Eucharistic Adoration: “We have come to do Him homage.”
Those words, spoken by the Magi from the East as they searched for the infant Jesus, resound through the centuries to be echoed in the heart of every person who makes a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. The presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is as real today as the infant Jesus was to the Wise Men who sought Him by following a star rising in the East. As Pope St. John Paul II affirms in his encyclical on the relationship of the Eucharist to the Church,”….the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.” (The Church and the Eucharist, 1)

Special vocabulary:
Monstrance: Sacred Vessel used for the exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
Luna: Glass enclosure that holds the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance
Cope: Ornate cloak-like vestment worn over a white alb and a stole by clergy at Benediction and processions
Humeral Veil: Scarf-like liturgical garment about eight or nine feet long and two or three feet wide, worn over the shoulders. The minister covers his hands with the ends of the veil so that it, not his hands, touches the monstrance at Benediction or during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament.
Incense: Granulated or powdered aromatic resin that, when sprinkled on glowing coals in a censer (thurible), becomes a fragrant cloud of smoke to symbolize prayer rising to God. Incense is used whenever there is Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and during processions with the Blessed Sacrament.

OurSundayVisitor, Inc., pamphlet P64 www.osv.com :copyright 2003 by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.