Ideas for a series of talks at Adoration?

St. Andrew's has received a Blue Ribbon Award for academic excellence; it is one of only two non-public schools in the area to receive such an award, and one of 400 total schools in the country!! As Ms. Kilty said at Back to School night, "This award was established by the No Child Left Behind - Blue Ribbon Schools Program to honor those elementary and secondary schools in the United States that make significant progress in closing the achievement gap or whose students achieve at very high levels. The program recognizes and presents as models both public and non-public elementary and secondary schools that meet wither of the two assessment criteria." Congratulations to our administration, faculty, parents, and students!
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Recently, I asked bloggers to submit suggestions on how to promote Friday night Eucharistic Adoration in a better way, and many excellent ideas were given. We will look to implement some of them in the coming year.

But, the thought has occurred to me lately that it would be good to offer a series of talks during nights of Adoration that might attract more people. I've heard of at least one parish that did this; they started doing a series of talks during weekly Adoration, and many more people came regularly. Of course, it's the Eucharist who makes the Hour completely attractive to those of us who attend. But, for many people who don't know about Adoration or think that it's not for them, they might need some other "pull" to come. It's kind of like with the Youth Group: we have used other "pulls" like Chipotle or Ledo's dinners and Starbucks gift cards that gets them in the doors. Then, sometimes after dinner and before the raffle for gift cards, we introduce them to Adoration. Sunday night, we had almost fifty teens adoring our Lord with great reverence, thanks be to God. It is possible that Adoration is now the "pull" for them!

The main focus group with this is St. A's parents and adults. (We will hopefully have Friday nights when groups of our school students and their parents come to Adoration just like last year.) A few adults have asked when are we going to offer something for them like we do the youth; I have reminded them about Adoration, Bible Study, JustFaith, Fr. Mike's refresher course, etc. We said on Monday that our youth are hungry for Christ; our adults are hungry, too!

So, if we offered a series of interesting talks that took place with some regularity on Friday nights (once or twice a month), my guess is that there will be a good response among adults.

Now, the question is, what would be some good topics for talks? We can have different topics throughout the year. I will leave some ideas and ask bloggers to leave their own. Thanks!

- Sacraments: 7 ways to get to Heaven
- 7 deadly sins
- virtues, vices
- moral issues (abortion, capital punishment, stem cell research, cloning, etc.)
- Ten Commandments
- prayer
- Beautitudes
- vocations / God's Will
- Advent and Lenten series