Oblata (Lat. for ojered), the name of the host be- fore consecration. The ohlatce, not consecrated, though blessed on the altar, were given bj' the priest, before food in the refectory, to those monks who had not re- ceived the sacrament. Oblata; were made in a kind of mould of a small pattern. Females, called sanctimoni- ales, had assigned to them the ofBce of making these oblata, but ahvays without leaven. They were occa- sionally placed on the bosoms of the dead. The host, before consecration, was cut in the form of a cross by a knife specially set apart for that purpose, and the ves- sels in which it was preserved were made in the form of small towers. According to the Mozarabic Liturgy, it was to be mystically divided into nine parts, called Gloria, etc. Information on those particulars may be obtained from Du Cange, s. v. Gloria, Lancea, Oblata, Panis, Turris. — Farrar, Eccles. Diet. s. v.
Oblates (Lat. oblati, oblata-, "oflFered up") is the name of three different classes of religious bodies in the Roman Catholic Church, which differ from the religious
orders strictly so called in not being bound by the sol- emn vows of the religious profession.
(L) The institution of the first of these, called The Oblates of St. Ambrose, was one of the many reforms introduced in the diocese of Milan by St. Charles Bor- romeo towards the close of the 16th century. The members consisted of secular priests who lived in com- munity, and were merely bound b_v a promise to the bishop to devote themselves to any service which he should consider desirable for the interests of religion. St. Charles made use of their services chiefiy as mis- sionaries in the wild and inaccessible Alpine districts of his diocese. He drew up their constitutions, which were revised by St. Philip Neri (q. v.) and St. Felix Cantalici, and approved repeatedly by the papal see. This institute, which had many establishments at Milan, Verona, and other parts of Northern Italy, still exists, and has recenth' been introduced into England by car- dinal Wiseman, and the order possesses at present in London five houses, and serves four city missions.
Attached to the London oblates, but distinct from them in idea and institutes, is St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart for Foreign Missions, with a central house at Mill Hill, near London, and intrusted by pope Pius IX with the spiritual care of the freedmen of the United States. All missionaries educated by St. .Joseph's Soci- ety leave Europe for life, devoting themselves 'to non- European races. They make vows of obedience, and bind themselves to practice evangelical poverty, and to go wherever sent. This society counts (187.">) twelve priests and thirty students in divinity from men of all nations. They have three missions to blacks exclu- sively, in Baltimore, Charleston, and Louisville. Bishop Herbert Vaughan, of Salford, is the superior general.
(2.) Another institute, confined to females, is the Ob- lates of the blessed Virgin Mary, a bodj- of French or- igin, which arose in the present century, and has been very widelj' extended. Their chief object is to assist the parochial clergy, by holding missions for the relig- ious instruction of the people in any district to which they may be invited. This body was approved by pope Leo XII Feb. 17, 1826. They have been established in England and in Ireland, the British colonies, the islands of the Pacific, and the L' nited States. Called to Canada in 1841, they immediately occupied in the extreme north and west of British America the old Jesuit mis- sionary posts, and extended their labors to the remotest tribes. In Canada they have several colleges, semina- ries, and academies, with a constantly increasing body of priests. They also have numerous establishments in Northern New York, Miimesota, Texas, and Washing- ton Territory. Other similar institutes might be enu- merated, but the constitution of all is nearly the same.
(3.) There is also a female institute of oblates, which was established in Kome, about 1440, by St. Francisca of liome, and which consists of ladies associated for charitable and religious objects, and living in commu- nity, but bound only by promise, and not by vow.
(4.) There are besides the Oblates Sisters of Providence, a sisterhood of colored women, founded at Baltimore in 1825 by the Rev. H. Jowbert, for educating colored girls, taking charge of colored orphans, and attending to the general needs of the colored people in the United States. These sisters were approved by Gregory XVI in 1831. Their mother house is in Baltimore.
Oblatks was also the name of those children who were dedicated from infancy to the cloister (the parents wrapped their boy's hand in altar-cloth, with a petition), and of the dying who assumed the cowl. In 1191 Ce- lestine HI freed children from such vows. See the art. Conveisi in Wetzer \\.W(\le, Kirchen-Lexikwi ; Ranke, Hist, of the Papacy, i, 270 ; Alzog, Kirchengesch. ii, 422 ; Barnum, Romanism, p. 437. (J.H.W.)
Oblati. Sec Oblates.
Oblation is the rendering frequently employed in the A. V. for several Heb. words, elsewhere with equal
OBLATION
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OBLATION
propriety rendered b}' the sj'nonymous word offering (q. v.), and in one passage (Ezek. xx, 40) for rN'iJ^, maseth' (lit. a Uftinfi up, hence a present), as applied to the. first-fruits, in which relation only we will liere con- sider it. "There are various regulations in the law of Moses respecting first-fruits, which would be of much interest to us could we in every case discern the precise object in view. No doubt the leading object, so far as regards the offering of the first-fruits to (Jod, was that all the after-fruits and after-gatherings might be conse- crated in and through them ; and it was not less the dictate of a natural impulse that the first-fruits should be offered to God in testimony of thankfulness for his bounties. Hence we find some analogous custom among most nations in which material offerings were used. There are, however, some particulars in the Jlosaical regulations which these considerations do not ade- quately explain.