Please join us in a special Prayer Vigil for America.
At Saint Thomas More, the church will be opened all night long for all those who want to spend the whole night or part of it. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed for the adoration all night long.
Intentions
All Floridian faithful and friends are encouraged to join us in a day of repentance, fast, and prayer on All Soul's Day, Monday, November 2nd.
The intentions of this Prayer Vigil are:
- the repose of all American souls in purgatory and
- their consequent intercession for a successful election.
Schedule
Monday, November 2nd
5:30 pm Rosary | Confessions
6:00 pm Requiem Mass for the Poor Souls
7:00 pm Exposition fo the Blessed Sacrament
Tuesday, November 3rd
6:45 am Divine Office of Prime
7:00 am Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
7:30 am Mass
Jesus' Prayer Times in the Gospels
(Lk 3:21-22) At His Baptism. (Mk 1:35-36) In the morning before heading to Galilee. (Lk 5:16) After healing people. (Lk 6:12-13) Praying all night before choosing His 12 disciples. (Mt 11:25-26) While speaking to the Jewish leaders. (Jn 6:11) Giving thanks to the Father before feeding 5000. (Also see: Mt 14:19, Mk 6:41, Lk 9:16)
(Mt 14:23) Before walking on water. (Also see: Mk 6:46, Jn 6:15)
(Mk 7:31-37) While healing a deaf and mute man. (Mt 15:36) Giving thanks to the Father before feeding 4000
(Also see: Mk 8:6-7)
(Lk 9:18) Before Peter called Jesus “the Christ.” (Lk 9:28-29) At the Transfiguration. (Lk 10:21) At the return of the seventy. (Lk 11:1) Before teaching His disciples the Lord’s Prayer. (Jn 11:41-42) Before raising Lazarus from the dead. (Mt 19:13-15) Laying hands on and praying for little children. (Also see: Mk 10:13-16, Lk 18:15-17)
(Jn 12:27-28) Asking the Father to glorify His name. (Mt 26:26) At the Lord’s Supper. (Also see: Mk 14:22-23, Lk 22:19)
(Lk 22:31-32) Prayed for Peter’s faith when Satan asked to “sift” him. (Jn 17:1-26) Prayed for Himself, His disciples, and all believers just before heading to Gethsemane. (Mt 26:36-46) In Gethsemane before Judas' betrayal. (Also see: Lk 22:39-46, Mk 14:32-42)
(Lk 23:34) Right after being nailed to the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Mt 27:46) While dying on the cross, Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
(Also see: Mk 15:34)
(Lk 23:46) In His dying breath, Jesus prayed, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. (Lk 24:30) Prayed a blessing on the bread before He ate with others after His resurrection. (Lk 24:50-53) He blessed the disciples before His Ascension.
In those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God. When daylight came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also designated as apostles… (Luke 6:12 & 13)
Could you not then watch one hour with me? (Matthew 26:40)
Why Eucharistic Adoration?
The Council of Trent declared that Christ should be worshiped now in the Eucharist no less than He had been in first-century Palestine. Why? Because in the Blessed Sacrament "it is the same God Whom the apostles adored in Galilee" (Decree on the Holy Eucharist, chapter 5).
He is not only to be adored, like Thomas did, by addressing Him as, "My Lord and my God." He is also to be asked for what we need, like the blind man who begged, "Lord, that I may see," or approached like the woman who said to herself, "If I can even touch His clothes, I shall be well again."
Sts. John Fisher (1469-1535) and Thomas More (1478-1535) were strengthened in life and prepared themselves for martyrdom by fervent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In one of More's prayers, published after his death, we read,
O sweet Saviour Christ, by the divers torments of Thy most bitter Passion, take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion or rather key-cold meditation, and this dullness in praying to Thee. And give me Thy grace to long for Thy Holy Sacraments, and especially to rejoice in the Presence of Thy blessed Body, sweet Saviour Christ, in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and duly to thank Thee for Thy gracious visitation therewith.
St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) after preaching and baptizing all day would often spend the night in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
Pope Pius XI associated the worship of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament with expiation for sin. St. Margaret Mary had been canonized in 1920, just two years before Achille Ratti was elected Pope. In 1928, he wrote a lengthy encyclical on Reparation to the Sacred Heart. Its whole theme is on the desperate need to plead for God's mercy, especially through the Holy Eucharist. During her prayers before the Blessed Sacrament, Christ revealed to Margaret Mary "the infinitude of His love, at the same time, in the manner of a mourner." The Savior said,
Behold this Heart which has loved men so much and has loaded them with all benefits, and for this boundless love has had no return but neglect and contumely, and this often from those who were bound by a debt and duty of a more special love.
Among the ways to make reparation to the Heart of Christ, the Pope urged the faithful to "make expiatory supplications and prayers, prolonged for a whole hour-which is rightly called the 'Holy Hour"' (Miserentissimus Redemptor, May 8, 1928). It was understood that the Holy Hour was to be made even as the original message was received by St. Margaret Mary, before the Holy Eucharist.
History of the Nocturnal Adoration
Forty Hours Devotion
At the time when the Church was threatened by widespread heresy in the nations of Europe and by invading hostile Muslim force in the East, Pope Clement VIII, in 1952, instituted the Forty Hours devotion in the city of Rome in order to offer incessant prayer to the Lord, imploring his help and his grace for the protection of his People menaced by such grave danger.
Nocturnal Adorers
Two centuries later, in 1809, another crisis threatened the Church. In the aftermath of the French revolution, in the political and religious upheaval in Europe, Napoleon had risen to power and had made Pope Pius VII his prisoner.
A priest in the city of Rome, Father Giacomo Sinibaldi, was inspired to gather together groups of men to pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament during the night hours in the churches of Rome, where the Forty Hours devotion was in progress. The response to his idea was so enthusiastic that in a short time there were groups meeting for prayer every night of the year in the churches where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed.
Ecclesiastical approval was given to these adorers and in 1810 the Nocturnal Adoration Society came into existence. Its center was the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome.
Nocturnal Adoration Society
During the civil unrest of 1848, a Carmelite monk Father Hermann Cohen, a Jewish convert obtained approval from the Archbishop of Paris to form a Nocturnal Adoration Society in the city. In 1863, he started a society of nocturnal adoration in London.
From France, the Society spread in several directions. It was founded in Madrid, Spain in 1877. Its growth in Spain was so extraordinary that in a short time there were 500 centers with more than 100,000 members.
From Mexico, it crossed into Texas and California in the United States. The National Headquarters to Mexico is the Church of Saint Phillip of Jesus in Mexico City.
At the same time, the Society was spreading from Paris to Canada and the United States. The Society came into existence in Boston, Massachusetts in 1882. The following year Father William Bartlett started a Society in Baltimore, Maryland.
Today the Nocturnal Adoration Society is established in 36 countries and counts over 1,000,000 members. In the United States, National Headquarters is located in Laredo, Texas.
