PAGGI D'ONORE DEL S.mo SACRAMENTO. - It is an association that gathers children as in a court of honor around the Most Holy Eucharist. Children of both sexes from five to fifteen years of age may belong to it; their distinctive mark is a medal to be worn around the neck; as a complement to this (which is essential) the p. may also wear, in processions or other solemn circumstances, other distinctive marks. For the spiritual part the p. practice daily visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and frequent Communion.
The first idea of the p. d'o. of the S. S. is due to Msgr. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, bishop of Piacenza, who in the diocesan Synod of 1889 formulated the desire that children be called beside the Most Holy Eucharist in a place destined only for them, near the altar. A few years later the bishop officially gave the task to Canon Carlo Molinari of putting the proposal into effect. Molinari drew up a first rule and started the Association in his city parish of S. Eufemia (1 Jan. 1904) with most happy results. With the blessing of the holy bishop of Piacenza and of Bl. Pius X, the sodality passed from one parish to another of the city, extended to the countryside, into the other dioceses and spread abroad; in 1908 it counted 20,000 p. The Association had its center in Piacenza, from 1907 its own periodical Il giglio eucaristico, the official hymn and the Manuale dei p. In Rome the first Association arose no earlier than 1905 in the basilica of the SS. Apostoli, inspired by the foundation of Piacenza. The cardinal vicar Pietro Respighi canonically erected it; Bl. Pius X on the first of June 1911 raised this seat to Primaria, with the faculty of aggregating other centers throughout the world, in accordance with the Statute that the same cardinal vicar had approved the previous year; he enriched the Association with indulgences, extended to all those that might aggregate to the Primaria. With this act the center was brought to Rome, and Canon Molinari was among the first to join. From 1919 it found in Rome a valuable support in the Zelatrici del S.mo Sacramento, who by their Statute commit themselves to promote and direct it in the individual parish seats.
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