Joseph Henry McMahon

“ In Paris, before the passage of the Associations Law, the Nocturnal Adoration was practised in upwards of one hundred and thirty churches and chapels by more than twenty-five hundred men. The Nocturnal Adoration, at Rome, founded in 1851, and erected into an archconfraternity in 1858, practically completes the chain of associations that render perpetual, in a strict sense, the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It would be impossible to give here an adequate notice of the enormous number of Eucharistic associations, lay and clerical, formed for the work of the Perpetual Adoration. ”

“ The term is used in a truly literal sense, i.e. to indicate that the adoration is physically perpetual; and, more frequently, in a moral sense, when it is interrupted only for a short time, or for imperative reasons, or through uncontrollable circumstances, to be resumed, however, when possible, or it may indicate an uninterrupted adoration for a longer or shorter period, a day, or a few days, as in the devotion of the Forty Hours, or it may designate an uninterrupted adoration in one special church, or in different churches in a locality or diocese, or country, or throughout the world. ”

“ In six French dioceses the adoration is strictly perpetual. It flourishes also in Belgium, in different dioceses of Germany, in Italy, in Mexico, in Brazil, and other South American countries, in the United States, and Canada, and even in Oceanica. The Nocturnal Adoration is carried on in many countries by associations of men. The first confraternity for the Nocturnal Adoration called "Pia Unione di Adoratori del SS. Sagramento" was founded in Rome, in 1810. ”