PAGGI D’ONORE DEL S.mo SACRAMENTO
It is an association that gathers children as an honor guard around the Most Holy Eucharist. Membership is open to boys and girls aged five to fifteen; their badge is a medal to be worn around the neck; as a complement to this (which is essential), the members may also wear other insignia during processions or other solemn occasions. For the spiritual aspect, the members practice daily visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and frequent Communion.
The first idea for the *paggi d’onore* (honor pages) of the Most Holy Sacrament is attributed to Monsignor Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, who in the Holy Year 1889 expressed the desire that children be called to the Most Holy Eucharist in a place set aside for them near the altar. A few years later, the bishop officially entrusted the task to Cardinal Carlo Molinari to implement the proposal. Molinari drew up the first regulations and established the Association in his parish church of Sant’Eufemia in the city (1 January 1904) with very happy results. With the blessing of the holy Bishop of Piacenza and Blessed Pius X, the sodality spread from one parish to another in the city, extended into the countryside, to other dioceses, and abroad; by 1908 it counted 20,000 members. The Association had its center in Piacenza, and from 1907 it had its own periodical, *Il giglio uccaso liristico*, an official hymn, and a *Manual for the Paggi*. In Rome the first Association arose not before 1905 in the basilica of the SS. Apostoli, inspired by the Piacenza foundation. Cardinal Vicar Pietro Respighi erected it canonically; Blessed Pius X on 1 June 1911 elevated this seat to the rank of Primaria, with the faculty to aggregate 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 and extended them to all those that would be aggregated to the Primaria. With this act the center was transferred to Rome, and Canon Molinari was among the first to affiliate. From 1919 it found in Rome strong support in the Zelatrici del SS.mo Sacramento, who by their Statute commit themselves to promote and direct it in the individual parish seats.
Frontispiece of the *Lectiones graecae*, edited by Jehan de Channey, s.l., 1223. – Copy in the Vatican Library.