Altar of repose
Encyclopedia
The altar of repose is an altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...

 in Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....

, and some Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

 churches used as the place where the Communion
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...

 hosts, consecrated in the Mass of the Lord's Supper
Mass of the Lord's Supper
The Mass of the Lord's Supper is the Catholic Mass celebrated on the evening of Holy Thursday. It inaugurates the Easter Triduum, and commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, more explicitly than other celebrations of the Mass....

, are reserved
Reserved sacrament
During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the second part of the Mass, the elements of bread and wine are considered, in some branches of Christian practice, to have been transubstantiated into the veritable Body and Blood of Jesus Christ...

 for Holy Communion on the following day, which is Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...

, the day on which the death of Christ is observed liturgically and Mass is not celebrated, so communion must be given from Hosts consecrated on the previous day.

The Roman Catholic Church does not prescribe that the place of reservation should have an altar, requiring only that "the Blessed Sacrament should be reserved in a closed tabernacle or pyx". Indeed the Church's rules on the matter envisage no more than a single altar in the church.

In the Mass of the Lord's Supper sufficient hosts are consecrated for the faithful to receive Communion both at that Mass and on the next day. The hosts intended for the Good Friday service are not placed in the tabernacle, as is usual, but are left on the altar, while the priests says the postcommunion
Postcommunion
Postcommunion is the text said or sung on a reciting tone following the Communion of the Mass.-Form:Every Postcommunion corresponds to a collect. These are the three fundamental prayers of any given Proper Mass. The Postcommunion is said or chanted exactly like the Collect...

 prayer. They are then carried in solemn procession to a place of reservation somewhere in the church or in an appropriately adorned chapel. The priest uses a humeral veil
Humeral veil
The humeral veil is one of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Rite, also used in some Anglican and Lutheran churches. It consists of a piece of cloth about 2.75 m long and 90 cm wide draped over the shoulders and down the front, normally of silk or cloth of gold...

 while carrying them to that place. The procession is led by a cross-bearer accompanied by two servers with lighted candles; other servers with lighted candles follow and a thurifer immediately precedes the priest. At the end of the Holy Thursday service, all altars, except the one used as the altar of repose, are stripped.
The Blessed Sacrament remains in the temporary place until the Holy Communion part of the Good Friday liturgical service.

Roman Catholic piety has made Holy Thursday a day of exceptional devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and the place where the Sacrament is reserved is a focus point for the love and aspirations of the faithful. Eucharistic adoration
Eucharistic adoration
Eucharistic adoration is a practice in the Roman Catholic Church, and in a few Anglican and Lutheran churches, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed to and adored by the faithful....

 is encouraged at the place of reservation, but if continued after midnight should be done without outward solemnity.

At the Good Friday service (The Celebration of the Passion of the Lord), the Blessed Sacrament is available for Communion. After that service (with the altar of repose being dismantled), it remains available as viaticum
Viaticum
Viaticum is a term used especially in the Roman Catholic Church for the Eucharist administered, with or without anointing of the sick, to a person who is dying, and is thus a part of the last rites...

for the dying in, say, a locked cabinet in the sacisty. While it remains in such a temporary tabernacle, a lamp or candle is kept burning before it.

Mention of the altar of repose and the procession to it is not found before the close of the fifteenth century. The reservation of the Consecrated Species in the Mass of Holy Thursday, spoken of in earlier liturgical works, was for the distribution of Holy Communion, not for the service on the following day.

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