The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome

by Charles Michael Baggs

Footnote 111: [(return)]

Anciently in some churches, as Thomassin has shewn (de dierum Festorum celebratione lib. 2. c. 14), fire used to be struck from a flint to light the church-lamps etc. every day and particularly on Saturday, and the new fire was blessed; on holy Saturday however this ceremony was performed with great solemnity; and in the 11th century it was restricted to that day alone. At Rome in holy week this practice was not originally confined to holy Saturday, but was observed on the three days before caster: for the first Ordo Romanus directs, that on holy thursday fire should be struck from a flint outside the church, and blessed. Amalarius also (4e Ordine Antiph.) testifies that on good friday "new fire was enkindled and reserved till the nocturnal office". Leo IV however (A.D. 847) appears to have first ordered that on Easter Eve "the old fire should be put out, and new fire blessed and distributed among the people" (Homil. de cura Pastorali). For Pope Zachary, about the year 731. in answer to the enquiries of Boniface, bishop of Mayence, states that "on holy thursday, when the sacred chrism is consecrated, three lamps of a large size filled with oil collected from the different lamps of the church, and placed in a secret part of the said church, should burn there constantly, so that the oil may suffice till the third day, that is saturday. Then let the fire of the lamps which is used for the sacred font be renewed. But concerning the fire taken ex cristallis, as you have asserted, we have no tradition". Pouget (Inst. Cathol. l. 1) observes that the new fire is blessed with great solemnity on this day, "because the fire struck from a flint appears to be a type of Christ arising from the dead". Formerly not only the lights of the church, but all the fires of the city were enkindled from the blessed fire (as we learn from a MS. Sancti Victoris (ap. Martene, De ant. Eccl. Ritibus lib. IV, c. XXIV). "After the Ite Missa est" says the Ordinarium of Luke archbishop of Cosenza "the bishop gives his blessing, and immediately the deacon commands the people, saying "Receive the new fire from the holy candle, and having put out the old, light it in your houses in the name of Christ; then rejoicing they depart with the light". This custom is mentioned also in Leo IVth's homily above quoted.

Footnote 112: [(return)]

As for the Paschal candle, Anastasius says that Zosimus, who was elected pope in 417, gave leave that candles should be blessed in the churches. Bened. XIV, Merati and Gretser understand by these words, that that Pontiff only extended to the parish churches a custom already practised in the greater churches: however this may be, the blessing of this candle is at least as old as the time of Pope Zosimus. It is inserted in the ancient sacramentary of Pope Gelasius (A.D. 495). S. Augustine (lib. 15 de Civ. Dei) mentions some verses written by himself in praise of the paschal candle. S. Jerome also speaks of it in his epistles; and Ennodius bishop of Pavia in 519 wrote two formulas, according to which it might be blessed. Cancellieri, at the end of his Funzioni della Settimana Santa, describes two blessings of the paschal candle contained in manuscripts of the 12th century. Du Vert as usual rejects every mystical meaning of the candle: but why then should it be lighted on this night, and not on christmas and other nights? The 4th Council of Toledo, held in 633, states that the paschal candle is blessed, in order that we may receive the mystery of Christ's resurrection; and hence the abbot Rupert says, that the candle when lighted represents Christ's resurrection from the dead. That such is its meaning appears from the five holes made in it in the form of a cross, to represent the five wounds of Christ: in them the five grains of incense are fixed by the Deacon, in order to represent, according to Rupert, the spices applied to Christ's body by Joseph of Arimathea. In confirmation of this explanation, we may observe that this candle is not removed from the church till the gospel has been sung on Ascension-day when Christ departed from among men: and it is lighted at solemn mass before the gospel and at vespers before the Magnificat on the Sundays and holidays which occur between holy saturday and the ascension. To the same symbolical meaning of this candle we must attribute the ancient custom of affixing to it (as a symbol of Christ) a tablet on which the current year of our Lord and its indiction were marked: sometimes these, if not other chronological dates, were inscribed on the candle itself by the deacon, before he sang the Exultet, as Ven. Bede testifies, The same idea was preserved in the practice of forming the Agnus Dei with the wax of the paschal candle. "On this day" (holy saturday) says Durandus "the acolythes of the Roman church make lambs of newly blessed wax, or of the wax of the paschal candle of the preceding year mixed with chrism: on Saturday in Albis they are distributed by the Lord Pope to the people in the churches". Amalarius likewise mentions this custom. It appears also from the two benedictions of Ennodius mentioned above, that the faithful used particles of the pascal candle as a preservative against storms: the good effects hoped for in this and similar cases are attributed to the prayers of the church, which God in His goodness has promised to hear. The paschal candle is painted according to an ancient custom.

"Ast alii pictis accendant lumina ceris".

S. Paulinus Nat. VI. S Felicis

Pierin del Vaga, whom Vasari considered as the most distinguished of Raffaello's assistants, was originally nothing more than a candlepainter. His creation of Eve at S. Marcello at Rome, and his frescoes in the Doria place at Genoa, are well-known; at the Vatican he assisted Giovanni d'Udine in his arabesques, Polidoro in his antique chiaroscuri, and executed some of the most beautiful historical paintings of the loggie di Raffaello. Hence may we judge of the versatility of his talents.

Footnote 113: [(return)]

Why does a deacon perform this ceremony? since other benedictions are reserved to bishops and priests. Rupert assigns as a reason, that Christ's body was wrapped in spices by his disciples, and not by the apostles whose successors are bishops and priests: besides, the hymn sung by the deacon is the præconium Paschale, or announcement of the Resurrection, which was first made by inferiors to their superiors, by the women to the apostles. We may add that both the fire and the 5 grains of incense are previously blessed by the priest, and in the præconium itself there is not any form of blessing, strictly speaking. In the church of Ravenna however the bishop used to bless this candle (S. Gregory ep. 28, lib. 9). In the Roman church, according to cardinal Gaetani, the last of the Cardinal priests usually blessed the fire, and the last Card. deacon lighted the lumen Christi, or triple candle, and the Paschal candle. The deacon used to bless the latter either at the steps of the presbytery, or from the ambo; and hence we find a marble column, intended to support it, fixed to the ambo in S. Clement's S. Laurence's, and S. Pancras' churches at Rome. See another marble column destined for the same use ap. Ciampini, Vet. mon. cap. 2.

Footnote 114: [(return)]

Martene (De antiquis Eccl. rit. lib. 4, c. 24) maintains that this hymn was composed by S. Augustine, and this opinion is adopted also by Baillet and Benedict XIV, and confirmed by a MS. pontifical of the church of Pavia of the 9th century, and other documents cited by Martene, ibid: it was corrected by S. Jerome, if we may believe an ancient Pontifical of Poitiers (quoted ibid.) The chant of this beautiful hymn is very ancient. "I have seen," says Baini "in many manuscripts both anterior and posterior to the 11th century the melodies of the preface, of the Pater noster, of the Exultet, and of the Gloria precisely such as the modern" (T. 2, p. 92). In a splendid roll of the Minerva (signed D. 1. 2) of the 9th century, are contained the Exultet, the solemn benediction of the baptismal font, and the administration of all the ecclesiastical orders. Nor is this the only roll containing the chant precisely similar to the modern. D'Agincourt left another to the Vatican library. See also MS. no. 333 of the Barberini library, of the year 1503.

Footnote 115: [(return)]

Prudentius speaks of the "guttas olentes" or odoriferous drops of the candle, and S. Paulinus of Nola of "odora lumina": hence P. Arevalo conjectures that the grains of incense were fixed in the paschal candle even at the time of Prudentius in the 4th century.

Footnote 116: [(return)]

In churches, at the words Apis mater eduxit, the lamps also are lighted. With regard to the triple candle, we may observe that on an ancient marble column preserved in the Piazza before the cathedral of Capua is a bas-relief representing the lighting of the paschal candle by means of a reed surmounted by 3 small candles, as the Canonico Natali testifies in a letter printed at Naples in 1776. The triple candle is mentioned in the Ordo Romanus of Card. Gaetano, in that of Amelius, and in a MS. Pontifical of the church of Apamea, ap. Martene. As Thomassin observes, "we light a candle divided into three in honour of the Trinity, considering that enlightened by Christ we know that recondite mystery". Gavant also gives the same explanation. In the Greek service the bishop gives his blessing, as often as he sings mass, with a triple candle. In the Latin church it is used only on holy Saturday.

Footnote 117: [(return)]

See Appendix.

Footnote 118: [(return)]

This custom is proved from the letter of Siricius Pope in the 4th century to Himmerius, from letters of S. Leo and Pope Gelasius, as well as other ancient documents (ap. Bened. XIV, Institut. prima ed lat.); and vestiges of it are preserved in the liturgy of the weeks of Easter and Pentecost. Ordinations were generally conferred before Christmas, as is evident from the lives of the early Popes. Baptism was administered before the great festivals of Easter and Pentecost, that the newly-baptised might be prepared to celebrate them worthily, and receive the graces therein commemorated. Perhaps another reason for selecting the eve of Easter may be found in the parallel drawn by S. Paul between baptism and Christ's death and resurrection (Rom. VI, 5 and foll.): "we who are baptised in Christ Jesus are baptised in his death. For we are buried together with him by baptism unto death: that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life" etc.

Footnote 119: [(return)]

See on such subjects Del Signore's Institut. Hist. Eccles. with notes by Prof. Tizzani Cap. V. § 19 seq.

Footnote 120: [(return)]

See Comm. ad Ord. Rom. Mabillonii tom. 2, Mus. Ital. p. 95.