So Lent is upon us again, and while we may have a lame duck Pope, I won't leave you hanging. Remember that those of you who get to vote for the new Pope. Introducing our annual 40 day trip through the world of Holy Mother Church, Inc.:

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

The Catholic church is full of items with specific names and functions that no one outside of the Curia would know or care about. Certainly enough to fill 40 days worth of posts, a fact that I didn't quite get until the last week of last year's posts. So if you ever saw something being used by a priest or when flipping by Catholic TV and wondered what the deal was, this may clear things up.

So let's ease into this with an item that's not even specifically Catholic.

Day 1: monstrance

A monstrance is a vessel or stand used to display relics, or more commonly, a consecrated host. The idea of the vessel is that you can see what's in it so you can reflect on it during individual prayer or during a service. The ones that carry a host tend to have metalwork in the shape of a sunburst with the host at the center, and can be quite ornate (shockingly). And while there are some philosophical differences regarding what the consecrated host represents, Anglican and Orthodox churches also use a monstrance to display the host.

For Catholics, you'll most often see a monstrance during Corpus Christi, a feast day celebrating the body and blood of Christ that often sees a procession with the host. The priest doesn't hold the monstrance with his bare hands, but instead does so using a humeral veil (look, you get a bonus thing for free!), a wide piece of cloth that's draped over the shoulders and down the chest and has pockets on the inside for the hands. And while I understand not touching the monstrance directly in respect of the Real Presence, it does make me wonder how you get the host out. I can't imagine opening the thing up while wearing a large, fancy oven mitt is easy.