" Made out of recycled materials from previous Belenismo events, the Philippine Army Belen takes on the monstrance as the inspiration for their award-winning creation this year.

Fr Bryant added: "The piece we have been given was removed from the full veil in 1829 and sealed with Spanish wax, bearing the imprint of the coat of arms of Fr Giuseppe Mancini, Archbishop of Sienna, into a beautiful silver baroque monstrance.

Wait till you see how 21 Army soldiers made a superfabulous jewel of a monstrance!

the presence of God," and when the priest raises the monstrance she

In "Mixed Verse to the Most Holy Sacrament in Rustic Style" (1612), for instance, he describes Christ as a "lover" who "hid himself in the shadow [a la sombra] of the lovely wheat," a description strongly reminiscent of Song 2:3: "With great delight I sat in his shadow [sub umbram illius]." (56) Even the third stanza of Valdivielso's poem, which depicts Christ as "all arrayed in pearls and stars," is likely an allusion to the richly or nate monstrance used to transport the consecrated Host during the Corpus Christi procession.

Father Eamonn Sweeney of St Patrick's hit out at the vandalism, which saw the monstrance "taken apart and thrown around" the centenary chapel last weekend.

As soon as I walked through the door and saw the monstrance on the altar sparkling in the dimly lit church, I felt immensely happy to be there, had a warm sense of grounding, of homecoming.

Interestingly, the sun/god connection might also likely be seen at the apotheosis at the end of the auto when the host would have to be held high and displayed before the audience quite possibly in a sunburst shaped device known as a monstrance or ostensorium from the Latin ostendere, meaning "to show." The sunburst shape became popular precisely during the baroque period.

Some sculptures served as tabernacles or contained an inbuilt monstrance component, either of which explicitly connected the Consecrated Host with these sculpted bodies of Christ.

8), and the even more technically complex St Francis of Paula by the 18th-century Cristobal Ramos, fashioned out of polychromed terracotta with glass eyes, a parcel-gilt pasted cloth habit with a silver-thread belt and tassel, and a silver metal staff and monstrance.