40 Hours Devotion

What is the Forty Hours Devotion?
The Forty Hours Devotion is an opportunity to gather as a community before the Blessed Sacrament and to pray before the Lord in solemn adoration.  It gives us time to deepen our appreciation of the importance of the mystery of the Eucharist in our lives.  Traditionally it begins with a celebration of Mass.  At the end of this opening Mass, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, and over a period of a few days, the faithful are given the opportunity to assemble in prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  The form of prayer to be prayed can be done in diverse ways.  The Forty Hours Devotion customarily ends with the celebration of Mass.  
 
 In the celebration of the Forty Hours Devotion, we are able to witness a fuller expression of our Catholic faith in the Eucharist.  It is first and foremost about our participation in the Paschal Mystery through the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  In the Mass, we participate directly in the saving acts of Christ, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit we unite the sacrifice of our lives with the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.  It is in this way that we give praise and thanksgiving to God the Father for his Son Jesus and participate in the true worship of our God by which we are sanctified as his holy people.  This leads us then to live out our lives more fully in Christ.  This devotion also gives an opportunity to give voice to our faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  As the community gathers in prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, it witnesses to our faith, as a church, that what is before us is bread no longer but truly the body of Christ (Jesus is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the sacred host and in the precious blood.)

Why are we encouraging the Forty Hours Devotion as a yearly practice?
The primary setting for the promotion of a life centered in the Eucharist is, of course, the celebration of Mass, but the church also offers other means of deepening a eucharistic-centered faith.  One such practice is adoration where we gather to pray before the Lord in his Blessed Sacrament, exposed in the monstrance or in the tabernacle.  In the Sacred Host, consecrated during Holy Mass, Jesus is truly, really, and substantially present - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  The Forty Hours Devotion gives us the opportunity to come as a community to pray before the Lord in solemn adoration.  The church recommends such solemn adoration at least once a year for each parish.

What is the history of the Forty Hours Devotion?
The exact origin of the Forty Hours Devotion is not known.  The first clear attestation for its celebration comes from Milan in 1527.  In its inception, it was celebrated as reparation for the sins of the community and was motivated by the desire to offer prayers to God for protection during the crisis of war.  The practice of celebrating Forty Hours Devotion spread rapidly from this point.  This may be attributed to various reasons such as the quick approval granted it by Pope Paul III in 1539.  Furthermore, the support of St. Anthonmy Maria Zaccaria and Saint Philip Neri, who intorduced its celebration into Rome in 1550, helped to extend its celebration beyond Milan.  Finally, as it was introduced to more places, this practice rapidly became popular with the lay faithful.

In time, the purpose for celebrating Forty Hours Devotion started to be transformed.  This change is witnessed in 1560 by the bull promulgated by Pope Paul IV.  He states that the devotion is an imitation of the forty days of fasting of the Lord in the desert, and the time of unceasing prayer called for in Scripture and by the early church.  This transformation continued such that by the time of the eighteenth century this devotion became primarily eucharistic in nature and centered on thanksgiving for the mystery and gift of the Eucharist.

From the eighteenth century onward, the rules for celebrating the Forty Hours Devotion were heavily influenced by Pope Clement XII who published in 1731 the Instructio Clementina.  This document gave detailed instructions for how this devotion was to be celebrated in the city of Rome.  The Instructio became the basis for the further development of Forty Hours throughout the church.  It was very detailed in how the celebration was to occur and what the expectations around its celebration would entail.  Other diocese used this as the foundation for their celebration of the devotion - such was the case in the United States.  These rules for celebration did not change until the Second Vatican Council. The present rules for celebrating Forty Hours Devotion can be found in the Order for the Solemn Exposition of the Holy Eucharist published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1992.  This document is an adaptation of the Roman Ritual:  Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass.  

 *  The above information has been adapted from https://bostoncatholic.org/forty-hours-devotion.