"Could you not spend one hour with Me?" The lamentation of Our Crucified Lord!
Have you ever been lonely? Have you ever felt depressed and suicidal? Do you think that no one cares for you? Do you think you can't go on?
Jesus loves you, Jesus understands you and Jesus cares for you from the infinite depths of His Divine spirit and Sacred Heart. Jesus waits for you to visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus understands you loneliness and despair. Jesus was betrayed and abandoned on the cross by His best friends, the Apostles, in His Hour of supreme need and trial. Let us not do what the Apostles did, but share our needs and concerns, our weakness and put our troubles before Jesus and His Sacred Heart that eternally throbs with love for you and me. Put your troubled sons and daughters, spouses, brothers and sisters, friends and grandchildren, each one before Jesus Himself and dedicate them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by extension to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Jesus is there, body and blood, soul and divinity, really, truly and substantially present before us. Jesus listens to us on His Eucharistic throne with a human ear and loves us with His Sacred Human Heart. Jesus is your God-friend, Jesus will never betray you, Jesus will never hate you, Jesus will never separate Himself from you, and Jesus totally understands you. Jesus is your best friend; Jesus is my best friend, forever loving us with a love that is not of this world. God is love, and He who abides in love abides in God and God in him.
persevere in their priestly vocation.
Jesus told the Apostles, "Could you not spend one hour with Me?" in the garden of Gethsemane during His passion. Jesus tells us today, "Could you not spend one hour with Me," in this hour of the Church's passion, this hour of scandal, dissensions, division, abortion, international terrorism, apostasy, etc., etc. Remember, fellow members of the Eucharistic Body of Christ: The Church is Christ. The Church is Jesus Christ extended into space and time.
I firmly believe that in Eucharistic adoration, whether it be one hour or one day a week, 40 hours or Perpetual Adoration, Your hour of Eucharistic power, your hour of adoration, your hour of conference with the Lord of lords, the King of kings, really and truly substantially present on His Eucharistic throne can and will change the world. I firmly believe that if every one of the billion plus Catholics in the world spent one hour one day a week before the Blessed Sacrament, every major crisis, every major scandal, abortion and acts of terrorism would stop! Think about that!
There is power in numbers. We have the numbers and we have the Eucharistic power. When we become Eucharistic adorers, we form an army, a Eucharistic army armed with the power of the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, soul and divinity, the real true and substantial presence of Jesus Christ that transformed the world in the Resurrection and continues to do so today through the Holy Eucharist. When we become Eucharistic adorers, Jesus unleashes through us His very real grace and presence outward to the entire world, so that the world itself can become a holy tabernacle of the Lord.
Can you not spend one hour with Jesus for the salvation of the world? No one asks you to sign your life away. Indeed, you are asked to sign you name in the book of life through Eucharistic adoration. Jesus Himself asks you as He asked the Apostles, to spend one hour with Him, to become and Apostle of the Eucharist, a member of His Eucharistic army. If you do, you will never be alone again. Instead you will grow day by day more holy, more convicted and more assured in your faith, more steadfast in the knowledge that you are a member in solidarity with Jesus Himself and millions of Eucharistic adorers throughout the world. When you spend one hour with Jesus you walk with Him as two of the disciples did on the road to Emmaus. When you spend one hour with Jesus, you walk arm in arm with the other members of the Mystical Eucharistic Body who happen to adore Him throughout the world at that same hour.
Come and pray to Jesus. Recite your favorite prayers, do some meditative reading or just sit back in the healing rays of Jesus before you. St. John of the Cross said, "one moment of pure love is more precious in the eyes of God and more profitable to the whole Church than all the good works you put together." Imagine what one hour can do! Allow Jesus to work through you. By your presence and your prayers and your sacrifices, have Christ's grace reach through you into your family, into your parish, into your community, into our country, and even into purgatory. The Lord has given us 168 hours a week. Surely we can give one back to Jesus.