page_title: Reserved sacrament
section_title: Devotion
hierarchical_section_title: Reserved sacrament / Devotion
caption_attribution_description: monstrance
context_page_description: During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the second part of the Mass, the elements of bread and wine are considered to have been changed into the veritable Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The manner in which this occurs is referred to by the term transubstantiation, a theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Roman Catholic Church. Members of the Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran communions also believe that Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the bread and wine, but they believe that the way in which this occurs must forever remain a sacred mystery. In many Christian churches some portion of the consecrated elements is set aside and reserved after the reception of Communion and referred to as the reserved sacrament. The reserved sacrament is usually stored in a tabernacle, a locked cabinet made of precious materials and usually located on, above, or near the high altar. In Western Christianity usually only the Host, from Latin: hostia, meaning "victim", is reserved, except where wine might be kept for the sick who cannot consume a host.
context_section_description: A second purpose of reservation is that it might be a focus of prayer. In the 3rd century, catechumens baptized at Easter or Pentecost might spend eight days in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament, reserved in a home-church, before Christianity was legalized. However, only since the year 1000, or even later, was the Blessed Sacrament kept in churches so that the faithful might visit It or pray before It. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Churches for the purposes of adoration has been current since the 14th century and may be either private (expositio privata), where only the doors of the tabernacle are opened, or public exposition where the Host is placed in a monstrance so that it may be more readily seen. Public exposition, formerly permitted only on the feast of Corpus Christi, developed only in recent centuries into a formal service known as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
  Reservation was prohibited in many Protestant churches in the 16th century. In England it was permitted in the First Book of Common Prayer of 1549, but disallowed in 1552. The Thirty-Nine Articles stated, "The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped." In 1662, the prayer book rubric was altered to the effect that after the Communion any remains were to be reverently consumed. The practice of reservation died out among Anglicans until the 19th century when, under the influence of the Tractarians, members of the Oxford Movement, it was restored. In Tract 90, John Henry Newman argued for a permissive interpretation of Article XXVIII.
  During the First world war, the practice of reservation was developed in the Anglican church, partly to allow chaplains in the Army to give Communion in the trenches or on the battlefield to severely wounded soldiers. Nevertheless, this caused energetic debate amongst Anglican theologians of the time.
caption: A traditional "solar" monstrance used to display the Blessed Sacrament
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