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‘Rival’ students unite for holy hour
By Ambria Hammel, The Catholic Sun
October 19, 2006
MESA — On spirit day, students sported the shirt of their favorite athletic team, often pitting largely local teams against each other.
Yet the young learners also outfitted themselves with a rosary and prepared to join their “rivals” for a prayer of unity.
Students at St. Timothy Catholic Academy participated in the fourth annual worldwide children’s eucharistic and Marian holy hour held in honor of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary Oct. 6.
It was a chance to “gather the children of the world before the tabernacles of the world for the families of the world,” said Debby Engard, vice president of the World Apostolate of Fatima’s Phoenix division. The international group promoted the event in 110 countries.
With so many children praying for the same thing at the same time, “That’s got to have an impact,” Engard said.
The seventh- and eighth-grade students led the school in prayer. They took the school on a spiritual tour of the globe by reciting the World Mission Rosary.
Praying for peace
Its creator, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, assigned each decade a color to honor the work of missions, conversions and world peace within the Earth’s major regions.
Green is for the forests and grasslands of Africa, blue is for Oceania and yellow for the morning light of the east in Asia. White symbolizes Europe and red the Americas where a fire of faith brought missionaries over the centuries.
“It’s a time to pray for the less fortunate people,” sixth-grader Chris Fahy said.
The students also had up to 20 minutes of silent adoration at staggered times throughout the day. Some sat while others kneeled. Everyone moved as close as they could to the open tabernacle, which displayed the Eucharist.
Seventh-graders Haley Lawless and Tori Caryl both like the peacefulness of adoration.
“At this age, they have these thoughts and feelings, but they don’t want to verbalize it,” teacher Donna Dicker said. She brings her class to adoration every Monday before lunch.
Dicker said it gives the students a “recess” in which she advises them to “just sit and talk to Jesus like He’s your friend.”
Sixth-grader Bailey Murray began group adoration in first grade and still finds it exciting.
“I also like it alone because if you have a personal intention, you can say it,” she explained.
Some of the classes used the worldwide holy hour as a springboard for regular adoration. Victoria Bonura, who teaches the sixth grade, encouraged private adoration at church. Many parishes offer it the first Friday of each month.
Principal Pam Gomez hopes the students left the chapel with a sense of communion with the world and a sense of prayer.
“The two go together very well that we pray together and for each other,” she said.
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Ambria Hammel/CATHOLIC SUN
Fourth-grader Janae Edwards prays the rosary during a worldwide holy hour Oct. 6. St. Timothy Catholic Academy students worshipped Christ in adoration.
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