The thought of giving guidance on “How to Make a Holy Hour” fills me with mild trepidation. Not for lack of experience in making a Holy Hour but because I am experienced enough to know that prayer is a very personal matter. And being personal it suggests a wide variety of means and methods. How one person prays may be a hindrance to another person and what is a hindrance to one becomes the missing ingredient to another. Moreover, how one prays will grow, change, and mature as one journeys towards union with God. Yet, amongst all the variety and change something remains the same. Therefore, what I propose to do is give you five unchanging rules that can guide you in making your own Holy Hour.
First Rule: God Invites Us to Prayer
A common misconception about prayer is that it is primarily something we initiate to draw close to God. The idea that prayer is our initiative can become a barrier to making a Holy Hour because we think that praying successfully depends on our effort and a whole hour is a lot to make successful. Relying on our efforts leads us to abandon prayer when we do not feel like it or to exhaustion in trying to make prayer “work.” However, Sacred Scripture reveals that all good things, even the desire and ability to pray, come from God (Js 1:17). Similarly, Jesus says “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). By considering prayer as primarily God’s initiative, we move from the posture of producing to the posture of receiving.
This posture of receiving is the first key to making a Holy Hour well. Like the rays of the sun that cause the rose bush to grow and blossom flowers, our Holy Hour becomes the space we give God to communicate and create His new life in us.
Second Rule: Prayer is Not Wasted Time.
Recently, a pre-med student told me that he was having difficulty making a Holy Hour because every time he sat down to pray his mind was flooded with projects, papers, and deadlines. These projects, papers, and deadlines are no small matter for they will impact the course of his career. To do them well is his duty. The student’s persistent temptation was to think it irresponsible to spend an entire hour in prayer when so many good things demand his attention. The opposite is closer to the truth. Pope Benedict XVI says, “Prayer is not time wasted, it does not take away time from our activities, even apostolic activities, but exactly the opposite is true: only if we are able to have a faithful, constant and trusting life of prayer will God Himself give us the ability and strength to live happily and serenely, to surmount difficulties and to witness courageously to Him.”
Not only does prayer give us the capacity to live well and do our duties courageously, but prayer also gives them ultimate meaning. Therefore, rather than thinking of a Holy Hour as wasted time, think of your time as wasted without a Holy Hour.
Third Rule: Attentive Silence
Silence is necessary for the prayer to blossom. Yet, silence suggests absence not presence, sterility not vitality, death not life—and our natural inclination is to avoid silence like a lifeless desert. However, in the Catholic tradition, the desert is the place of encounter. Isaiah says that the desert shall blossom and in it shall be a “highway...called the Holy Way” (Is 35:8). Silence is the place where the sound of the world diminishes so the voice of God can be heard. St. Faustina says that “in order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one’s soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence, but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God.”
To achieve this silence, it is neither sufficient nor possible to simply quell all exterior and interior noise. Rather, one must achieve the sacred silence by turning one’s attention and referring all interior distractions towards God’s gaze of love. The Catholic spiritual tradition speaks of several ways that help man turn his attention to God’s presence. These means include reading Scriptures and other holy books, the Rosary and similar prayers, sacred art, journaling, a simple conversation, or a repeated word or short phrase that focuses one’s attention. The means one chooses will be determined by one’s taste and needs. Whatever the means, the goal is to be attentive to God in faith and love.
A good Holy Hour will always involve the struggle of silent and loving attention and one should be ready to spend a good portion of their prayer in this effort. It is in the struggle to be attentive to God’s love for us that gives birth to a silence that is full of life and vitality. In the silence of loving attention, the noise of the world fades and the presence of God impregnates our reality. Even five minutes of loving silence is worth 55 minutes of struggle.
Fourth Rule: Attentive Silence Leads to Loving Thoughts
Not only can silence be a source of anxiety but the praying person can feel anxiety about hearing God speak. We might muse, “How can I know God is speaking? I feel like I am just talking to myself.” The Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft says, “How do we listen to His voice? . . . What will happen then? What will we hear? Let God take care of that. Seek only Him, do not use Him as a means to seek any other end... I cannot tell you what He will give you, except for one thing: He will give you Himself.” The essential point of prayer is not information but relationship. However, God also wishes to deepen our relationship and we can fully trust that He will seek to deepen this relationship by speaking to us. The key to hearing God’s voice is to trust. If we persevere in being attentive to God’s love, we can expect that His love will form in us thoughts, words, feelings, impressions, and imaginings that draw us closer to Him.
How can we know which thoughts and impressions are from God and which come from us? When the soul begins to quiet itself in God’s presence it should take note of what rises to the top. As you take note of what is arising in the soul, begin to meditate, reflect, and dialogue with God about it. A good portion of your Holy Hour should be given to the process of attentiveness and reflection on what arises in the soul. This process will bring clarity to what God wants to say to you.
Fifth Rule: Loving Thoughts Lead to Holy Action
Prayer is an act of faith, hope, and love directed to God. When we lift our heart to God in prayer, God communicates His life and love to us. However, love remains immature if it does not seek to grow. The book of Hebrews says, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). When God communicates His word to us in prayer it both affirms and convicts us. His loving affirmation grounds us in the security of sonship but His conviction moves and guides us to grow in virtue. For He does not just tell His disciples He has chosen them (Jn 15:19) but also invites them to “deny themself, pick up their cross, and follow [Him]” (Mt 16:24). Thus, the end of our Holy Hour should end with several moments of responding to God’s love and the prudent resolution to do God’s Will.
Conclusion: Holy Action Leads to Transformation into Christ
In prayer we allow God to speak His word into our life discorded by sin. By His word He transforms our disorder into His order. This is what God is implying through the prophet Isaiah when God says the “word be that goes forth from my mouth... shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Is 55:11). Additionally, by being faithful to the practice of a Holy Hour we can fulfill St. Paul’s admonition to “Put off your old nature [and] put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24). The palpable effect of this righteous transformation “will be peace” (Is 32:17), for, as St. Thomas says, “peace is tranquility of order.”