Daily Holy Hour and Archbishop Fulton J Sheen

Above video: The Holy Hour – a Eucharistic revival starts with you! (9.5 mins.)

LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY

“Could You Not Watch One Hour with Me?”

WHY MAKE A HOLY HOUR? by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Here are ten reasons.

1. It is time spent in the presence of Our Lord Himself. If faith is alive,  no further reason is needed….

2. In our busy lives, it takes considerable time to shake off the “noonday devils,” the worldly cares, that cling to our souls like dust….

3. Our Lord asked for it. “Had you no strength, then, to watch with me even for an hour?”….

4. The Holy Hour keeps a balance between the spiritual and the practical….

5. The Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach….

6. The Holy Hour helps us make reparation for the sins of the world and for our own sins. When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary, it was His Heart, and not His head, that was crowned with thorns. It was Love that was hurt. Black Masses, sacrilegious communions, scandals, militant atheism—who will make up for them?….

7. It reduces our liability to temptation and weakness. Presenting ourselves before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is like putting a tubercular patient in good air and sunlight. The virus of our sins cannot long exist in the face of the Light of the world….

8. The Holy Hour is a personal prayer….

9. Meditation keeps us from seeking an external escape from our worries and miseries….

10. Finally, the Holy Hour is necessary for the Church…. To abide with Christ is spiritual fellowship, as He insisted on the solemn and sacred night of the Last Supper, the moment He chose to give us the Eucharist: “You have only to live on in me, and I will live on in you” (John 15:4). He wants us in His dwelling: “That you, too, may be where I am” (John 14:3).

 Below is the full version of the abbreviated text above.

Here are ten reasons.

1. It is time spent in the presence of Our Lord Himself. If faith is alive, no further reason is needed.

2. In our busy lives, it takes considerable time to shake off the “noonday devils,” the worldly cares, that cling to our souls like dust. An hour with Our Lord follows the experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). We begin by walking with Our Lord, but our eyes are “held fast” so that we do not “recognize him.” Next, He converses with our soul, as we read the Scriptures. The third stage is one of sweet intimacy, as when “he sat down at table with them.” The fourth stage is the full dawning of the mystery of the Eucharist. Our eyes are “opened,” and we recognize Him. Finally, we reach the point where we do not want to leave. The hour seemed so short. As we arise, we ask: “Were not our hearts burning within us when he spoke to us on the road, and when he made the Scriptures plain to us?” (Luke 24:32).

3. Our Lord asked for it. “Had you no strength, then, to watch with me even for an hour?” (see Matt. 26:40). The word was addressed to Peter, but he is referred to as Simon. It is our Simon nature that needs the hour. If the hour seems hard, it is because “the spirit is willing enough, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38).

4. The Holy Hour keeps a balance between the spiritual and the practical. Western philosophies tend to an activism in which God does nothing, and man everything; the Eastern philosophies tend to a quietism in which God does everything, and man nothing. The golden mean is in the words of St. Thomas: “action following rest,” Martha walking with Mary. The Holy Hour unites the contemplative to the active life of the person. Thanks to the hour with Our Lord, our meditations and resolutions pass from the conscious to the subconscious and then become motives of action. A new spirit begins to pervade our work. The change is effected by Our Lord, who fills our heart and works through our hands. A person can give only what he possesses. To give Christ to others, one must possess Him.

5. The Holy Hour will make us practice what we preach. “Here is an image,” he said, “of the kingdom of heaven: there was once a king, who held a marriage feast for his son and sent out his servants with a summons to all those whom he had invited to the wedding; but they would not come” (Matt. 22:2–3). It was written of Our Lord that He “began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1). The person who practices the Holy Hour will find that when he teaches, the people will say of him as of the Lord: “All … were astonished at the gracious words which came from his mouth” (Luke 4:22).

6. The Holy Hour helps us make reparation for the sins of the world and for our own sins. When the Sacred Heart appeared to St. Margaret Mary, it was His Heart, and not His head, that was crowned with thorns. It was Love that was hurt. Black Masses, sacrilegious communions, scandals, militant atheism—who will make up for them? Who will be an Abraham for Sodom, a Mary for those who have no wine? The sins of the world are our sins as if we had committed them. If they caused Our Lord a bloody sweat, to the point that He upbraided His disciples for failing to stay with Him an hour, shall we with Cain ask: “Is it for me to watch over my brother?” (Gen. 4:9).

7. It reduces our liability to temptation and weakness. Presenting ourselves before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is like putting a tubercular patient in good air and sunlight. The virus of our sins cannot long exist in the face of the Light of the world. “Always I can keep the Lord within sight; always he is at my right hand, to make me stand firm” (Ps. 15:8). Our sinful impulses are prevented from arising through the barrier erected each day by the Holy Hour. Our will becomes disposed to goodness with little conscious effort on our part. Satan, the roaring lion, was not permitted to put forth his hand to touch righteous Job until he received permission (Job 1:12). Certainly, then, will the Lord withhold serious fall from him who watches (1 Cor. 10:13). With full confidence in his Eucharistic Lord, the person will have a spiritual resiliency. He will bounce back quickly after a falling: “Fall I, it is but to rise again, sit I in darkness, the Lord will be my light. The Lord’s displeasure I must bear, I that have sinned against him, till at last, he admits my plea, and grants redress” (Micah 7:8–9). The Lord will be favorable even to the weakest of us, if He finds us at His feet in adoration, disposing ourselves to receive divine favors. No sooner had Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor, humbled himself before his Maker than God sent a special messenger to his relief, telling him that “even now he is at his prayers” (Acts 9:11). Even the person who has fallen can expect reassurance if he watches and prays. “They shall increase, that hitherto had dwindled, be exalted, that once were brought low” (Jer. 30:19).

8. The Holy Hour is a personal prayer. The person who limits himself strictly to his official obligation is like the union man who downs tools the moment the whistle blows. Love begins when duty finishes. It is a giving of the cloak when the coat is taken. It is walking the extra mile. “Answer shall come ere cry for help is uttered; prayer find audience while it is yet on their lips” (Isa. 65:24). Of course, we do not have to make a Holy Hour—and that is just the point. Love is never compelled, except in hell. There love has to submit to justice. To be forced to love would be a kind of hell. No man who loves a woman is obligated to give her an engagement ring, and no person who loves the Sacred Heart ever has to give an engagement Hour. “Would you, too, go away?” (John 6:68) is weak love; “Art thou sleeping?” (Mark 14:37) is irresponsible love; “He had great possessions” (Matt. 19:22; Mark 10:22) is selfish love. But does the person who loves His Lord have time for other activities before he performs acts of love “above and beyond the call of duty”? Does the patient love the physician who charges for every call, or does he begin to love when the physician says: “I just dropped by to see how you were”?

9. Meditation keeps us from seeking an external escape from our worries and miseries. When difficulties arise, when nerves are made taut by false accusations, there is always a danger that we may look outwards, as the Israelites did, for release… From the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, word was given you: “Come back and keep still, and all shall be well with you; in quietness and in confidence lies your strength. But you would have none of it; To horse! you cried, We must flee! and flee you shall; We must ride swiftly, you said, but swifter still ride your pursuers” (Isa. 30:15–16). No outward escape, neither pleasure, drink, friends, or keeping busy, is an answer. The soul cannot “fly upon a horse”; he must take “wings” to a place where his “life is hidden away … with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

10. Finally, the Holy Hour is necessary for the Church. No one can read the Old Testament without becoming conscious of the presence of God in history. How often did God use other nations to punish Israel for her sins! He made Assyria the “rod that executes my vengeance” (Isa. 10:5). The history of the world since the Incarnation is the Way of the Cross. The rise of nations and their fall remain related to the kingdom of God. We cannot understand the mystery of God’s government, for it is the “sealed book” of Revelation. John wept when he saw it (Rev. 5:4). He could not understand why this moment of prosperity and that hour of adversity. The sole requirement is the venture of faith, and the reward is the depths of intimacy for those who cultivate His friendship. To abide with Christ is spiritual fellowship, as He insisted on the solemn and sacred night of the Last Supper, the moment He chose to give us the Eucharist: “You have only to live on in me, and I will live on in you” (John 15:4). He wants us in His dwelling: “That you, too, may be where I am” (John 14:3).

• Read the full text in this pdf flyer: “Why Make a Holy Hour?” by Archbishop Sheen
  • • • Francais – « Pourquoi faire une heure sainte? » par Mgr Fulton Sheen

Source: “The Holy Hour Prayer Book: Could You Not Watch One Hour With Me” By Fulton J. Sheen, shared with permission of the publisher, Al. J. Smith of www.bishopsheentoday.com

 

ARCHBISHOP FULTON SHEEN, HIS HOLY HOUR AND “LITTLE LI”

 

A few months before his death, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was interviewed on national television. One of the questions was:  “Bishop Sheen, you have inspired millions of people all over the world.  Who inspired you to make a Holy Hour every day?

Bishop Sheen responded that it was not a Pope, a cardinal, another bishop, or even a priest or a nun. It was a little Chinese girl of eleven years of age.

He explained that when the Communists took over China, they imprisoned a priest in his own rectory near the Church.  After they locked him up in his own house, the priest was horrified to look out of his window and see the Communists proceed into the Church, where they went into the sanctuary and broke into the tabernacle.

In an act of hateful desecration, they took the ciborium and threw it on the floor with all of the Sacred Hosts spilling out. The priest knew exactly how many Hosts were in the ciborium:  thirty-two. When the Communists left, they either did not notice, or didn’t pay any attention to a small girl praying in the back of the Church who saw everything that had happened.

That night the little girl came back. Slipping past the guard at the priest’s house, she went inside the Church. There she made a holy hour of prayer, an act of love to make up for the act of hatred. After her holy hour she went into the sanctuary, knelt down, bent over and with her tongue received Jesus in Holy Communion.  The little girl continued to come back each night to make her holy hour and receive Jesus in Holy Communion on her tongue.

On the thirty-second night, after she had consumed the last and thirty-second host, she accidentally made a noise and woke the guard who was sleeping. He ran after her, caught her, and beat her to death with the butt of his rifle. This act of heroic martyrdom was witnessed by the priest as he watched grief-stricken from his bedroom window.

When Bishop Sheen heard the story he was so inspired that he promised God he would make a holy hour of prayer before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament everyday of his life.  If this frail, little child could give testimony and witness to the world concerning the real and wonderful Presence of her Savior in the Blessed Sacrament, then the Bishop was absolutely bound by all that was right and true, to do the same. His sole desire from then on was to bring the world to the burning Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The little girl martyr of the Eucharist, “Little Li, showed the Bishop what true courage and zeal really are; how faith can overcome all fear, and how true love for Jesus in the Eucharist must transcend life itself.

What is hidden in the Sacred Host is the glory of His love. The sun in the sky is symbolic of the Son of God in the Blessed Sacrament. This is why most monstrances are in the form of a sunburst. As the sun is the natural source of all energy, the Blessed Sacrament is the supernatural source of all grace and love. The Blessed Sacrament is JESUS, the Light of the world.

An excerpt from Treasures in Clay – The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen:

“I resolved also to spend a continuous Holy Hour every day in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament…The Holy Hour. Is it difficult?

Sometimes it seemed to be hard; it might mean having to forego a special engagement, or rise an hour earlier, but on the whole it has never been a burden, only a joy….

The purpose of the Holy Hour is to encourage a deep personal encounter with Christ. The holy and glorious God is constantly inviting us to come to Him, to hold converse with Him, to ask for such things as we need and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him…

l have found that it takes some time to catch fire in prayer. This has been one of the advantages of the daily hour. It is not so brief as to prevent the soul from collecting itself and shaking off the multitudinous distractions of the world.

Sitting before the Presence is like a body exposing itself before the sun to absorb its rays. Silence in the Hour is a tete-a-tete with the Lord.

In those moments one does not so much pour out written prayers, but listening takes its place. We do not say: ‘Listen, Lord, for Thy servant speaks’, but ‘Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.’”

The Holy Hour

“Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are proceeded by a personal encounter with Him. Theological insights are gained not only from between two covers of a book, but from two bent knees before an altar. The Holy Hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world.”

– Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Sources:

• Office of Divine Worship, Diocese of St. Louis, MO, e-newsletter, February 2023
• https://www.journeywithus.asia/corpus-christi-venerable-fulton-sheen-and-little-li-the-martyred-chinese-girl/
• Sheen’s autobiography “Treasures in Clay”
• https://aleteia.org/2022/03/31/how-a-little-girls-eucharistic-faith-inspired-fulton-sheen/
• https://www.myfirstholycommunion.com/portfolio-view/little-li/

Click here for the flyer – Archbishop Sheen, his holy hour and “Little Li” – pdf

• Francais: Une petite chinoise de 11 ans martyre de l’Eucharistie (aleteia.org)

HOW TO MAKE A HOLY HOUR (FOR LAITY)

By Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

“Let nothing hinder thee from praying always; and be not afraid to be justified even to death for the rewards of God continue forever. Before prayer prepare thy soul; and be not as a man that tempt God” (Sir. 18:22–23, Douay-Rheims).

Prayer is the lifting of our soul to God unto the end of perfectly corresponding to His holy will. Our Divine Lord, describing His mission, said: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me .. . the Father, that I should lose nothing of what he has given me, but that I should raise it up on the last day” (see John 6:38–39). “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, to accomplish his work” (see John 4:34). To correspond to the divine will, we must, first of all, know it, and secondly, have the grace and strength to correspond with it, once it is known. But to attain these two gifts of light for our minds and power for our wills, we must live on terms of intimate friendship with God.

This is done through prayer. A prayerful life is, therefore, one lived in conformity with the holy will of God as a prayerless life is a life of self will and selfishness. There is an element of prayer common to Jews, Protestants, and Catholics—namely, belief in God. More than half of the prayers, for example, which a priest says in his Divine Office, are taken from the Old Testament. In relation to all three—that is, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics—a Holy Hour will, therefore, be understood as one hour a day spent in meditating on God and our eternal salvation. This Holy Hour can be made anywhere.

For Catholics, however, the Holy Hour has a very special significance. It means a continuous and unbroken hour spent in the presence of Our Divine Lord in the Eucharist…. In the case of priests and religious, it is suggested that they make this Holy Hour in addition to their usual recitation of the Divine Office and Holy Mass. This Holy Hour will be spent in prayer and meditation. A distinction is here made between the two, with the emphasis on the latter. By prayer, we here understand the recitation of formal prayers, generally composed by a person different from him who prays. “Could You Not Watch One Hour with Me?”

The psalms represent one of the highest forms of vocal prayer and are common to Jews, Protestants, and Catholics. Other vocal prayers include the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, the Confiteor, Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and thousands of other prayers found in
religious books. There are three kinds of attention in vocal prayer: (1) to the words, lest we say them wrong; (2) to their sense and meaning; and (3) to God and the intention for which we pray. The last kind of attention is essential to vocal prayer. But the principal purpose of these Holy Hour meditations is the cultivation of mental prayer, or meditation. Very few souls ever meditate; they are either frightened by the word or else were never taught its existence. In the human order, a person in love is always conscious of the one loved, lives in the presence of the other, resolves to do the will of the other, and regards as his greatest jealousy being outdone in the least advantage of self-giving. Apply this to a soul in love with God, and you have the rudiments of meditation. Meditation is, therefore, a kind of communing of spirit with spirit,
with God as its object. Without attempting to set down the formal aspects of meditation, but to make it as intelligible as possible to beginners, the technique of meditation is as follows:

1. We speak to God. We begin by putting ourselves in the presence of God. For those who make the Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, there must be a consciousness of our presence before the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Naturally, there are varying degrees of intimacy with persons. In a theater, there are hundreds present but little or no intimacy between them. The intimacy deepens to the degree that we establish conversation with one or more of them, and according as this conversation springs from a common interest. So
   it is with God. Prayer, then, is not a mere asking for things, but an aiming at a transformation; that is, a becoming “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29, KJV). We pray not to dispose God to give us something, but to dispose ourselves to receive something from Him: the fullness of divine life.
2. God speaks to us. Activity is not only on the human side but also on the divine. A conversation is an exchange, not a monologue. As the soul wills to draw near God, God wills to draw near the soul. It would be wrong to monopolize a conversation with friends; it is more wrong to do so in our relations with God. We must not do all the talking; we must also be good listeners. “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth” (1 Kings [1 Sam.] 3:9, KJV). The soul now experiences the truth of the words “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (see James 4:8). All during the meditation, it will conceive devout affections of adoration, petition, sacrifice, and reparation to God, but particularly at the close of the meditation. These affections or colloquies are to be offered preferably in our own words, for every soul must love God in its own way, and God loves each soul in a particular manner. In the beginning, the soul attracted to Jesus by some impulse of grace, comes to Him, filled with natural thoughts and aspirations, and very ignorant of the supernatural. It understands neither God nor itself. It has a few intimate relations with the Divinity outside of itself and within itself, but it begins to converse with Jesus. If it persists in the frequentation of His company, the Lord gradually takes an ever-increasing share in the conversation and begins to enlighten the soul. In its contemplation of the mysteries of faith, He aids it to penetrate beneath the words and facts and symbols, hitherto known but superficially, and to grasp the inner sense of the supernatural truths contained in these facts or words or symbols. The Scriptures are gradually opened to the soul. The well-known texts begin to acquire a new and deeper meaning. Familiar expressions convey a knowledge, which the soul wonders never to have before discovered in them. All this new light is directed towards giving a fuller and more perfect comprehension of the mysteries of our faith, which are the mysteries of the life of Jesus.

Click to access How-to-Make-a-Holy-Hour-Fulton-Sheen.pdf

• Francais How to Make Holy Hour – Sheen COMMENT FAIRE UNE HEURE SAINTE (POUR LES LAÏCS) pdf

Archbishop Fulton Sheen audio and video recordings:

• Audiofile – The Daily Holy Hour by Bishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – The Holy Hour by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – The Lord Asks for One Hour by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – The Priest, the Holy Hour, and the Heart of Christ by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – Holy Eucharist as Sacrament by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – Holy Eucharist as Sacrifice by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – The Mass by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – The Precious Blood by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofile – Eucharist: Christ Present for Us by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Audiofiles of Sheen
• Listen to Sheen
• Watch Sheen
• Video – The Hour of Power by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Video – The Holy Hour of Adoration – Ven. Fulton Sheen
• Video – Daily Holy Hour by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
• Podcasts: The School of Sheen and the Holy Rosary Program by Al Smith
• Bishop Sheen on Sound Cloud with Al Smith
• Recordings of talks of Bishop Sheen on FM 98.5 by Al Smith
• Radio Maria recordings – Bishop Sheen Presents show
• Video – Making the Mass Come Alive For You & Ten Good Reasons to Make a Holy Hour. Lenten Parish Mission by Allan Smith
• Video – 10 Reasons to Make a Holy Hour by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen – talk by Al Smith
• Video – How and Why to make a Holy Hour by Archbishop Fulton Sheen – talk by Allan Smith
• Video – Al Smith talks about prayer and the Holy Hour

We provide our Adoration Parish and Coordinators network with more Archbishop Fulton Sheen adoration materials like this:

• Full text media insert pdf flyer: “Why Make a Holy Hour?” by Archbishop Sheen, click HERE or button below
• Flyer pdf:  The Urgent Need for a daily holy hour by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
  • Francais – Urgent Heure Sainte Quotidienne par Mgr Sheen

THE URGENT NEED FOR EUCHARISTIC ADORATION
AND FOR MAKING A DAILY HOLY HOUR

More Quotes of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s request: “I am asking you, every single day of your life without any exception, to make a continuous hour of adoration in the Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament…”

“Because we live in a demonic age, the time has come to take seriously this Holy Hour. It is the only thing our Blessed Lord ever asked us to do, ever asked directly of His disciples: ‘Can you not stay awake one hour with me?'”

“Who should make it [a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration]? Bishops, for an apathetic world, so that during that Holy Hour the Blessed Lord will speak to them, as He spoke to Paul at Corinth. ‘Be courageous, be not silent, speak out, I am with you.'”

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen continues, speaking of who should make a Holy Hour: “Priests. Make the Holy Hour. It may be a sacramental sign of our victimhood. Would you have power in the pulpit? Would you be able to console the sick? Would you be able to make converts? Then spend the Hour with our Lord. When you mount the pulpit you will shoot forth sparks, and the people will love you.”

“Sisters, you wonderful women, who bear a visible sign of your union with Christ, make the Holy Hour—and understand how much the children in schools are yearning for you to come back. Married couples, make the Holy Hour, to make up for an abortion every thirty seconds. Prove that the Lord is the Lord of life and not of death.”

“All you who are engaged in social work, treating humanity in any form, make the Holy Hour. Believe me, when you begin to see the invisible Christ behind that visible sign of Bread, you will soon begin to see in the poor and the naked the invisible Christ whom they represent. That is the vision that makes Mother Teresa one of the leaders of the world in the love of the poor.”

“And you young people, young men and young women, do not believe that the joy of life consists in a titillation of the flesh, but see that love is sacrificial; and when you make a Holy Hour, then you will begin to understand that the real rock is Peter, and the gates of hell shall not prevail.”

“Everyone, make the Holy Hour, and you will discover as you leave the divine Presence that if you move among people in the world, they will say of you as the maid said of Peter, ‘You have been with Christ.’ And then at the end of a lifetime spent in adoration of the Lord, and in love of the Blessed Mother, of the Blessed Sacrament, when you come before the Lord do you know what He will say to you? He will say, ‘I heard my Mother speak of you.'”

“The secret (to my preaching) is that I have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour [daily] in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That’s where the power comes from. That’s where sermons are born.”

Click here for The Urgent need daily hour Fulton Sheen – pdf

• Francais – Urgent Heure Sainte Quotidienne par Mgr Fulton Sheen

More Archbishop Fulton Sheen Audio-visual materials

The Sheen Catechism

Love, Marriage and Children

The Spirituality of St. Terese of Lisieux

Various Subjects