So begins an article in which I attempted many years ago to convince a set of parishioners to make the time somewhere to pray an hour before God. Bottom line, it is something we all need to add to our prayer life. A Holy Hour is an hour you set aside to pray and contemplate God in prayer. It occurs either before the Blessed Sacrament, or in a private space. You might say that it is impossible to find time for it. I understand, but there are several reasons to make an hour of prayer sometime during your very busy week. My experience is that one of two things happens: I find something, a gift of grace, and insight to focus on, and reaffirmation of the love of God has for me from where I am at right now. I may feel nothing at all. But later I would say that nothing was exactly what I needed. I mean that in a good way, really! There are too many stresses someone can experience, and sometimes quiet is the best thing in the world for us. The moment is nothing but silence. These are just some insights from my experience. Quietness before God may even have nothing but a sense of going through the motions. Ideas and idle thoughts might even besiege the moment and take me away from considering god. But even in those distractions, there is opportunity for spiritual growth.
In those moments, I know that turning back to God rather than giving up is meritorious and not mistaken. That you can turn your attention for thirty times in thrity minutes or sixty times in sixty minutes back to God is making spiritual progress. All the deliberate assents to giving God your time in never a waste, and in fact, is better for you than not.
St. John Vianney once noticed that a villager would pass by his Church entrance to look at the Blessed Sacrament for a few moments and then be on his way to work in the fields. He asked him what he was doing. The villager would say to him, “I look at Him and He looks at me.” St. John Vianney recognized immediately the profound truth about contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament and would repeat this phrase to others.
When we turn to God in prayer, we enter not only the one who has total regard for us, but also the one that accepts our weaknesses, listens to our concerns, teaches, and reminds us to better ourselves, and models and supplies the grace and virtue to a new life. Ultimately, he is guiding us to an eternal life. What are you willing to do to get closer to God and have God’s help?
Maybe we might better pay attention to the one who has waited literally eons of years to see and speak to us. He is more than willing to be present with you in your thoughts.
So here’s the question: What are you willing to do? To start now and pray an hour before God. Would once a week be possible to you? How about every day? If not sixty minutes every day, what about forty? If not every day, what about every week? You get to decide!
-Father Louis Lapeyre, Associate Pastor
