Devotion to Holy Hour: origin, history and the graces that are obtained

The practice of the Holy Hour dates back directly to the revelations of Paray-le-Monial and consequently draws its origin from the very heart of our Lord. Santa Margherita Maria prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Our Lord presented himself to her in a splendid light: he indicated his Heart to her and bitterly complained of the ingratitude of which he was the object of sinners.

"But at least," he added, "give me the consolation of making up for their ingratitudes, however capable you may be."

And he himself indicated to his faithful servant the means to be used: frequent Communion, Communion on the first Friday of the month and the Holy Hour.

"Every night from Thursday to Friday - he told her - I will let you participate in the same mortal sadness that I wanted to feel in the Garden of Olives: this sadness will lead you without your understanding, to a kind of agony harder to bear death. And to join me, in the humble prayer that you will then present to my Father, in the midst of all anguish, you will rise between twenty-three and midnight, to prostrate yourself for an hour with me, with your face on the ground, and to calm divine anger asking for mercy for sinners, both to soften in a certain way the abandonment of my apostles, which forced me to reproach them for not being able to watch an hour with me; during this hour you will do what I will teach you. "

In another place the Saint adds: «He told me at that time that every night, from Thursday to Friday, I would have to get up at the hour indicated to say five Pater and five Ave Maria, prostrate on the ground, with five acts of adoration, that He had taught me, to pay him homage in the extreme anguish that Jesus had suffered on the night of his Passion ».

II - HISTORY

a) The Saint

She was always faithful to this practice: «I don't know - writes one of her superiors, Mother Greyflé - if your charity has known that she had the habit, since before she was with you, to make an hour of adoration , in the night from Thursday to Friday, which began from the end of the morning, until eleven; remaining prostrate with my face on the ground, with my arms crossed, I made her change her position only in the time when her illnesses were more serious and (I advised her) rather (to) stay on her knees with her hands folded or her arms crossed on the chest".

No effort, no suffering could prevent this devotion. Obedience to superiors was the only thing capable of making her stop this practice, because our Lord had said to her: «Do nothing without the approval of those who guide you, so that having authority from obedience, Satan cannot deceive you , because the devil has no strength over those who obey. "

However, when her superiors forbade her this devotion, our Lord manifested her
displeasure. «I even wanted to totally prevent her, - writes Mother Greyflé - she obeyed the order that I gave her, but often, during this period of interruption, she came to me, timidly, to expose herself that it seemed to her that our Lord didn't like this decision too much radical and who feared that He would then manifest his disappointment in such a way that I would suffer from it. However I did not give up, but seeing Sister Quarré die almost suddenly from a flow of blood of which none (previously) had been sick in the monastery and some other circumstances that accompanied the loss of such a good subject, I immediately asked Sister Margherita to resume hour of adoration and I was persecuted by the thought that this had been the punishment of which she had threatened me from our Lord ».

Margherita therefore continued to practice Holy Hour. "This dear sister - the contemporaries say - and has always kept watch over the hour of prayer of the night, from Thursday to Friday until the election of our venerable Mother", that is, mother Lévy de Chàteaumorand, who forbade her again, but Sister Margherita lived no more than four months after the election of the new Superior.

b) After the Saint

Without a doubt his assiduous example and the ardor of his zeal led many souls to this beautiful vigil with the Sacred Heart. Among the numerous religious institutes dedicated to the worship of this divine Heart, this practice was held in great honor and was especially in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. In 1829 Fr. Debrosse Sl founded the Confraternity of the Holy Hour in Paray-le-Monial, which was approved by Pius VI. This same Pontiff granted on December 22, 1829 to the members of this Brotherhood a plenary indulgence whenever they practiced the Holy Hour.

In 1831 Pope Gregory XVI extended this indulgence to the faithful of the whole world, on the condition that they were registered in the registers of the Confraternity, which became Archconfraternity on April 6, 1866, for the intervention of the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII.15

From then on, the Popes did not cease to encourage the practice of Ora Sanfa and on March 27, 1911, Saint Pius X granted the Archconfraternity of Paray-le-Monial the great privilege of affiliating the confraternities of the same name and of making them benefit from all the indulgences it enjoys.

III - SPIRIT

Our Lord himself indicated to Saint Margaret Mary with what spirit this prayer should be made. To be convinced of this, just remember the objectives that the Sacred Heart asked his confidant to have. She had to, as we have seen:

1. to calm the divine anger;

2. ask for mercy for sins;

3. make up for the abandonment of the apostles. It is superfluous to pause to consider the compassionate and restorative character of love that these three purposes have.

It is no wonder then, since everything, in the cult of the Sacred Heart, converges towards this merciful love and this spirit of reparation. To be convinced of this, just reread the story of the apparitions of the Sacred Heart to the Saint:

«Another time, - she said - in carnival time ... He presented himself to me, after Holy Communion, with the appearance of an Ecce Homo loaded with his cross, all covered with wounds and wounds; His adorable blood flowed from all sides and said in a painfully sad voice: "So there will be no one who has mercy on me and who wants to sympathize and participate in my pain, in the compassionate state in which sinners put me, especially now? ».

In the great apparition, still the same lament:

«Behold that Heart which has loved men so much, that nothing has spared until it is exhausted and consumed in order to attest their love to them; and out of gratitude, from most of them I receive only ingratitudes with their sacrileges and with the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love. But what hurts me even more, is that the very hearts dedicated to me behave like this ».

Anyone who has heard these bitter complaints, these righteous reproaches of a God outraged by contempt and ingratitude, will not marvel at the profound sadness that dominates in these Holy Hours, nor will he always find the accent of the divine call everywhere. We simply wanted to make the faithful echo of the ineffable lamentations (cf. pm 8,26:XNUMX) of Gethsemane and Paray-le-Monial heard.

Now, on both occasions, rather than speaking, Jesus seems to sob with love and sadness. So we will not be surprised to be told by the Saint: «Since obedience has allowed me this (the Holy Hour), we cannot say what I suffered from it, because it seemed to me that this divine Heart poured all its bitterness into mine and reduce my soul into such painful anxieties and agonies, that it seemed to me sometimes to die of it ».

However, let us not lose sight of the final purpose that our Lord proposes with the worship of his divine Heart, which is the triumph of this Most Sacred Heart: his Kingdom of Love in the world.