Reverend Daniel Hennessy, Vocational Director of the Archdiocese of Boston, MA

Saint Therese Chapel (the Carmelites’ Chapel-in-the-Mall) in Peabody, Massachusetts, participated in the Archdiocese of Boston’s Novena to Saint Patrick for vocations on March 14th. The novena consisted of a Holy Hour of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament followed by the Novena Prayer to Saint Patrick.

A feature of the Holy Hour was the Pope John Paul II monstrance used for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Pope John Paul II had given five monstrances, one to each continent, to encourage devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to pray for vocations. The monstrance passes from diocese to diocese where it is used during a period of ten days in a novena of Holy Hours of Eucharistic adoration.

The organization of the novena was entrusted to the Archdiocesan Office of Vocations. During the first seven days of the novena forty-five Holy Hours were held in parishes and institutions throughout the Archdiocese. There was an average of seven Holy Hours held each day in seven different locations using the papal monstrance in each one.

Cardinal O’Malley chose to join the Holy Hours of Eucharistic adoration to a novena of prayer to Patrick who is the primary patron of the Archdiocese. On the last two days of the novena the Blessed Sacrament was exposed all day at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center in South Boston during the Boston Men’s and Women’s Conference, which was attended by three thousand men on Saturday (despite a severe snow storm the day before) and five thousand women on Sunday.