An Hour of Companionship
When Fulton J. Sheen was ordained a priest, he promised Our Lord to make a Holy Hour daily before the Blessed Sacrament. He remained faithful to that promise for the entire sixty years of 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. Archbishop Sheen preached the benefit of Eucharistic adoration to all people but, first of all, to his brother priests. Here are a a few of this thoughts on the Holy Hour:
“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)