Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish

Certain Sundays, we are occasionally invited to celebrate a SAAEC (ADACE in french), an acronym for Sunday Assembly in Absence of Eucharistic Celebration. This term refers to a prayer assembly held in church on a Sunday – and only on Sundays – when a proper Mass cannot be celebrated. This is a reality that we have been living with, and has been going on around us for some time. The decreasing number of priests means that a whole territory cannot be covered, and Eucharistic Sunday celebrations cannot be guaranteed every Sunday, in every church.


Foremost, one must iterate the essential and vital importance of the Sunday assembly for Christians, and so, since our very beginnings. It’s the Lord’s day, and believers are compelled to gather together and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, listen to the Word of God, and praise and glorify our Lord through hymns and prayer. Ideally, and as such was the case for a very long time, this local weekly assembly culminates in the consecration and sharing of the Eucharist,  which remains the source and summit of Christian life, and the greatest form of worship of the Lord.


But what do we do when, on a Sunday, for one reason or another, there cannot be this consecration and this breaking of the Bread? The answer is simple: we come together anyway! And we continue to be nourished by the Word and pray for the glory of God and the salvation of the world. Depending on the form of liturgy offered, it is possible to also share the Bread consecrated during a previous Eucharist.


In conclusion, the celebration of an Adace, with or without communion, is a true liturgy of the Church. It can be experienced thanks to the precious collaboration of a deacon and/or a group of faithful authorised and trained for this mission. This allows the Christian community as a whole and each baptised person in particular to experience the Lord’s Day, as it has always been since the resurrection of Jesus, to then go into the world to bear witness to what we have just celebrated.

Pierre Gosselin, Deacon