Adoration of Consecrated Hosts

32. You understand also that in accordance with your Rite during the days of the Lenten fast, only the Mass of the Presanctified is celebrated among you, except on Saturdays and Sundays and on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary if it occurs in the Lenten period as is specified in the Trullan Canon 52. "On all days of the holy Lenten fast except on Saturday, Sunday, and the holy day of the Annunciation, the sacred ministry of the Presanctified should take place." As you already know, the priest who celebrates Mass in Lent on the days when he is permitted to do so, that is on Saturday and Sunday, consecrates and consumes one host but reserves another consecrated host. He divides this into as many pieces as will suffice for the number of Masses of the Presanctified which are to be celebrated on the following days, at which he will give communion to himself and to the other communicants, if there are any, from the Eucharistic bread which was consecrated on the preceding days. This is how Leo Allatius rightly describes the entire ceremony in the prolegomena to Gabriel Naud's de Missa Praesanctificatorum, p. 1531, no. 1: "Each priest counts on his fingers the days of the coming week on which he is going to celebrate, then breaks off at the offertory as many pieces of bread as will suffice for the Masses he is going to say. He consecrates these as well as the piece he will consume on the same day and preserves in the pyx the consecrated pieces after dipping them in the Lord's Blood, as is customary. He removes a piece from the pyx at an appropriate time later, when he is about to celebrate (leaving the others there for future use), places it on the paten and, after bringing it to the greater altar, he consumes it."