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His Eminence Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller will Pontifically Celebrate The Holy Mass of Passion Sunday,
6 April 2025, 1100 hrs, in Saint-Eugène – Sainte-Cécile, Paris.
On Saturday, 5 April 2025, His Eminence will attend a Conference on the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea,
which is celebrating its 1700th Anniversary.
Holy Mass of the Forty Hours at Saint-Eugène, Paris.
From Quinquagesima Sunday, 2 March 2025, until the following Tuesday, 4 March 2025, there is traditionally a Solemn Adoration of The Most Holy Sacrament, known as the Prayers of the Forty Hours.
The exposition of The Body of Christ is effected
without interruption for three days, or forty hours.
This practice was instituted in Milan, Italy, at the
beginning of the 16th-Century, in memory of the forty hours spent by Christ in the tomb, and also in memory of the forty days of Fasting that he carried out in the desert, the forty days of the Great Flood, and the forty years of wandering of
The Chosen People in Sinai.
Originally, the Prayer of The Forty Hours was not assigned
to a particular time of the year, but was often prescribed for a pressing and particular cause. By the Constitution “Graves et Diuturnæ” of 25 November 1592, Pope Clement VIII extended this practice to the City of Rome, so that Prayers could be made for the unity of Christianity.
On 1 September 1731, Pope Clement XII published a detailed Liturgical Instruction, the “Instructio Clementina”, to regulate the Prayers of The Forty Hours.
This Instruction provides, among other things,
that The Blessed Sacrament be exposed surrounded
by a large number of Candles.
The Clementine Instruction, whose norms must inspire any exposition – even brief – of The Blessed Sacrament, is counted as the Ninth Official Liturgical Book of The Tridentine Reform.
Finally, Pope Clement XIII fixed in 1765 the Prayer of
The Forty Hours between the Sunday and Tuesday of Quinquagesima Week, just before the beginning of Lent, in expiation of the excesses, impieties and sins committed
during these three days of carnival, and he enriched this practice with numerous Indulgences.
In Saint-Eugène, Paris, the Forty Hours begin
on Quinquagesima Sunday at the Exposition Mass
at 1900 hours and end on Quinquagesima Tuesday
at the Reposition Mass at 1900 hrs.
