Adoration before the exposed Sacrament grew out of the medieval feast of Corpus Christi and flowered in the sixteenth century as an act of reparation. Perpetual exposition today is properly the practice of religious communities that have it as part of their common life and of lay associations that have received official recognition. Where a parish undertakes it, the permission of the diocesan bishop is required; he regulates when it is permitted and on what conditions. It is not a private devotion improvised by individuals but a stable commitment of a community, ordered to the Mass from which it flows and to which it leads.

Perpetual adoration is organised, not improvised: obtain the permission of the local Ordinary, and set it, if in a parish, in a chapel distinct from the body of the church so that it does not interfere with the parish's liturgical life. Fill every hour of the day and night with committed adorers so that the Blessed Sacrament is never left unattended; where enough people cannot be found for some hours, reserve the Sacrament and expose it only at the hours when adorers are present. Take an hour, and keep it faithfully: begin with adoration, then thanksgiving, reparation, and intercession, using Scripture, the rosary, or silence. Exposition may never take place during the Easter Triduum.

About 1 hour

Citation

Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 4th ed. (Apostolic Penitentiary, 1999), grant on Eucharistic adoration: a plenary indulgence for adoring the Blessed Sacrament for at least half an hour, and a partial indulgence for a shorter visit, on the usual conditions. The governing norms are those of Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967).

eucharistic