The Honan Chapel - Gallery Collection


Image TitleHonan Collection: Benediction candlesticks
DescriptionIn 1916, one of the most generally popular of Catholic services was Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Even today, this is ordinarily an afternoon or evening devotion and consists in the singing of certain hymns, or litanies, or canticles, before the Blessed Sacrament, which is exposed upon the altar in a monstrance and is surrounded with lights. At the end, the priest, his shoulders enveloped in a humeral veil, takes the monstrance into his hands and with it makes the sign of the cross (hence the name Benediction) in silence over the kneeling congregation. Benediction is often employed as a conclusion to other services, e. g. Vespers, Compline, the Stations of the Cross, etc., but it is also still more generally treated as a rite complete in itself. This item has been catalogued by Virginia Teehan & Elizabeth Wincott Heckett in The Honan Chapel: A Golden Vision published by Cork University Press in 2004.
ContributorWilliam A. Scott & Edmond Johnson Ltd., Dublin
Contribution Year1916
  
PhotographerAndrew Bradley
CopyrightHonan Trust
Date of Photograph2004
CollectionChapel Collection