Today some churches are able to have a chapel where perpetual adoration (latria) is available to the faithful. In the liturgical regulation “perpetual” does not necessarily mean 24-hours per day, but there are parishes where that is a possibility. The one inviolable requirement is that the exposed Eucharist not be left alone. Thus, some parishes have extended periods, e.g. 12 hours per day, when the Eucharist is in exposition.

After his victory over the Albigenses, King Louis VII of France asked the Bishop of Avignon to have the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Chapel of the Holy Cross (September 14, 1226). The throng of adorers was so great that the bishop decided to have the adoration continue day and night. This was later ratified by the Holy See and continued uninterrupted until 1792 during the French Revolution. It was resumed in 1829.

It was not until after the Council of Trent, however, that perpetual adoration began to develop on a more broad scale. Cloistered Religious Institutes were founded for the express purpose of adoring the Holy Eucharist day and night. Some, like the Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Austria (1654), took a solemn vow of perpetual adoration. Apostolic Religious Institutes were started to both practice adoration themselves and promote perpetual worship of the Eucharist among the faithful. Thus began the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Formally approved in 1817, its aim is to honor Christ’s life through adoration of the Eucharist. The practice of these communities is mixed, in that exposition is not always perpetual even while the adoration is.

Image credit: G. Corrigan, CANVA, CC-BY-NC