Like most people, I sometimes find myself completely overwhelmed because I catch myself thinking too many steps ahead. When I start down the road of thinking about Beacons of Light and what the next five years might look like, I quickly branch off into the thirty-one categories that the Archdiocese has given us and the ten-thousand things that  I am worrying about at any given  moment.           I would be better off, as would pretty much everyone, if I remembered Our Lord’s  wisdom in saying, “Sufficient for a day are its own troubles.” Do what you can to grow in holiness and help others grow in holiness today, and maybe tomorrow we will see things differently. 

While the possibility of being overwhelmed with everything that needs doing or fixing is omnipresent in our lives, I have found that it is particularly present to those who want to learn how to pray. Going all the way back to the time of Our Lord’s earthly ministry, His followers have been asking Him to teach them how to pray. In this day and age, when there are more distractions than ever and many more developed options in how to pray, it’s easy to be discouraged. But this Feast of Corpus Christi that we celebrate today is a reminder of how remarkably present Jesus is to us, and that is the first, most important, and sometimes only step in prayer. Prayer is allowing the Lord to be present to us and opening our hearts to Him.  
 
We have a fair number of opportunities for  adoration in our region, and even more  opportunities if you’re willing to go out into the Archdiocese a little bit. Jesus is waiting for you somewhere in the Eucharistic Presence. Instead of being overwhelmed with what you might do if you tried to make a Holy Hour for the first time, break it into small, manageable chunks that will change your life instead. A book I stumbled across recently offered a method for making a Holy Hour that was incredibly simple. Go to adoration, and then do five minutes or so of each of the following: praise, sing to the Lord, spiritual warfare, surrender, release of the Holy Spirit, repentance, forgiveness, scripture reflections, waiting for the Lord to speak, intercessions, petitions, and thanksgiving. Some of those might not feel self-evident, and  so if you want to read more about it, the book is called “Miracle Hour: A Method of Prayer That Will Change Your Life.” It costs a few   bucks, and it’s great. 
 
Maybe you’ve never made a Holy Hour before, or maybe you’ve tried, and it hasn’t been fulfilling. The heart of the Christian life is prayer, and there are few better ways to pray than sitting in the presence of Jesus and trying out  different ways of opening your heart to Him and inviting Him into the good, the bad, and the ugly of our lives. This Corpus Christi, my prayer is that we, as a Family of Parishes, find a renewed zeal for praying in the presence of Our Lord, so that He might enter our lives and set the world on fire.