You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith. Hey there, Spouts.

Today is Thursday, May 27th, 2021.

This week on the Catholic Spouts podcast, we are wrapping up our tour of our own churches.

So we look around with fresh eyes at all the incredible things and symbols and

objects and things that we do while we're at Holy Mass. So today we are going to talk about

the monstrance. Now, the monstrance is not something that we use during Mass. Perhaps it's

something that you see the priests bring out after Mass, and it is most

definitely something that you will see in a church if you attend a holy hour and adoration.

So a monstrance is, of course, a stand.

It's usually made out of gold.

And at the top is a big starburst of beautiful gold

shooting out from the center, which has a little circle window. And this is where a priest

will take a consecrated host from the tavernacle. Of course, Jesus Christ, fully present, body, blood,

soul, and divinity, place it in this little window very reverently so that we can come and adore

Jesus. Now, the word monstrance, it comes from a Latin word, which means to show, to show. So we know, of course, that in the

mass during the consecration, that this is no longer bred. This is Jesus Christ himself, fully present.

And so when we come and adore him, we don't just want to set him out or put him

in a pile or put him in a plastic cup. That would be horrible. But he is the Lord of the Universe.

So we place him in the most beautiful stand display we possibly could treat this very reverently. Oftentimes we have

visual candles lit around Jesus in the monstrance. When we come into church and we see

Jesus is exposed in the monstrance for people to come and adore. Then we also don't just genuflect with one knee.

We genuflect with both knees on the ground and bow our head.

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