HISTORY AND FORMSOF EUCHARISTIC ADORATION
The Eucharist is a priceless treasure: by not only celebrating it but also by praying before it outside of Mass, we are enabled to make contact with the very wellspring of grace…. It is pleasant to spend time with [Jesus], to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart.
– Saint John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 25
Historical Background
The practice of reserving the Eucharist is an ancient observance which has its origins in the earliest centuries of the Church’s history. The first extant description of reserving the Eucharist in order to bring Holy Communion to the sick is found in Saint Justin Martyr’s First Apology (c. 155–157). During the following century, Saint Cyprian of Carthage described how Christians would bring the Eucharist to their homes to receive it during the week, since the celebration of the Eucharist usually took place only on Sundays at this point in Christian history. In a tradition beginning in the city of Rome, the Eucharist was sometimes reserved and then added to the Precious Blood during a later Mass celebrated in another location as a way of symbolically expressing the communion between parishes and their bishop or between various bishops. At other times, the reserved Sacrament from one Mass was added to the Precious Blood at a later Mass to signify the unity of all Eucharistic celebrations in Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross. In order to make the Eucharist available for these various purposes, the Blessed Sacrament was regularly reserved in tabernacles from the fourth century onward.
The common practice of praying before the reserved Eucharist began roughly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as a consequence of the writings of certain Scholastic theologians on the subject of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. During this period, the dogma of transubstantiation, which is listed among the articles of faith, was first articulated. Transubstantiation is the term used by the Church to describe “the way in which Christ becomes present in [the Holy Eucharist] through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into his Body and of the whole substance of the wine into his Blood.” This teaching was formally defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and confirmed by the Council of Trent in 1551. At the time, the Council Fathers of Trent also reiterated the teaching of the Council of Constance (1415) concerning the doctrine of concomitance, which states that “Christ is present whole and entire in each of the [Eucharistic] species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.”
As the faithful during the late Middle Ages medi
