CORAM SANCTISSIMO BEFORE THE MOST HOLY (CORAM SANCTISSIMO) BY MOTHER MARY LOYOLA OF THE BAR CONVENT, YORK EDITED BY FATHER THURSTON, S.J. ST. LOUIS, MO. B. HERDER 17 SOUTH BROADWAY LONDON: SANDS & CO. 1904 Nihil obstat. HERBERT THURSTON, S.J., _Censor Deputatus_. Imprimatur. HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, _Archiep. Westmonast._ _15th September, 1900._ TO JESUS CHRIST YESTERDAY TO-DAY AND THE SAME FOR EVER PREFACE. The custom of honouring the Eucharistic presence of Christ our Lord by paying “Visits” to the Blessed Sacrament may be quoted as one of the most conspicuous examples of development in the devotional practice of the Catholic Church. Down to the latter part of the Middle Ages such an usage seems to have been entirely unknown. As far as regards England, the late Father Bridgett, if I mistake not, says that in all the researches made by him while compiling his _History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain_ he had not come across one clear example of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in pre-Reformation times. Even on the Continent the idea of any extra-liturgical _cultus_ of the Blessed Eucharist seems to have grown up very tardily. There were many saints as late as the fifteenth century, say, for example, St. Frances of Rome, whose lives show no trace of such a conception, though nothing could be more strongly emphasised than their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion.[1] It is remarkable to notice that even St. Ignatius Loyola, in the book of the _Spiritual Exercises_, when directing attention to the abiding presence of God with His creatures as a motive for awakening love, says not a word of the Blessed Sacrament. One must not, of course, press the negative argument too far. No prudent man would infer in this latter case that the practice of visiting churches to commune with our Lord in the Tabernacle was unknown in the sixteenth century, but it is reasonable to conclude that the uninterrupted Eucharistic presence of God with His people did not then play the same conspicuous part in the devotional life of the faithful that it does in our day.