HOLY HOUR ^_[1]

DIVINE PROCESSION

1.  Throughout history, man has measured time by the movement of the earth relative to the sun and stars, the alternation of day and night and the recurrence of the seasons. The twelve months of the Hebrew calendar were reckoned according to the solar cycle; the days of the month corresponded to the new moons of the lunar cycle. The most ancient device for tracking time was the gnomon  (Gk. know, examine), a pointed stick or obelisk that, in the light of the sun, casts a shadow indicating the time of day. The first to describe the more familiar hemispherical sundial is the ancient Chaldean astronomer Berossus. The ancient Hebrews divided their day into twelve parts or twelve hours. They adjusted the length of their hours to compensate for short winter days or long summer days. To the Hebrews, the number twelve symbolized the tribes of Jacob, fulfillment and totality. The familiar expression eleventh hour may refer to the waning light of the Hebrew day which ended at about 9 p.m. The close of day has always fascinated man, evoking a myriad of responses as varied as the sumptuous sunsets. In the hour of sundown, he muses on the days work, the passage of time, romance, the beauty of creation, and the Divine. Not infrequently, he experiences a fear of night and the specter of loneliness. The sun, setting at the farthest horizon, speaks a language of the heart and soul. It tells us, when words are useless, that the fundamental realities of life never change, yet are ever-renewed, like the evening and the dawn of each day.  Man often views his life as a journey, and this journey is most evident by the passage of time. The most decisive events of man's temporal life are his own birth and death, his origin and destiny. The pilgrim follower of Christ permits his journey to be transformed by the Holy Spirit into a procession--ordered to the sacred expression of God's divine will and directed by the movement of seasons and feasts in the liturgical year which is itself a sign of God's sacred order. In Christ, the morning star  [cf. Rev 22:16], every dawn is a new flowering, man's resurrection from darkness, the sign of his new life in the Spirit. Every twilight is a pause, the ending of a day which will never occur again, the sign of rest, the ebb of life, and complete trust and abandonment in God. In truth, the Christian life is a procession of decisions, accomplishments and experiences in the love of Christ. God invites the prayerful Christian to participate in the divine procession of the spiritual and temporal realms, to realize that all of nature and the created world echoes the procession of divine relationship shared by the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Holy Trinity.  

"ACCEPTABLE TIME"

2.  In Sacred Scripture, the word hour often refers to decisive events taking place at divinely appointed times. To his mother who informs him that no wine remains for the wedding celebration at Cana, Jesus protests that the inauguration of his ministry is premature:  "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come."  [Jn 2:4]  Jesus prays at the Passover meal on the night of his arrest:  "Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee."  [Jn 17:1]  Later that night, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus reproaches his disciples for sleeping, and resigned to the inevitability of abandonment, remarks, "It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners."  [Mk 14:41]  Prompted by the dubious example of Jesus' apostles in Gethsemane, the Church has long encouraged the holy hour devotion, an uninterrupted hour of prayer and prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. The inspiration for the Holy Hour issues from Jesus questioning of Peter and the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane:  "So, you could not watch with me one hour?"  [Mt 26:40]  The Holy Hour of Prayer is an expression of faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist and often takes as its theme the passion of Our Lord. When did you last take an hour of your time to pray? Or come to Church to offer to Our Lord a private hour of adoration? Though God has never willed that man ascend above the stars, indeed to make himself like the Most High, he has called his chosen people to ascend his holy mountain on a path of worship and disciplined, devotional prayer and, standing in his holy place, give joyous assent to his glory. We get down on our knees in the months of spring to plant bulbs and seeds in our gardens. Are we willing to turn the earth in our spiritual gardens? We believe that the bulbs and seed which are hidden and private under the ground of our fields and gardens will grow and bear fruit one day. Do we likewise have faith that our spiritual toil will bear fruit one day? At the proper time, we harvest our flowers and crops, and the yield of fruitful trees. We will share their beauty and nourishment with others along the way. Shall we not also share the beauty and nourishment of our spiritual harvest with others? Today, this day, is the acceptable time  [cf. 2Cor 6:2]  for us to get down on our knees to pray and adore the Lord in the garden of his Church. God has arranged the mystery so well that the human creature is himself a garden to which responsibility has been given for its cultivation! With every Holy Hour, we have a special opportunity to strengthen our relationship with Christ, to be spiritually fruitful throughout the year. By prayer we nourish our spirit with life-giving water [cf. Jn 4:10], by sacrifice we weed out what chokes our minds and hearts [cf. Mt 13:7], and by charity we share the harvest of our spiritual labor with others. [cf. Mk 4:26-29]