Watching an hour ; a book for the Blessed Sacrament

Front matter

AN-HOIJR^

A-BOOK-FOR

THE-BLESSED SACRAMENT

Contents

Note to the Reader . . .

Sleeping, Watching and Waking Father, Mother and Chiij> . Water, Wine and Oil .

Wolf, Lion and Lamb .

Appendix

The Nature of the Holy Hour

AND Its Indulgences . . . 235

Order of Exercises for the Holy

Hour 240

NOTE TO THE READER

HE following thoughts have been written to supply fresh material for prayer and meditation before the Blessed Sacrament One of these chapters has appeared before in print j and its wide circulation^ due to the kindness of friends, was one motive which induced the writer to put together other like meditations. With the conception of one other chapter recently printed, the book is entirely new. The spread of Communion, the practice of the Holy Hour, the frequency of E apposition and Adoration of our hidden Lord, the long and repeated Visits, which have been so wonderfully stimulated by the Eucharistic Propaganda, and many other religious services connected with the Holy Eucharist, all call

[xi]

NOTE TO THE READER

for new presentation of the truths in their hearing upon the presence of Christ in the Tabernacle.

The thoughts have been divided into points and put under somewhat novel headings in order to facilitate remembrance and to stimulate lax attention. The presence of listeners has been supposed, and it is hoped that the directness of address, arising from this supposition, will make the book suitable for public reading without rendering it less suited to private reflections. The substance of the thoughts is taken from the Gospels, and an endeavor has been made to follow our Lord along more lowly paths and to study His words and deeds in some less hackneyed as- (pects and with new bearing upon His life on the Altar.

At the end of the book will be found an account of the Holy Hour and its indulgences with an order of exercises which can be altered to suit one's devotional tastes. Thoughts, prayers, [xii]

NOTE TO THE READER

hymns, everything, in a word, necessary to the proper carrying on of the Holy Hour will he found between the covers of this manual.

F. P. D.

[xiii]

SLEEPING, WATCHING AND WAKING

SLEEPING

Y(

OU will not read in our Lord's life much about His sleeping. In fact the hours of sleep are in a sense hardly a part of man's life. You have heard Jesus say, speaking of Himself, "The Son of Man hath not whereon to lay His head." Jesus found it difficult to get a resting place for the night. The rare mention of His sleeping, then, makes famous the sleep of Jesus during a storm on the lake of Galilee. He was tired with the day's work which had been heavier than usual. When He entered the boat of the apostles to cross the lake, He lay down in the stern of the vessel and rested His head on a pillow, which likely enough was the rough cushions of the seats or perhaps some improvised pillow of coat or sail. Jesus was very tired. The apostles remembered this sleep of His for all their life. Time and time again they looked towards Him as they saw the storm gather and break on their frail boat. Yet Jesus slept. The wind rushed madly down from the encircling hills, whipped the racing waves into flying foam, flinging the lifted surge over the side of the ship and filled the boat with water. This was no ordinary storm. The fishermen who had so often sailed the lake were now frightened. Would the sleep of Jesus never come to an end? Their fears increase until they can contain themselves no longer. They shriek out, "Lord save us, we perish." Jesus awoke. He briefly rebuked the timid apostles: "O ye of little faith," and as briefly restored calm to the lake. "Peace, be still," He said, ''and the wind ceased and there was a great calm." [4]

Jesus might reproach His followers with lack of faith but could you so reproach them? The apostles were in the same vessel with Jesus; they looked to Him; they prayed to Him. Their faith was little because despite all the power which Jesus had displayed on many occasions, they were still lacking in the courage of their convictions. Your faith, you must sadly admit, is little also. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, wrapped up within the color, shape, weight, and other appearances of bread, may be said to be asleep as far as moving or speaking is concerned. Jesus is quiet but He is with you and wants you to call to Him if the storm is upon you. Your souls may be disturbed by anger. You may be struggling with despair. You may think that all is lost and that you must yield to the wild fury of some temptation. Every powerful emotion that swells and rages and seems to be about to sweep you from virtue and God, resembles the storm that fell upon the apostles. Jesus was asleep in the hinder part of the ship. The apostles should not have feared. Neither should you. The storm will not overwhelm you. But if the waves run high, if you feel that you never met before in your life so fierce a tempest, then look to Jesus and cry to Jesus, "Lord, save us, we perish."

Yet be not content that Jesus should be in the same Church with you. Bring Him still nearer. Bring Him into the roaring winds and wild waters. Jesus will speak with power from where He lays His head in the sacramental sleep in the tabernacle. Jesus will speak with greater power if you bring Him to you in Communion to lay His head within your hearts. Jesus should not be permitted to utter the sad cry that He has not whereon to lay His head. No, you will welcome Him into your agitated souls, and there He surely will hear [6]

your cries for help. Through the storm the voice of Jesus will ring in tones of rebuke against anger, temptation or despair. You will hear His omnipotent voice command the storms : "Peace, be still." The great storm will be followed by a great calm.

WATCHING

Jesus was sleeping in the boat while the apostles watched and worked. This was not the usual way. In most cases it was Jesus who kept the watch. Watching is the duty of those who are awake while others are asleep. The sentry watches while the army sleeps. The shepherds were keeping their watches over their flocks when Bethlehem was asleep on the night Jesus was born. Jesus came upon earth in the watches of the night and very early in His life did Jesus begin to stay awake while others slept. Many a time too after that He passed the night in prayer, keeping watch over His flock.

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They must rest; He must watch and talk with His Father about His little flock. On one such occasion the apostles had embarked and were rowing across the lake of Galilee. The winds were against them and their toil was great. They labored long and hard and accomplished little. They were growing discouraged when suddenly Jesus, Who had been watching all the night, came to them walking over the waves about the fourth watch of the night. At once all their troubles ceased. Again, after His Resurrection, the apostles saw Jesus in the early morning and at His word let down their nets and found their labors, which so far had been in vain, suddenly rewarded by an abundant haul of fish. Jesus again had been watching while His followers worked.

These are a few of Jesus' watchings. They show us His love. They prepare us for the long, unceasing watch of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. There [8]

Jesus holds sleepless vigil. There He is the sentinel of mankind, doing sentry duty for all, watching while you sleep, praying while you are silent, ever ready to come forth to you in your trials, to bless your failures with success. Come in the early morning and you will find that Jesus has not slept. He will perform a greater miracle than walking on the waters. He will make His way into your troubled hearts. He will give you a richer reward than nets breaking with great fishes. Your hearts will fill to overflowing with Jesus Himself and all His graces. With the spouse of the Canticles, manifesting greater and more lasting love, Jesus may cry from the stillness of the tabernacle: ''I sleep and my heart watcheth." Yes, Jesus is, as St. Paul tells us, ''always living to make intercession for us." Come to the watching Heart on the altar: come in trouble and you will find calm ; come in failure and you will have success.

You have yet to hear of the most terrible watcli which Jesus kept, a watch which began in blood, continued in blood and ended in blood, from the pores oozing blood in Gethsemane to deep wounds gushing blood on Calvary. When you think of the watches on the altar, forget not His great watch and His last watch, the watch of the Passion. Jesus watched then for your worst troubles and for your saddest failures. You were threatened by no earthly storm ending in shipwreck, but over you hung the black clouds of eternal wrath. You were near to everlasting ship^vreck when Jesus entered upon His death watch for you. You were condemned criminals. All your labors of soul were in vain until Jesus began and finished the watching which went from the Garden to the Cross. There He saved you from eternal damnation; there He won for you the suecess of heaven when you were through sin facing the unending failure of hell. [10]

Recall too the price Jesus paid in His watching for you. There was no closing of the eyes on that watch. The sight of sin and torture kept the eyes open in fear and sorrow. The wild mob with clubs, hurrying Him over the dark roads from one place to another left no leisure for repose. Could His head rest when they wove thorns about it? Could His body rest as it leaned against the pillar of the scourging? Could His eyes close in sleep when false witnesses and violent adjurations, when questionings of Pilate and scoff - ings of Herod, when jeers and insults and cries of repudiation, beat upon His ears and kept His soul in a fever? Ah, but then might He not cease His watch and take His rest when His tormentor finally brought Him to His bed and made Him lie thereon? Soft mattress that, the hard wood of the Cross ; yielding pillow that, which was made of pointed thorns, resting upon a beam, and for coverings there was nakedness, and that Jesus might not shp from the resting place which His friends prepared for Him, they tucked in His hands and feet with hammers and nails. Oh, that was watching for you and me! The watching of divine mercy, the watching of infinite love ! Nor has the watching of Jesus yet come to an end. His eyes are still open, because sin will not let Him close them. He looks today for a resting-place. Some offer Him a cross. What do you offer Him?

WAKING

To consider Jesus when awake is to take all four gospels for consideration. The subject is too vast. Restrict this question of being awake to those occasions when Jesus taught you the necessity of watchfulness. Watching is staying awake when one might sleep. Consider here the topic of being asleep when one ought to be awake. You are all servants in the Lord's great house- [12]

hold, and to you all Jesus speaks when He says : "Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands. And you yourselves are like to men who wait for their lord . . . that when He Cometh and knocketh they may open to Him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He Cometh shall find watching.'' You must watch then for the coming of the master of the house and have all ready. There are two watches you must keep. Be awake against the enemy and be awake when the Lord comes for the last time. Be awake against sin and awake against death.

It was when the master of the house was asleep, that the enemy came and sowed weeds in the wheat-field. "Watch and pray," Jesus warned His apostles, and in reply they presumed and slept. They all shared in Peter's confidence. Nothing they thought would separate them from the master. Yet they ceased to pray and they ceased to watch. You however must not be too hard on these weary followers of Christ. They did not presume more than once. Their desertions and denials w^ere not repeated again and again. If they turned a deaf ear to the sad cry of Jesus, ''Could vou not watch one hour with me?" you never read of them doing so again. They w^atched and prayed all their life after because they failed to w^atch and pray in the Garden. Will the w^ords of Jesus have the same success w^ith you? Are you permitting your soul to fall asleep? Are you ceasing to watch and pray? Is the enemy coming to sow in your souls evil habits, slothful w^ays, neglect, indifference, low standards, lax principles, all the benumbing, and deadening heaviness of sin? ''But you, brethren," cries St. Paul, "are not in darkness. All you are the children of light and children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as others do, [14]

but let US watch and be sober." The Church wishes the hght never to go out before the Blessed Sacrament. You are to rival the light of the Sanctuary Lamp in your unceasing watchfulness of soul against sin.

Be awake also against death. That is the other watchfulness which Jesus teaches you to have. Be awake no matter in what watch of the night He may come, and He has told you He may come at any hour, yes, secretly even, like a thief of the night. The bridegroom came suddenly upon the sleeping bridesmaids, and those who were ready went in with bride and bridegroom to the wedding feast. The foolish virgins who had not been wary, were left forever without, knocking against a closed door and receiving no answer but the echo of their knock and the sad message that they were unknown to Him who had but a short while before invited them to be near Him at the wedding. ''You know not the day nor the hour." Xow you may knock and it will be opened to you. Now you are known. Now if you pray, ''Lord open to us/' He will gladly comply with your request. There are two moments you are absolutely sure you will have, the present moment and the moment of your death. Whether you will have years of other moments or half a dozen other moments, God alone knows, but you know that you have the present moment, and you know that you will have the moment of your death. These are the two moments you join so often together when you sav the Hail Marv. Let that prayer be on your lips at this moment, "Pray for us, sinners now and at the hour of our death." Marj^ will win for you watchfuhiess in the moment of your death. ^lary will bring you to her Son. The jNIother is well aware that every time Jesus comes to you, your soul is more awake and more vigilant against sin. The mother feels that if [16]

Jesus comes now, His last coming will find you one of the servants whom He shall bless because He has found you watching. Mary, Mother of Jesus, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!

JESUS y life and vigor of our ^^ soulSj who in the sacrament of thy love seemest silent but art watchful and waking, save us by thy vigilance; visit us in the storms which beset us; and dispelling all heaviness of sin, make u^ by thy vivifying food every instant ready for thy last coming and ever more prepared for our eternal awakening.

FATHER, MOTHER AND CHILD FATHER

G.

^OD was kno^^Tl as Father before Christ our Lord came, but God was to the Jews a stern Father. He protected but He punished. They were His chosen people, but He was their just and severe master. When Jesus came. He revealed God in a new light. God had been the Father, now He became our Father. jNIan beholds the dealings of God the Father and God the Son; man hears the Son speak to the Father and the Father to the Son. The Gospel presents to us that wonderful intercourse of earth and heaven. How you would have rejoiced to witness what the people of our Lord's time witnessed ! You would have a new and more consoling idea of God, the Father. [18]

FATHER • MOTHER * CHH^D

You would learn the grandeur of the Father's house and resolve to make it a house of prayer. You would understand that the will of the Father must govern all your lives. You would rejoice that the Father had many mansions prepared for all of you. In every action of the day, in the words you uttered and the thoughts you had, you would be taught that the Father should rule you. You would hear Jesus begin His Agony with "Father, thy will be done," and His first word on the cross would be, ^'Father, forgive them," and His last word would be, ''Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." If Jesus brought our Father in heaven down upon earth by His prayers and praise and teaching. He has kept our Father near us through the Blessed Sacrament. What is that most of all makes the Church the Father's house? Is it not Jesus upon the altar still urging you to make it a house of prayer? Where are your prayers to our Father and your praise to Him filled with that love which our Heavenly Father deserves of you and demands from you? Is it not before the tabernacle? What is it that renews for you every day the Son's greatest gift to the Father? Is it not the Mass, wliich recalls to you your greatest debt to both Father and Son, the debt of your redemption and sanctification, the Mass which brings back to your hearts the saddest and most tender of all the times in which the Son spoke to the Father, I mean the dark hour of the Passion.

The life of Jesus revealed the Father and so too did His teaching. Nowhere have you a more touching, a more perfect picture of a father's love than from the lips of Jesus. In the books of the world's authors you will find the quiet, undemonstrative love of a father set forth for you in many a masterly sketch, but none of them show you the father's [20]

heart as Jesus did in the parable of the Prodigal. The father had toiled all his life for his two sons. In an instant he yielded to his younger son what was asked for, bore patiently with his son's insolence, did not disown him when the son disgraced him, promptly forgot the past when his son returned and gave him a reception which could not have been exceeded, had his son come home with all the honors that the world can give instead of coming straight from a pig-pen. Perhaps the most affecting trait of the whole story and a trait which discloses for us a more than man's heart is described to us in the words: ''When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and was moved to compassion.'* "A great way off !" That is a phrase which lifts the veil from that fatherly heart and lets you behold the ceaseless watch of persevering love. You can see a father's strong, penetrating glance; you can see a pair of eyes turned ever one way. Their vi-

WATCHING AX HOUR

sion may be clouded at times with a mist of regret almost verging upon despair, but you see them still waiting, still longing in wistful silence, still watching afar off. Do you see that father with a gaze expectant for a child's return, with a heart aching for a wanderer's home-coming? Then you cannot forget that the heart there described is the Heart of Jesus Himself and you cannot forget that the Father's House is here before you and the Father's embrace awaits you and His best banquet has been made ready to welcome you and bless you.

MOTHER

Christ our Lord did much to teach the world what father means, but Christ did more to teach the world what mother means. He honored the mother in the highest way she could be honored. Jesus might have come in the perfection of manhood, created as Adam was in the full possession of all [22]

his qualities, but Jesus chose to dignify motherhood by making it the means through which God came to man, A human mother was the temple wherein was wrought the mystery of the Incarnation. A human mother was the first shrine for the God-man to rest in and receive homage. Jesus blessed motherhood by making His mother Mary the fairest of God's creatures, anticipating in her regard the fruits of the Redemption and interposing between her soul and the penalty of sin the brightness of God's grace which never permitted the shadow of sin to rest for one moment upon her immaculate soul. Jesus blessed human motherhood by making Himself a child and drawing from a human mother the life and sustenance of His body, entrusting Himself to her loving care, allowing Himself to be wholly dependent upon her tender devotedness. ''They found the child with Mary, his mother," so the Gospel tells you. God's revealed word has united

Jesus and His mother, Marj% and who will dare separate them?

Supremely honored was ^lary! Her heart was the first tabernacle of Jesus; her heart was His life, quickening His members while her spirit magnified with loving humility Her son and her God. Supremely honored indeed! Yet what of you who approach the altar-rail; who receive into your hearts the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, who frequently, daily even, experience a new, a strange, an incomj^rehensible Incarnation; what is your honor and supreme happiness? If Jesus demeaned Himself to become a helpless child dependent upon the care of a tender mother, has He not demeaned Himself to more utter helplessness, becoming a fragment of bread for your food. If Jesus gave Himself to all the dear intimacy, which ]Mary, His mother, showered upon Him, has He not dra^Mi near to you in another intimacy, expecting like favors of love. [24]

If Jesus deigned to participate in His mother's life, to hang upon her breath, to be quickened by her blood and be fed by her substance, what an honor will you consider it that He should sustain you, become your food and pass into your life? Truly the mother's love which Jesus received so abundantly. He imparts to us in ever greater abundance in Communion.

Nor is it only because Jesus becomes your life-food that the tabernacle recalls a mother's love. There too He continues that life of consolation which He began for the mothers of Palestine. Jesus knew and felt the sorrows of a mother as no man ever did. He permitted the sword of sorrows to pierce His mother's heart. His birth. His early days were one series of trials for her. Around the cradle of Jesus rang the sad cries of hundreds of mothers whose babes were slain at Bethlehem. Jesus began early to fathom the sorrowful depths of mother love and never ceased to explore new deeps even to the last moment of His mortal life when He beheld the crucifixion of a mother's heart. Yet if Jesus knew a mother's sorrows, it was to sj^mpathize with her, to console her, to make her happy. JNIary from her throne in heaven will tell you how fully Jesus rewards the sorrows of a mother. Around her are thronging the martyred babes of Bethlehem, and they forget their momentary pangs in an eternity of joy. The mother of Peter, and the mother of James and John, experienced the consolation of Jesus. The wife of Jairus and the woman of Canaan felt the heart love of Jesus when they embraced once more their daughters in the full vigor of life. The widow of Nairn had touching proof of Jesus' tender condescension when she received her son at His hands back from the tomb. Mary was not forgotten amidst the sad abandonments of Calvary. If Jesus had to leave His mother, He would do what [26]

He could to supply for His absence. You know too well — God grant it be not from personal experience of sorrow! — that in the tabernacle still Jesus is consoling the sorrows of mothers. Whether it be sickness, or suffering or death or, what is worse, whether it be black disgrace, has come to your children, where shall you go except to Jesus? To whom shall your prayers be offered? Shall it not be to Jesus, who will answer your prayers now or will lift the veil of heaven to your weeping gaze, and will come to your hearts in His own sweet presence to console you by contentment, if not by cure.

CHILD

On Palm Sunday Jesus reached the highest point of human approbation. Multitudes of His countrymen hail Him with acclamations of joy. They make a carpet of their colored garments and of the green boughs of the palm-tree and upon that way of triumph Jesus enters into Jerusalem. The chief city of His native land joins in the enthusiasm. Jesus advances up the heights where rose the temple of God. There, as He enters, came the blind and lame and He cured them. Assuredly now at last Jesus had come unto His own. Like a conqueror He led His countrymen, became master of the capital city, and took full possession of the soul-citadel of the Jews, the temple of God, the house of His Father. At that supreme moment in the life of Jesus it was the providence of God that the children should take up the cry of the multitude, a cry which their sweet voices had often uttered in their songs on the festival. They had sung in hope of the Messias and now the reality was before them. The children of the temple greeted the Lord of the temple.

You have been privileged to witness a similar scene in the triumphal procession of the Lord of the Eucharist. Je- [28]

sus has been entering into His kingdom. The tabernacle was not meant to be the goal of His life in the Blessed Sacrament. That is His starting-point. You have seen Him advancing day by day, enlarging the circle of His conquests. New countries have been blessed with new churches. New devotions have come to give new homage to Jesus and draw Him forth from the tabernacle. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and Exposition and the Holy Hour and Communions of Reparation and Sodalities and Pious Associations with monthly, weekly and daily Communicants, Corpus Christi with its procession, the First Friday with its devotions, and Confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament, and religious both cloistered and uncloistered, making the Eucharist the supreme object of their service and adoration, these are giving enthusiastic welcome to Jesus on the altar, these are leading Him to the citadel of His love's conquest, to the real temple of God, to the ultimate tabernacle of His Eucharistic presence, the hearts of mankind.

You have been privileged to witness at this point in the triumphal advance of Jesus a scene similar to that which greeted Him in His triumph in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. The children of God's Church have entered into the triumphal procession; their voices cry out, "Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Is there anyone who will join the enemies of Jesus and complain, as was done on that former day, of the song of the children and their praise? Is there anyone has misgivings that the children do not belong at the altar rail? Surely if anyone were so tempted, he will remember that the children are innocent where their elders are guilty; that the child was Jesus' model for humility where older people were proud and disobedi- [30]

ent; that warm, loving hearts, not cold and selfish ones, are beating within the young breasts which bring Jesus to themselves from His altar home. The children have a right to their place at the altar. The children of Bethlehem shed their blood for the Christ child's entrance into the world ; the children of Jerusalem sang their songs fearlessly to welcome the Christ-man's entrance into the temple. Suffer the little ones to come. Thus shall the full chorus of praise to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament be sounded. Listen to the rebuke our Lord gave the enemies of those children that welcomed Him: ''Have you never read: Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise."

T^INDLE in our hearts, good •^^ Jesus, the consuming -fire of thy charity and bring to thy altar-rail every father, mother and child, that as we find in thy Sacrament all the blessings of human affection, we may be welcomed by thee and thy Heart's tenderest love to our dear home in heaven.