Forty Hours' Devotion, in Italian called Quarant'ore or written in one word Quarantore, is a Roman Catholic liturgical action in which continuous prayer is made for forty hours before the Blessed Sacrament in solemn exposition. [1] It often occurs in a succession of churches, with one finishing prayers at the same time as the next takes it up.
A celebration of such a devotion is begun by a Solemn Mass or "Mass of Exposition", and ended by a "Mass of Reposition". The latter concludes with a procession and benediction. The Blessed Sacrament is reposed in the tabernacle for the daily Mass, and then returned for exposition after Mass.
It is assumed that the exposition and prayer should be kept up by night as well as by day, but permission is given to dispense with this requirement when enough watchers cannot be obtained. In such a case the interruption of the devotion by night does not forfeit the indulgences conceded by the Holy See to those who take part in it.
The precise origin of the Forty Hours' Devotion is obscure. St. Charles Borromeo speaks as if this practice of praying for forty hours was very ancient; and he refers it to the forty hours that Christ's Body remained in the tomb. The number 40 is also associated with the rain at the time of the flood, years on the way to the Promised Land, and Jesus fasting for 40 days before beginning his public ministry. [2]
The practice of reserving the Blessed Sacrament with some solemnity during the Easter Triduum began in the 12th or 13th century, From this the idea grew up of transferring this figurative vigil of forty hours to other days and other seasons. The transference to the carnival tide was very obvious, and is likely enough to have occurred independently to many different people.
There is evidence that Giovanni Antonio Bellotti organized this in connection with a certain confraternity at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Milan as early as 1527. During the 1520s and ’30s, in the Archdiocese of Milan, Italy, this prayer devotion was extended beyond Holy Week and often added to Pentecost, the feast of the Assumption and at Christmas. [3]
Evidence seems to favour the conclusion that a Capuchin Father, Joseph Piantanida da Fermo, was the first to organise the arrangement by which the Forty Hours' Exposition was transferred from church to church in Milan and was there kept up without interruption throughout all the year. The Milanese chronicler Burigozzo describes the custom of exposing the Blessed Sacrament in one church after another as a novelty which began at Milan, in May 1537. His notice seems to have been actually written in that year. [4] The practice has been attributed to the Milanese Capuchin Giuseppe da Ferno. In November 2021, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington initiated a schedule of Forty hours Devotion in successive parishes in preparation for its Golden Jubilee in 2024. [5]
A Dominican, Father Thomas Nieto, the Barnabite St. Antonio Maria Zaccharia, and his friend Brother Buono of Cremona, known as the Hermit, have all been suggested as the founders of the Forty Hours' Devotion. The claims of the last named, Brother Buono, were urged by Bergamaschi, who contends that the Quarant'Ore had been started by Brother Buono at Cremona in 1529. Philip II of Spain is also credited with having first instituted the Forty Hours devotion at the Royal Chapel of the Cathedral of Granada. [4] The practice spread rapidly.
But the evidence in all these cases only goes to show that the practice was then being introduced of exposing the Blessed Sacrament with solemnity on occasions of great public calamity or peril, and that for such expositions the period of forty hours was generally selected. In past centuries, especially in the late Middle Ages, the devotion was practiced during times of crisis. Bishops frequently ordered exposition of the Sacrament for "serious and general need." The faithful would come in shifts before the Sacrament seeking God's intercession during events threatening the local community, such as war, epidemics, drought or famine. [3] Later it became common to hold the devotion around the feast of Corpus Christi.
One of the most important documents pertaining to this devotion is the Constitution Graves et diuturnae of Pope Clement VIII, of 25 November 1592, in which the pontiff strongly commended the practice of unwearied prayer.
We have determined to establish publicly in this Mother City of Rome (in hac alma Urbe) an uninterrupted course of prayer in such wise that in the different churches (he specifies the various categories), on appointed days, there be observed the pious and salutary devotion of the Forty Hours, with such an arrangement of churches and times that, at every hour of the day and night, the whole year round, the incense of prayer shall ascend without intermission before the face of the Lord. [2]
As in the case of a previously brief of Paul III, the keynote of this document is anxiety for the peace of Christendom. In 1731 Pope Clement XII issued a very minute code of instructions for the proper carrying out of the Quarant'Ore devotion, which is known as the "Instructio Clementina".
The Plenary Council of Baltimore approved the Forty Hours Devotion for all Catholic dioceses in the United States in 1866.
Before the year 1550 this, or some analogous exposition, had been established by St. Philip Neri for the Confraternity of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome; while St. Ignatius Loyola, also encouraged the practice of exposing the Blessed Sacrament during the carnival as an act of expiation for the sins committed at that season. [4] St. Francis de Sales, who was a great admirer of Philip Neri, incorporated the Forty Hours Devotion as part of his missionary outreach among the Calvinists living between Annecy and Geneva between 1594 and 1596. In the United States, Saint John Neumann (1811-1860), bishop of Philadelphia, helped spread the devotion, composing a special booklet for its practice. [6] Bishop Neumann introduced the first Forty Hours Devotion at the Church of St. Philip Neri on May 26, 1853, the Feast of Corpus Christi, in honor of the church's patron, despite the hostility of the Know Nothing party. [7]
"Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration... The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself." [8]
Whereas in the past benediction was frequently added to the end of another service or devotion, this is no longer permitted. Eucharistic exposition and benediction is a complete liturgical service in its own right. [9]
The rules for "Exposition of the Holy Eucharist" are contained in the Roman Ritual: Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass. "It is for episcopal conferences, in the preparation of particular rituals in accord with the Constitution on the Liturgy (no. 63b), to accommodate this title of the Roman Ritual to the needs of individual regions so that, their actions having been confirmed by the Apostolic See, the ritual may be followed in the respective regions." [10] In the United States the rules for celebrating the Forty Hours Devotion can be found in the "Order for the Solemn Exposition of the Holy Eucharist" published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1992. This document is an adaptation of the Roman Ritual. [11]
Although the forty-hour period should be continuous, some Churches break-up the time, reposing the Blessed Sacrament at night for security reasons. [12]
Other Eucharistic devotions such as Perpetual Adoration and the Holy Hour are outgrowths of the Forty Hours Devotion.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Forty Hours' Devotion". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
A benediction is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service. It can also refer to a specific Christian religious service including the exposition of the eucharistic host in the monstrance and the blessing of the people with it.
Genuflection or genuflexion is the act of bending a knee to the ground, as distinguished from kneeling which more strictly involves both knees. From early times, it has been a gesture of deep respect for a superior. Today, the gesture is common in the Christian religious practices of the Anglicanism, Lutheranism, the Catholic Church, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. The Latin word genuflectio, from which the English word is derived, originally meant kneeling with both knees rather than the rapid dropping to one knee and immediately rising that became customary in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. It is often referred to as "going down on one knee" or "bowing the knee". In Western culture, one genuflects on the left knee to a human dignitary, whether ecclesiastical or civil, while, in Christian churches and chapels, one genuflects on the right knee when the Sacrament is not exposed but in a tabernacle or veiled.
A monstrance, also known as an ostensorium, is a vessel used in Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, High Church Lutheran and Anglican churches for the display on an altar of some object of piety, such as the consecrated Eucharistic Sacramental bread (host) during Eucharistic adoration or during the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. A monstrance may also serve as a reliquary for the public display of relics of some saints. The word monstrance comes from the Latin word monstrare, while the word ostensorium comes from the Latin word ostendere. Either term, each expressing the concept of "showing", can refer to a vessel intended for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, but ostensorium has only this meaning.
Eucharistic adoration is a devotional practice primarily in Western Catholicism and Western Rite Orthodoxy, but also to a lesser extent in certain Lutheran and Anglican traditions, in which the Blessed Sacrament is adored by the faithful. This practice may occur either when the Eucharist is exposed, or when it is not publicly viewable because it is reserved in a place such as a tabernacle.
A tabernacle or a sacrament house is a fixed, locked box in which the Eucharist is stored as part of the "reserved sacrament" rite. A container for the same purpose, which is set directly into a wall, is called an aumbry.
Perpetual prayer is the Christian practice of continuous prayer carried out by a group.
Peter Julian Eymard was a French Catholic priest and the founder of two religious institutes: the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament for men and the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament for women.
In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Methodism and Anglicanism, an altar bell is typically a small hand-held bell or set of bells. The primary reason for the use of such bells is to create a “joyful noise to the Lord” as a way to give thanks for the miracle taking place atop the altar.
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, also called Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament or the Rite of Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction, is a devotional ceremony, celebrated especially in the Roman Catholic Church, but also in some other Christian traditions such as Anglo-Catholicism, whereby a bishop, a priest, or a deacon blesses the congregation with the Eucharist at the end of a period of adoration.
In the history of Christianity, the African Rite refers to a now defunct Christian, Latin liturgical rite, and is considered a development or possibly a local use of the primitive Roman Rite. Centered around the Archdiocese of Carthage in the Early African church, it used the Latin language.
During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the second part of the Mass, the elements of bread and wine are considered to have been changed into the veritable Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The manner in which this occurs is referred to by the term transubstantiation, a theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Roman Catholic Church. Members of the Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran communions also believe that Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the bread and wine, but they believe that the way in which this occurs must forever remain a sacred mystery. In many Christian churches, some portion of the consecrated elements is set aside and reserved after the reception of Communion and referred to as the reserved sacrament. The reserved sacrament is usually stored in a tabernacle, a locked cabinet made of precious materials and usually located on, above, or near the high altar. In Western Christianity usually only the Host, from Latin: hostia, meaning "victim", is reserved, except where wine might be kept for the sick who cannot consume a host.
Eucharist is the name that Catholic Christians give to the sacrament by which, according to their belief, the body and blood of Christ are present in the bread and wine consecrated during the Catholic eucharistic liturgy, generally known as the Mass. The definition of the Eucharist in the 1983 Code of Canon Law as the sacrament where Christ himself “is contained, offered, and received” points to the three aspects of the Eucharist according to Catholic theology: the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Holy Communion, and the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
The altar of repose is a temporary altar where the Communion hosts consecrated on Maundy Thursday during the Mass of the Lord's Supper are placed, or "reserved", for use on the following day, Good Friday.
The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, commonly known as the Sacramentinos is a Catholic Clerical Religious Congregation of Pontifical Right for men founded by St. Pierre-Julien Eymard. Its members use the nominal letters S.S.S. which is the acronym of its official name in Latin, after their names. By their life and activities, they assist the Church in her efforts to form Christian communities whose center of life is the Eucharist. They commit themselves to the implementation of this ideal in collaboration with lay men and women engaged in various ministries.
Holy Hour is the Roman Catholic devotional tradition of spending an hour in prayer and meditation on the agony of Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, or in Eucharistic adoration in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. A plenary indulgence is granted for this practice. The practice is also observed in some Lutheran churches and some Anglican churches.
Reparation is a Christian theological concept closely connected with those of atonement and satisfaction. In ascetical theology, reparation is the making of amends for insults given to God through sin, either one's own or another's. The response of man is to be reparation through adoration, prayer, and sacrifice. In Roman Catholic tradition, an act of reparation is a prayer or devotion with the intent to expiate the "sins of others", e.g. for the repair of the sin of blasphemy, the sufferings of Jesus Christ or as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary.
The Mass of the Presanctified is Christian liturgy traditionally celebrated on Good Friday in which the consecration is not performed. Instead, the Blessed Sacrament that was consecrated at an earlier Mass and reserved is distributed.
The Roman Catholic tradition includes a number of devotions to Jesus Christ. Like all Catholic devotions, these prayer forms are not part of the official public liturgy of the church but are based on the popular spiritual practices of Roman Catholics. Many are officially approved by the Holy See as suitable for spiritual growth but not necessary for salvation.
The Seven Churches Visitation is an originally Roman Catholic Lenten tradition to visit seven churches on the evening of Holy Thursday. Following the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the Blessed Sacrament is placed on the Altar of Repose in the church for adoration. During the Seven Churches Visitation, the faithful visit several churches – traditionally seven, very rarely fourteen, sometimes no set number depending upon the particular practice – to pray before the Blessed Sacrament in each church. The Seven Churches Visitation has been done in an ecumenical context, involving Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal, Aglipayan, and Salvationist traditions, among others.
The First Thursdays Devotion, also called the Act of Reparation to the Wounds of Jesus and to the Holy Eucharist, is a Catholic devotion to offer acts of reparation.