40 Hours

A tradition in many parishes is the 40 Hours celebration that falls on or near the feast day of the parish. Many senior priests tell stories of the days when these would be true 40 hour celebrations that would be 3 days of Eucharistic adoration, a nightly homily / talk by a guest priest and three nights of dinners and parties for neighboring priests. In the days when the rectories were crowded residences, there would be gatherings of dozens of priests flooding into the rectories to play cards, eat,socialize, laugh, tell stories, pick on each other and just have fun! Nowadays, many priests try to maintain this tradition but in a smaller capacity. Most parishes that host these now only have them one night and only consists of socializing and dinner for the priests followed by benediction with the parish. These are nice and fun gatherings - it is the only time guys seem to get together.

Tonight, my parish held their 40 Hours celebration. It was a great time with 17 other priests that came over to the rectory. I knew them all, so it was great to be able to comfortably interact and talk with them. The priests in the area are great guys and it is wonderful to be able to hang out with them and see gather with them in a setting I rarely get to. About a half dozen ladies from the parish were in our kitchen all day preparing the delicious food and served us 4 courses; it was a great meal!

I presided over the Benediction - it was my first time doing this. It was a nice little service. What is characteristic of these 40 Hours benedictions is the Eucharistic procession around the church with the servers and all the priests and deacons vested followed by the Eucharist. Our 4th degree Knights were also here tonight and they added their signature presence.

It is not a heavily attended event in the parish. I think I recognize some reasons why it isn't and one reason is the very little talk and advertisement it receives. It was in the bulletin and that is about the extent to which it was publicized. This shows me for sure the importance of developing good parish communication from the pastor and also from all other resources they can utilize.

I definitely beleive that one reason people do not come to church or events like this at church is simply because they were not asked or told about it! I am certain that the simple sentence of "Tuesday evening is the 40 Hours benediction, please come to celebrate our parish" would have doubled the attendance... but this is for another discussion

It was a great evening of priestly (and transitional deacon) fraternity, good food and prayer

St Francis, please continue to pray for all of us