X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Forty Hours


Forty Hours' Devotion

"We have determined to establish publicly in this Mother City of Rome (in hac alma Urbe) an uninterrupted course of prayer in such wise that in the different churches (he specifies the various categories), on appointed days, there be observed the pious and salutary devotion of the Forty Hours, with such an arrangement of churches and times that, at every hour of the day and night, the whole year round, the incense of prayer shall ascend without intermission before the face of the Lord".

Already before the year 1550 this, or some analogous exposition, had been established by St. Philip Neri for the Confraternity of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome; while St. Ignatius Loyola, at encouraged to the practice of exposing the Blessed Sacrament during the carnival as an act of expiation for the sins committed at that season.


Giovanni Leonardi

John Leonardi worked with this community to spread devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, devotion to the Forty Hours, and frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist.


see also