Fr Peter Helman

Dear friends,

To mark the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi, a series of Eucharistic devotions called the Holy Hour will take the place of our usual morning prayers today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. The Holy Hour developed around the practice of keeping vigil on Maundy Thursday at the Altar of Repose, where the Blessed Sacrament is kept overnight for the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday. At the close of the Maundy Thursday liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, before the sanctuary lights are extinguished and the High Altar is stripped bare, we carefully gather what remains of the precious consecrated Bread and Wine from Communion, together with what is reserved in the tabernacle, and translate it in solemn procession to the chapel for the overnight vigil. The chapel is transformed into Gethsemane, and we keep watch with our Eucharistic Lord for what is to come the night of his agony and betrayal.

At its heart the Holy Hour is a meditation on these profound moments in the garden between Jesus and his Apostles.

“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’” (Matthew 26:36-38)

The only time Our Lord asked the Apostles for anything was the night he went into his agony. Anguished and lonely, what did he ask of them? “I am deeply grieved,” he said, “even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” Jesus asked for their companionship, that they stay near and abide with him in the night watches.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen reflects in his autobiography, A Treasure in Clay, on his practice for over sixty years, following his ordination to the priesthood, of keeping the Holy Hour every day. Like Moses, he writes, whose face was transformed after his companionship with God on the holy mountain, so our hearts are illumined and transformed mysteriously by gazing upon Jesus present in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine. With hearts set aflame in prayer with love and longing for Christ we are changed into his likeness. We become that which we gaze upon.

The Holy Hour invites us to keep the vigil of Maundy Thursday the year round, to abide with Christ. The devotions become more than a series of readings and prayers but a way of sharing in the work of redemption. Praying to Jesus who is present fully in the Sacrament predisposes our hearts to a deep personal encounter with him who is always inviting us to come to him, to linger and hold converse with him, to offer him our companionship.

I hope you'll join us this morning and in the days ahead as we pray the Holy Hour.

Christ invites us. Christ longs to be known.


In Christ,
Peter+