By Faith Addington, Catholicism Editor
As many of us know, Mother Teresa devoted her life to helping the poor: clothing them, feeding them, and helping them in any way she could. The order she belonged to, the Sisters of Loretto, spent all the hours of the day out in the community serving. However in 1973, Mother Teresa declared that the sisters would begin to spend an hour—a “Holy Hour” if you will—in adoration with Jesus, every single day. In response, she received a considerable amount of objections from her sisters to this new directive. Why were they to spend this hour in prayer when it could be much better spent serving the poor and doing God’s work?
When we get busy and have a lot of responsibilities piling on our plate, the first thing that gets sidelined is our prayer life: something that has no deadline nor any real urgency to complete. Instead, we make excuses to ourselves saying, I’m serving God through my job, or I’ll pray while I get ready in the morning. These thoughts begin sidelining our relationship with God in an attempt to do what we justify as “His work.” We begin relying on our own ability rather than allowing God to accomplish it through us.
Much like the Sisters of Loretto, we have pure intentions in our heart to serve God by serving His people. However, it is impossible to fully serve God if we don’t allow Him fully within ourselves. By only giving God bits and pieces of our divided attention, we limit our acceptance of His ability to shine through us.
After Mother Teresa made these changes within the convent, she noticed a huge change in their work; by spending this daily hour in prayer with God, the sisters were able to have stronger and deeper relationships with those around them because these relationships and acts of service were centered around God. The sisters began radiating the love and goodness of God, rather than simply talking about it. They allowed Him to shine fully through them.
Mother Teresa famously said, “If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy.” As college students countering busyness is a tremendous challenge, due to balancing classes, homework, work, sports, music, clubs and many other activities in which we partake. Activities that have no meaning if they are not centered around Christ. Take ten minutes to go sit in the chapel in silent prayer: no bible, no journal, no rosary. Simply sitting in His presence and conversing. As our body needs oxygen, so does our soul need prayer.
The Saint 