Relics during Adoration?

The recent Eucharistic Revival in the United States has produced much spiritual fruit. The perhaps greatest fruit has been increased reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. A wave of new adoration (many perpetual) chapels has sprung up in the Revival’s wake, and this is an immense good for souls and their parishes. The following article aims to focus our attention on the Holy Eucharist, and show our adoration for the Sacrament according to the mind of Holy Mother Church.

The Source and Summit Eucharistic Procession makes its way along Summit Avenue in St. Paul on its way to the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Adoration chapels are places of increased prayer, they have an altar where the Blessed Sacrament is enthroned and exposed for the faithful. It is not uncommon for other aids to prayer to accompany this: spiritual books, cards to write petitions, rosaries, and sacred art. It is good to make people feel welcome and to supply them with things to help them to pray. This idea of ‘furnishing the faithful’ seems also to encourage a ‘more-is-better’ approach to what put there.

We should be careful, however, to follow the mind of the Church, shown by her practice throughout history, and to maintain an attitude of docility and reverence anytime the Holy Eucharist is involved.

Here it is important to say at the outset that no part of our article wishes to condemn anyone’s sincere experience of prayer or devotion, but to provide information about why the Church's practice can help us to appreciate the proper place of the Holy Eucharist and the relics of her saints.

Whenever the Blessed Sacrament is present, it is the sole source of our attention and devotion. This is the reason, for example, that Holy Mass is normally not offered while the the Sacrament is exposed. If public prayer, such as Vespers, is conducted during exposition, the priest’s sermon (the part of the service that is his own contribution) will be a short fervorino, or the Blessed Sacrament will be veiled, so as not to take away attention.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

This is also why the exposition of relics alongside the Blessed Sacrament is discouraged, and even forbidden. Further, if a relic is exposed at another altar somewhere else in the same church, blessings are not given with the relic as long as the Eucharist is exposed.

This sole focus and devotion, this undivided attention to the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, is by no means a kind of ‘minimalism,’ in our worship which seeks to ‘simplify’ or ‘pair down,’ the rite. Rather, it is the very definition of worship, reverence. It is a single-minded dedication to the unum necessarium, the ‘one necessary thing.’ Reverence is ‘wasting’ our attention on just one thing, when our modern, efficient, technological minds and our busied lives want to multitask and flit from one thing to the next.

Relics and the Blessed Sacrament exposed at the same time.

Nor is this ‘one-or-the-other’ approach in any way the Church discouraging the exposition and veneration of relics. The sacred liturgy teaches us proper order and precedence in worship, and certainly includes frequent and prominent use of the holy relics of the Saints. For more information on how relics can be used in the liturgy, see our extended article on this topic here.

Relics and the Blessed Sacrament exposed at the same time.

What should the priest and ministers do, then, if relics are present on the altar and exposition will take place? The easiest thing, of course, is to remove them to the sacristy after Mass, or, if exposition is to follow immediately, they can be removed during the Communion, if the faithful receive Holy Communion at that Mass.

If this is inconvenient or poses a time-crunch, special covers can be used to veil the relics without removing larger or more unwiedly reliquaries from the altar.

Ministers cover larger reliquaries with special covers before Benediction.

Here above we can see ministers covering relics in larger standing reliquaries before the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration. On the left side they are covered, on the right side they have not yet been covered. Since time is short between Mass and the time of exposition, it may be more practical to cover the relics instead of moving them.

Now these distinctions may prompt us to ask, ‘Why all the trouble with small things such as this?’ This is perhaps a larger question about the role of our public liturgical worship and its connection to our daily lives. There is much we could say, but in short, the love with which we do little things in life shows the inward disposition we bear. Most of us do not have many opportunities to go truly ‘great’ things in the world’s eyes, but we can show our love for our family and those around us by little acts of love. Holy Mother Church gives us ways to show love and devotion, simple ways which we can learn in a spirit of faith.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the reliquaries have been covered to direct focus toward the Eucharist.

Did you enjoy this article? For more information on how to use relics in the Sacred Liturgy, see our forthcoming book, A Vademecum of Relics in the Liturgy. This book compiles liturgical sources and ideas to use the relics of the saints in liturgical life.