ESPRESSO SHOT: The Power of the HOLY HOUR
by Father Brian J. Soliven on Tuesday September 1, 2026
There is a peculiar wisdom in sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, a wisdom which cannot be hurried into us by books or lectures. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who made a daily Holy Hour for nearly sixty years, discovered that the soul must sometimes cease talking in order to learn how to listen. “The Holy Hour became a teacher for me,” he wrote, because “looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way.” It is rather like standing in sunlight: we do not grasp the rays, yet by remaining there we are changed by them. Sheen even said that his preaching and “every good thought” were born from that hour before Our Lord. Perhaps this is the wisdom the modern mind finds hardest to accept: that by doing apparently nothing but keeping company with Christ, we may become capable of doing everything else with greater truth, courage, and love.







