The Devotion of the Holy Hour
Some readers may wish to use this book for the public or private devotion of the “Holy Hour,” which our Lord Himself recommended to St. Margaret Mary. “The Holy Hour consists of an hour of mental or vocal prayer,” says the “Handbook of the Apostleship of Prayer,” Chapter III, page 23, “in union with the prayer of the Saviour in the Garden of Olives on Maundy Thursday night.”
“As a practice,” continues the “Handbook,” “it is our Lord Himself Who instituted it, determined its end and essential feature: an hour of prayer in union with His Heart in agony in Gethsemane. For St. Margaret Mary tells us in her writings that one day, in 1673, while she was adoring the Blessed Sacrament, the Saviour suddenly appeared to her. His wounds shone like suns, and His Sacred Heart was like a furnace from which dazzling flames shot forth.”
“After complaining of the ingratitude of men and recommending the Communion of Reparation, He added: ‘Every night, between Thursday and Friday, I will make you partake of that sorrow unto death which it was My will to suffer in the Garden of Olives. … To join with Me in the humble prayer which I then offered to My Father; you shall rise between eleven o’clock and midnight; you shall prostrate yourself with Me, for one hour, with your face to the ground, both to appease the anger of God by imploring mercy for sinners, and to sweeten in some way the bitterness I felt when My Apostles abandoned Me, being unable to watch one hour with Me.’”
“Thus, to repair the ingratitude of men; to partake of the sadness of the Heart of Jesus in agony; to implore mercy for sinners; to appease the anger of God; such is the end of the Holy Hour.”
In using this book, therefore, it should be explained to those who make the Holy Hour that these reflections are made in union with the thoughts and the prayers of our Blessed Saviour during His agony in the Garden. Surely, these momentous interests of the family and the home were vividly present to the agonized Heart of our Divine Lord at Gethsemane.
