Adoring the Sacrament

Eucharistic adoration is a Roman Catholic devotion in which the faithful worship Jesus Christ believed to be truly present in the consecrated bread of the Eucharist. It rests on the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence and of transubstantiation, the teaching that at the Mass the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ while retaining the appearances of bread and wine; on this belief, the consecrated host reserved after Mass is Christ himself and is worshipped as such. In adoration a consecrated host is placed in a monstrance, a vessel with a transparent centre designed to display it, and exposed on the altar, and worshippers come to pray silently before it, kneeling in the presence they believe to be the Lord.

The devotion may take the form of a brief visit, an hour of prayer, or perpetual adoration, in which a community arranges for the exposed sacrament to be attended and adored continuously, day and night, in unbroken succession.