Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Catholic Church (mostly, but not always, in the Latin Rite) and in some Anglican churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful. When this exposure and adoration is constant (twenty-four hours a day), it is called Perpetual Adoration. In a parish, this is usually done by volunteer parishioners; in a monastery or convent, it is done by the resident monks or nuns.
The pra...
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Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Catholic Church (mostly, but not always, in the Latin Rite) and in some Anglican churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful. When this exposure and adoration is constant (twenty-four hours a day), it is called Perpetual Adoration. In a parish, this is usually done by volunteer parishioners; in a monastery or convent, it is done by the resident monks or nuns.
The practice of adoration traces its roots to the fact that in monasteries and convents the Blessed Sacrament was an integral part of the structure of cloistered life. From the beginning of community life the unconsecrated bread and wine were originally kept in a special room, just off the sanctuary but separated from the church where the Divine Liturgy or Mass was offered, stemming from the standard practice of having a skeuophylakion which was found in cathedral and parish churches, an architecturally separate building or room where the deacons...
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