Bishop Robert Barron has launched a prayer campaign to notch up "10,000 Holy Hours” in July to coincide with the National Eucharistic Congress being hosted in the US.
The bishop, who is one of the Catholic Church’s biggest social media stars and public figures in the US – a sort of <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/bishop-barron-the-face-of-the-modern-church/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">latter-day digital-media-focused Bishop Fulton Sheen</mark></a> – is encouraging Catholics to collectively pray at least "10,000 Holy Hours" in the month of July in the hopes of a "Eucharistic revival" across the US, which is one of the key aims of the <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.eucharisticcongress.org/">National Eucharistic Congress</a></mark>.
"I hope many people will participate in this campaign as a public witness to the centrality of the Eucharist," Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota and founder of Word on Fire Ministries, said in a press release, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/catholic-bishop-launches-10000-holy-hours-july-prayer-campaign-nationwide-lives-change-period"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> <em>Fox News Digital</em>.
The Word on Fire website, which the bishops spearheads, has a <a href="https://www.wordonfire.org/eucharistic-revival/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">“Log A Holy Hour” link</mark></a> where people can register the number of hours they have prayed.
As of 2.30 p.m. London time at the <em>Catholic Herald</em> office on 17 July, a total of 7,827 “Holy Hours have been prayed so far”. The website also shows a map and record of where people have been praying.
Speaking with <em>Fox News Digita</em>l, Barron described a holy hour as "an uninterrupted time of prayer in the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, adding: "In the presence of the Eucharist, to pray for an hour, just as Jesus asked his three disciples at Gethsemane to 'stay and pray with me' for an hour."<br><br>Barron also explained that he believes people's lives can change when they invest their time in the presence of God:<br><br>“What I found over many years now of pastoral ministry is when people do that, their lives change, period. They just do." <br><br>He advised that if you can't commit to a whole hour then “do a holy half hour”; and if you can’t commit to a half hour then “how about even 10 minutes a day?”<br><br>The bishop concluded: “Sequester some time every day to focus on the Lord."<br><br>The National Eucharistic Congress has a long history and once took place in London (1908) where 150,000 attended (and despite Protestant protests). It's taking place in the US this year. Thousands of Catholics are expected to gather in Indianapolis later this month for the National Eucharistic Congress.<br><br>Prayer campaigns often prove very popular and successful, explains the <em>Catholic Herald's</em> <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/author/tom-colsy/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Thomas Colsy</mark></a>, as the faithful typically like these types of "call to arms" initiatives from big figures in the Church, who are seen as fulfilling their spiritual purpose and providing guidance and inspiration to members of the Church. <br><br>The effective leveraging of social media and the Internet by the likes of Bishop Barron often further bolsters such campaigns.
An online prayer campaign by the Archdiocese of Southwark during Lent this year <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/cant-beat-the-oldies-nicene-creed-tops-lenten-online-prayer-campaign-byarchdiocese-of-southwark/">proved a roaring success</a> </mark>and was seen by over 1.5 million social media users in its first week.<br><br>At the start of May, over 90 Catholic schools – and about 10,000 children – across South London and Kent <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/archbishop-leads-over-10000-school-children-in-a-rosary/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">took part in a collective Rosary led by Archbishop John Wilson</mark></a>, as part of the Archdiocese of Southwark’s campaign to encourage young people to pray. <br><em><br>Photo: Screenshot from www.foxnews.com/Word on Fire Ministries. </em>
