Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament

This picture shows a monstrance, which is the sacred vessel used to display the Blessed Sacrament when It is removed from the tabernacle and exposed for adoration by Catholics. As can be noted, the monstrance contains a white Host, which Catholics believe is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, which He left to us when He instituted the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper. The term Blessed Sacrament means, "The Risen Jesus." He becomes present on the altar at the words of consecration spoken by the priest during the celebration of every Mass.

Catholics have had a long tradition of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, both as It is reserved in the tabernacle and as It is exposed in the monstrance. In an article titled, "Prayer Before the Blessed Sacrament," Rev. John Hardon, S.J., explains the history of this practice and the reasons for it. An excerpt of this article follows and is reprinted with the author's permission.

"One practice of Catholic piety that represents a real development of doctrine in the history of the Church is the practice of praying before the Blessed Sacrament, either exposed on the altar or reserved in the tabernacle... Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament not only during the Mass or at Communion time, but all the time, as long as the Sacred Elements remain.

The most fundamental reason why prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is so meritorious is because it is prayer arising from faith in the cardinal mystery of Christianity, which is faith in the Incarnation. In the famous sixth chapter of John's gospel wherein the Savior predicted the Eucharist, the whole first part of the chapter is on faith in Him as the Incarnate Son of God... When, therefore, we pray before the Eucharist, whether we advert to it or not, whether we even think of it or not, we are professing in the depths of our souls our faith in Jesus Christ as the natural, only-begotten Son of the Father...

So the first reason why prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is so important is because it is an expression of faith in the Divinity of Christ, that is, in the Son of Mary Who is the Son of God, Who is here, right here and now before me, as close and perhaps closer than were the people on the hillside near the Sea of Galilee when Jesus first predicted the Holy Eucharist.

Another reason why prayer before The Blessed Sacrament is so praiseworthy is because it is a profession of faith in the real bodily presence of Jesus under the sacramental veils... Everyone who prays before the Blessed Sacrament... believes that behind the external appearances of bread is a Man and behind the Man is God...

The believer who prays before the Eucharist... believes that Jesus Christ is the Man from Nazareth; but that this Man is the eternal God... He has the same human body and soul... as He has now in heaven, as He had during His visible stay in the area we now call the Near East. The prayer before the Eucharist believes that time is erased by the miracle of the Real Presence and so is distance and space.

A third reason why prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is so efficacious is because, all through the Gospels during His public life, the humanity of Christ was the instrument of great power that went out from Him to work signs and wonders such as the world had never seen... This humanity, as we know, operates in many ways but it acts nowhere more effectively -- and I wish to add, miraculously -- than through the human nature that is substantially united to the Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament.

One of the best ways to look at prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is to see it as an extension of Holy Communion. Christ Himself could not have been plainer when He called Himself "the Bread of Life" and told us to eat His Body and drink His Blood. What we may overlook, however, is that the spiritual nourishment that comes from the Eucharist does not end with Holy Communion... As we pray before the Blessed Sacrament our souls are fed by the Person of the Savior in the two faculties of spirit that need to be constantly fed -- the mind and the will. In the mind we need light; in the will we need strength.

The final, and in a way, most important reason why prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is so important is that when we pray before the Eucharist we have before us in human form the principal reason for our existence, which is the all-loving God...

God became Man and as man He gave us the Eucharist which is the Real Presence. The main reason is to show how much He loves us, by being with us in order that we might be with Him, to tell Him how much we love Him in return."