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Last week I shared a way to make a Holy Hour with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at our Adoration Chapel. This weekend, I want to share with you some benefits of spending time with our Lord.
Jesus asks us to come spend time with him. When he asked the apostles to come pray with him, it is because he wanted their presence and company. In the same way today, he invites us to come be with him. When we come into his presence, graces are given. When graces are given to us, we are less inclined to sin and more inspired to do the will of our Father. At the same time, when we are with Jesus, he will shower his blessings onto our families because his love overflows from us into our community. And, when we are with Jesus in front of the Blessed Sacrament, all the angels and saints are with us as we are in the “eternal now” and all of these visits are remembered by our Lord God.

If you are with the Lord, imagine the peace that will come since you are with the Prince of Peace. And, he is greater than any struggle or problem we can bring to him, so He invites us to leave the struggle with him which gives us a renewed peace. And, since he wants us to cooperate with his graces, the holy hour will often reveal answers to situations that we are pondering. He gives us peace and often gives us answers. When we receive the answers, the answers may seem difficult. However, when we spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, he gives us the strength and fortitude to do what we know we must do. In private prayer, I may know the answer and I may ask for the strength to do what must be done, but in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he can give us this strength since he is there with us. We have the ability to be resolute in our decision.

Another great benefit is that it improves our relationship with the one we hope to spend eternity with. Our prayer becomes more a part of who we are and helps us integrate our prayer into our day to day decisions and life we live. It gives us more sincerity and depth to our prayer life and teaches us a multitude of ways to pray. We are able to listen to Jesus (since we will eventually run out of things to say) and then he can fortify our belief and knowledge of how much he loves us; that he, the Father, created us and that we in turn should truly love ourselves and know that our love for ourselves will call us to be more for others who God also loves and therefore we love more deeply. He will tell us and we will know the purpose of our lives and the way he is calling us to live our lives. Through this deeper understanding of prayer, we will come to better understand the important things in life and spend more time focusing on them in prayer and in action and know the things that are distractions and give them their due priority and attention.

We will desire to come to prayer more often and to make our Holy Hour more often which will be like tithing our time: the more time we give to the Lord, the more time we will have for what we need to do. This keeps us from stressing on how busy we are or how full our calendar because the Lord is helping us get done what He knows is most important.

So, come to a place where the Lord will help us know him, know ourselves, give him our worries, relax, find peace, know our purpose, have the courage to do what is asked by him and leave knowing we are doing his will helping others find their relationship with the Lord. Call the parish office to sign up for a Holy Hour each week.