentions they prayed for at each parish adoration chapel they visited:

• All Saints Parish in Dearborn County: Bishops, priests and deacons.
• St. Nicholas Parish in Ripley County: Children.
• Holy Family Parish in Oldenburg: Marriages and families.
• St. Louis Parish in Batesville: Government leaders.
• St. Mary Parish in Greensburg: Mothers.
• St. Joseph Parish in Shelbyville: Fathers.
• Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood: Religious sisters.
• St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis: Encouragement and affirmation in the Church.
• St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Indianapolis: Spiritual protection upon parishes and the archdiocese.
• St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis: Conversion for children, grandchildren and godchildren who are away from the Church.
• St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis: Doctors, nurses and all the sick.
• St. Thomas More Parish in Mooresville: Those who are persecuted.
• St. Patrick Parish in Terre Haute: Revival and renewal.
• St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Bedford: The poor, underprivileged and suffering.
• St. Mary Parish in North Vernon: Vocations to the priesthood.
• St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Aurora: Physical, mental and emotional healing.

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Graphic by Rachel Fairfield