Origin 1300 to 1400
A standing vessel with a glass window at its centre, made to display a consecrated host for adoration. Most are built as a sunburst, rays radiating from the circle of the host. The point of the object is visibility: it exists because a strand of late medieval devotion wanted to look at the Eucharist rather than only consume it.
It is used for Exposition, for Benediction and for carrying the host in procession, above all at Corpus Christi. The host is held in a small crescent clip called a lunette. A monstrance is not handled with bare hands during Benediction; the priest holds it through a humeral veil.
Facts
Use
Who May Handle ItClergy or ordained officiants only 1 Carried and used in benediction by a priest or deacon ConsecrationSourced to the subject's own accountConsecrated in a rite before use 2 Origins
Origin Period Learn More
The Vessel Made to Display What Is Usually Reserved
The monstrance is a standing vessel with a window at its centre, made for a single purpose: to display a consecrated host so that it can be looked upon and adored.
Adoration made visible
Where the chalice and paten hold the sacrament during the rite, the monstrance exists for the devotion that grew up around gazing at it outside the rite, the exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the carrying of it in procession, above all at Corpus Christi. The consecrated host is held upright behind glass in a central chamber, the lunette, so that the faithful may see it, which is the whole function of the object and the reason it developed only as that devotion took hold in the later Middle Ages.
The sunburst
Most monstrances are built as a sunburst, with gilded rays radiating from the central window, an image chosen to present the host as a source of light and to draw the eye to it. The form can be elaborate to the point of being a major work of the goldsmith, since the object is made to be seen and honoured. Its use is confined to Catholicism and a few High Anglican settings, since it presupposes the belief that Christ is really and permanently present in the consecrated host, and it is that belief, more than the object, that the sunburst is designed to proclaim.
The Goldsmith's Object, and Who Is Allowed to Carry It
A monstrance is one of the heaviest and most elaborate pieces a parish owns, built by a goldsmith rather than assembled from stock parts, because its purpose is to hold the host at the center of a sunburst of rays where a congregation can see it.
Construction
Most monstrances are gilt brass or silver, built around a glass fronted holder called a lunette that clips the host in place behind glass on both sides so it can be seen without being touched. The rays radiating outward are frequently set with imitation or genuine gemstones and can weigh several kilograms once assembled, which is why large processional monstrances are typically carried using a cloth wrapped handle called a humeral veil rather than bare hands, protecting both the object and the one carrying it from direct contact. Baroque examples from Central Europe and colonial Latin America pushed the form furthest, producing monstrances a meter tall in solid worked silver.
Who handles it, and how it is retired
Only a priest or deacon touches the host itself when loading or removing it from the lunette, the monstrance's exterior may be carried by servers during a procession, always using the veil rather than bare hands out of reverence for what it holds even when empty. A monstrance that is damaged, usually the glass or the clasp rather than the metalwork, is sent for repair to a specialist rather than replaced outright, since these are typically donated pieces of some age and expense, and a badly damaged one is retired to storage rather than melted down.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The monstrance is used to carry the host in procession, above all at Corpus Christi.
Belongs to Tradition
The monstrance exists because of the doctrine of the real presence and the feast of Corpus Christi, so it has no counterpart outside Catholic practice.
Element Of
The vessel in which the consecrated host is exposed for adoration outside Mass, a devotion held to follow from the reservation of the sacrament.
Sources
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