The practise of constant adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which is currently practised all throughout the globe, was first introduced at Avignon, France, 796 years ago on September 11.
Perpetual adoration, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, is devotion to the Blessed Sacrament that is uninterrupted or limited to brief breaks.
The phrase is used “in a moral sense, whether it is interrupted only for a short period, or for urgent reasons, or for situations beyond control,” he continued.
According to the Britannica, many scholars place the origin of the custom of adoring Jesus in the Eucharist.
At the time, Bishop Roberto de Thorete instituted the Corpus Christi feast in 1246 on the advice of St. Juliana de Mont Cornillon.
But at Avignon in 1226, the first everlasting worship was noted.
King Louis VII requested that the Blessed Sacrament be exposed on September 11 in order to commemorate his triumph against the Albigensians, a sect that was quite popular in southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries.
In the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Orleans, “the Blessed Sacrament wrapped with a veil was revealed in thanksgiving,” according to the Wikipedia.
Bishop Pierre de Corbie “deemed it expedient to continue adoration at night, as well as during the day,” in response to the vast number of people who came to worship Jesus in the Eucharist.
This unending worship was eventually approved by the Holy See and continued unbroken until the upheaval of the French Revolution put an end to it in 1792.
Thanks to the efforts of the Grey Penitents, a confederation of many fraternities, it was restarted in 1829.
Perpetual adoration quickly spread throughout Europe, but it wasn’t until the Forty Hours’ Devotion was formed in 1592 that this Catholic religious practise really “developed in general.”
According to the Encyclopedia, the devotion to the Forty Hours led to the practise of perpetual adoration in “a number of churches in Rome before it gradually spread throughout the world, so that it may truly be said that, during each hour of the year, the Blessed Sacrament, solemnly exposed, is adored by multitudes of faithful.”