HOLY HOUR IN THE HOME

Even in one’s home during this time of self- isolation, one can make a holy hour.  Set aside a small area in one room, before the crucifix or holy picture. It can be a quiet time for spiritual reading, alone or with the whole family. It can be a time to pray the rosary, or a time for quiet reflection and prayer.

When Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen was a young priest, he promised Our Lord to make a Holy Hour daily before the Blessed Sacrament, a promise he kept for his sixty years as a priest.   It was during his daily Holy Hour that he learned to listen to the Heart of Jesus and accept the gift of Divine Friendship and he often preached the benefit of Eucharistic adoration.  

 “I keep up the Holy Hour to grow more and more into His likeness… Looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way as the face of Moses was transformed after his companionship with God on the mountain.

The Holy Hour is not a devotion; it is a sharing in the work of redemption. ‘Could you not watch one hour with Me?’ Not for an hour of activity did He plead, but for an hour of companionship.

The purpose of the Holy Hour is to encourage deep personal encounter with Christ. The holy and glorious God is constantly inviting us to come to Him, to hold converse with Him and to ask such things as we need and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him. One of the by-products of the Holy Hour was the sensitiveness to the Eucharistic Presence of Our Divine Lord.”
                        (Treasure in Clay, The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen)