We have diligently visited all the holy relics, and offered prayers at every altar at which especial indulgences are procured, for ourselves and others.
Brother Martin once said he could almost wish his father and mother (whom he dearly loves) were dead, that he might avail himself of the privileges of this holy city to deliver their souls from purgatory.
He says masses whenever he can. But the Italian priests are often impatient with him because he recites the office so slowly. I heard one of them say, contemptuously, he had accomplished thirty masses while Brother Martin only finished one. And more than once they hurry him forward, saying "Passa! passa!"
There is a strange disappointment in these ceremonies to me, and, I think, often to him. I seem to expect so much more,—not more pomp, of that there is abundance; but when the ceremony itself begins, to which all the pomp of music, and processions of cavaliers, and richly-robed priests, and costly shrines, are mere preliminary accessories, it seems often so poor! The kernel inside all this gorgeous shell seems to the eye of sense like a little poor withered dust.
To the eye of sense! Yes, I forget. These are the splendours of faith, which faith only can behold.
To-day we gazed on the Veronica,—the holy impression left by our Saviour's face on the cloth St. Veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight of the cross. We had looked forward to this sight for days; for seven thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it.
But when the moment came Brother Martin and I could see nothing but a black board hung with a cloth, before which another white cloth was held. In a few minutes this was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years! For some time Brother Martin and I did not speak of it. I feared there had been some imperfection in my looking, which might affect the seven thousand years; but observing his countenance rather downcast, I told my difficulty, and found that he also had seen nothing but a white cloth.
The skulls of St. Peter and St. Paul perplexed us still more, because they had so much the appearance of being carved in wood. But in the crowd we could not approach very close; and doubtless Satan uses devices to blind the eyes even of the faithful.
One relic excited my amazement much—the halter with which Judas hanged himself! It could scarcely be termed a holy relic. I wonder who preserved it, when so many other precious things are lost. Scarcely the Apostles; perhaps the scribes, out of malice.
The Romans, I observe, seem to care little for what to us is the kernel and marrow of these ceremonies—the exhibition of the holy relics. They seem more occupied in comparing the pomp of one year, or of one church, with another.