QUINCY -- In August, the stuffy windowless shack next to the food pantry at St. John the Baptist Parish in Quincy had its windows boarded up and its siding peeling away.

The shack was built in the 1920s as a stable for horses. It was later used for storage, but sat empty until recently. The inside was strewn with dead leaves. The only pieces of furniture were two old mattresses and a workbench, but parishioner Tom Lester could see a glorious, classical chapel for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

He envisioned an altar that once belonged to Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart and statues of the Holy Family and a crucifix from the former Cambridge Matignon School. In place of the wooden boards, he saw stained-glass windows made by Uxbridge-based artisan Michael Martino depicting the Holy Family, St. Michael, St. John the Baptist, Pope St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Blessed Solanus Casey, and St. Peter Julian Eymard, founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. He even had the idea to set up a computer program allowing parishioners to sign up for adoration hours.

"Jesus put on my heart to build a perpetual adoration chapel," Lester said.

As of November, the City of Quincy and Archbishop Richard G. Henning have approved plans for the 700-square-foot Holy Family Perpetual Adoration Chapel. Construction has begun, and the chapel will be completed and open to the public in May 2026.

Lester's first encounter with adoration was when he visited Medjugorje in 2004. He spent three hours on his knees in adoration. To him, it felt like three minutes.

"Listening," he said about what adoration means to him. "Let your mind get away from the electronics that are a big part of our lives now. Total peace."

Inspiration struck in 2021, when Lester was asked to look after the Quincy convent of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth while they attended the March for Life. He was adoring the Eucharist in the convent chapel when he got the idea to build one for the parish. A week later, he spoke to Father Matt Williams, pastor of St. John's. It turned out that Father Williams had been praying about building such a chapel for months. His previous parish had perpetual adoration, and vocations increased as a result.

Lester enlisted the help of Stephen Wessling, founder of Wessling Architects of Braintree. Wessling "jumped right on board," Lester said, as did contractor John Barry of J.S. Barry Development in Hingham. It was Barry's idea to make the former stables into the chapel.

"They've done a beautiful job with it," he said. "It's going to be a very special space."

Wessling discovered adoration when on Cursillo in 1990, and it makes him feel "plugged in" whenever he is looking for peace.

"I feel like I become connected to the universal church when I sit in the adoration chapel," he said, "because it makes me think about people who are in a prayerful moment around the world and, to me, it's very humbling, and it's a very peaceful experience."

Wessling attended the former St. John School next to the parish. His older brother was an altar boy, who would wake Wessling up at 5 a.m. to accompany him to the 6 a.m. Masses he served. The Wesslings would pray the rosary and the Stations of the Cross together regularly.

"Long story short, I never lost my faith because of my family, because of the people I had here, the sisters, the priests," he said. "And it ended up I grew my faith over and over."

When he was approached to design the chapel, he was nearing retirement. He had worked on churches before and is currently renovating a parish in Indiana, which he said has a perpetual adoration chapel and is "booming."

"This one here was one of those special opportunities in my life," he said. "The ultimate, a perpetual adoration chapel dedicated to focusing on God. And we don't have enough people going to church or enough priests, or enough nuns. We've got to do something, and this is the best answer I can think of."

Barry sees the chapel as a chance for "resurrection."

"To me, it's an opportunity to be bold and to be courageous and to be part of a rebirth or regrowth of the church, which I do think is happening," he said.

Lester said that "forces for evil," such as the pandemic and the ensuing economic turmoil, undermined the chapel. Several donors had to back out of funding the project. Lester was not discouraged. The project received a grant from the McNeice Foundation and support from many other donors.

He was inspired by the fact that the building was once a stable, as well as a quirk in the chapel's original design. The chapel was originally supposed to have 35 seats, but two were removed to make room for wheelchair users.

"So now the seating sits at 33, which is obviously the age of our Lord's death," he said. "And there were numerous instances like that that came before us, that told us to keep going forward."

Lester said that faith is what brings people to adore the Eucharist at all hours of the day and night. He works in the seafood business and leaves for work at 3:30 a.m. Ten years ago, he was one of the only cars on the road. Nowadays, he's surrounded by traffic.

"People are living their lives 24 hours," he said.

St. John's and its sister parish, St. Joseph, have a thriving young adult community that regularly attends adoration. About 3,500 people came for adoration over six weeks during the pandemic.

"Why wouldn't we want to have adoration?" Father Williams said. "Jesus eagerly desires that."

Father Williams said "the power of the sacraments" was awakened in him when he went on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. He started to attend adoration regularly, which led to him becoming a priest.

A 2024 Georgetown University report, which surveyed 392 of the 475 priests ordained in the U.S. that year, found that 75 percent of them regularly attended adoration before entering the seminary.

"John Paul II, for me, growing up, embodied that," Father Williams said, "and brought the power of adoration to young people. And the importance of having, engaging young people with adoration, and how important that is to contemplate Jesus."

Father Williams likes to say that Jesus "spoils" him by bringing men like Lester, Barry, and Wessling into his life.

"This is able to happen because they are real men of God and real Christian men and believe in this, and are willing to put their lives behind it," he said. "If they didn't, we'd probably be looking at about 10 years of fundraising to try to make this thing happen."