Very late on Friday nights, Jennifer Sidone leaves her husband and children at home and goes out on a date.

“That’s my date night with the Lord,” said Sidone, who heads for the perpetual adoration chapel in St. Raphael-Holy Angels Parish, Hamilton, where she spends an hour – from midnight to 1 a.m. – in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

Sidone is one of many parishioners who appreciates the vision and desire her pastor, Father Jeffrey Kegley, had for wanting to establish perpetual adoration, which was officially inaugurated in the parish Nov. 1, the feast of All Saints.

“There was such a tremendous outpouring of support” among parishioners when Father Kegley announced that he wanted to have perpetual adoration in the parish, Sidone recalled.

“Father Jeff knew that is what the parishioners longed for, wanted and needed and the people were committed to it,” she said.

Sidone, who noted that she has since added another hour of adoration to her schedule on Mondays from 4 to 5 a.m., said that through her visits to the chapel, she has come to treasure the time she spends in prayer and “talking with God.”

“For people to have the opportunity to “come to the chapel at any point of the day or night to pray is immeasurable,” she said.

Fellow St. Raphael-Holy Angels parishioner Trish Leahy Teague said she became familiar with Eucharistic adoration years ago when her mother would attend holy hours that were held in Holy Angels Church “and I would stop in to church every once in a while.”

One of the changes that came about as a result of the 2005 merger between St. Raphael and Holy Angels Parishes was moving the weekly Eucharistic adoration from the Holy Angels worship site to St. Raphael.

And, with that, more people, including Teague, began expressing a desire to have “Eucharistic adoration held all of the time,” she said.

Teague was delighted when perpetual adoration was introduced in her parish and that her current schedule permits her to visit the chapel more than once a week. On Thursdays, she’s signed up to be in the chapel from 3 to 4 a.m. before she heads to work.

“It’s no problem for me to get up an hour earlier once a week,” she said, then added that while many would think she would be the only person in the chapel at that hour of the morning, it turns out that’s not the case. Since the chapel opened in November, Teague said she’s been alone “only once.”

“There are two other people who are with me at that hour,” she said. “It’s the three of us sitting there hanging out with Jesus.”

Other times Teague might be in the chapel are on Sundays when she, her husband and two young sons pray together as a family before going to Mass in St. Raphael Church, and later on in the afternoon during the week when she stops in with her sons after school.

“It’s a wonderful experience,” said Teague. “It’s not even a little bit of a sacrifice for me to attend perpetual adoration. Perpetual adoration is a beautiful thing to have. The blessings I have received from it have been incredible.”