At once there was a rushing to and fro of the thirty thousand people in the church, one half seeking to pass out to the square in front or to ascend to the broad summit of the colonnade on each side of it; for the pontiff would, in a few minutes, give the solemn pontifical blessing from the loggia or balcony over the main door of St. Peter's. The other half took the occasion to occupy the vacant space closer to the main altar, striving to secure the best positions, from which to witness, as well as they could, the ceremonies to follow in the sanctuary, after the blessing, and trusting that on Easter-Sunday they might be able to behold and to receive the blessing with grander ceremonial than to-day. The holy father and the cardinals came forth from the chapel, and, leaving for a time the basilica by a side-door, passed into the Vatican palace, and from thence to the vast hall immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Borne in his curule chair, he advances to the loggia, or open balcony projecting in the middle toward the square, and looks out on the city, and on the thousands below, that kneel as he stands erect, and, raising both arms aloft toward heaven, calls down on them the blessing of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The solemn and sweet tones of that majestic voice ring through the square, and the words are heard distinctly by the multitudes. A cardinal reads and publishes the indulgence, and the pontiff and the cardinals retire.
Back into the church the mass of people come, a living torrent. In twenty minutes the cardinals and the bishops are again in the sanctuary, while the movement and rustling of the moving and struggling crowd fills the church with the sound as of a deep, continuous, and subdued bass note. At one side of the large sanctuary, which is about one hundred and thirty feet deep, and seventy-five feet broad, an ascent of eight or ten steps leads to a broad platform visible to all. On this platform attendants move about, preparing all that is necessary for the next portion of the ceremony, the mandatum, or washing of feet. Soon a line of thirteen figures, dressed as pilgrims in long white woollen robes reaching to the instep, ascend to the platform, and the attendants conduct them to the seats that are prepared. They are priests from abroad who have come to Rome and all eyes are turned to inspect them as they stand ranged in a line. One is an old man stooped with age, with large, piercing dark eyes, and heavy eyebrows, long aquiline nose and high cheek-bones, and ruddy cheeks. The olive tint of his skin looks darker by contrast with his ample flowing beard of patriarchal whiteness. He is from the east. Perhaps those two other younger ones, with full black beards, are from the east likewise. To judge by his almond eye, the long and regular features, and the darkish skin, another was an Egyptian. Of a fifth there could be no mistake. He was from Senegambia in Africa, and his surname was Zamba, or, as we call it in America, Sambo. His jet black skin, his negro features, the blue spectacles he wore, and his instinctive attitude of dignity made him the most conspicuous in the number. They entered, wearing tall white caps, in shape something like stove-pipe hats without any rim, and with a tuft on the summit; long white dresses of the shape you may see in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts written a thousand years ago; and even, their stockings and shoes were white as their dress. As all were ready, the pontiff enters, and the choir intones the antiphon, "Mandatum novum"—"A new command I give you." Some preliminary prayers are chanted, and the pontiff, putting off the cope, but retaining his mitre, is girded with an apron, and ascends the platform. An attendant unlaces the shoe on the right foot of the first pilgrim, and lets down the stocking. Other attendants present the ewer of water and the towels; the pontiff, stooping down or kneeling, washes the instep, dries it with a towel, and kisses it. While the attendants raise the stocking and lace the shoe, the holy father gives to the pilgrim a large nosegay, which in former times contained a coin to aid him on his journey homeward. He did the same one by one to all of them. During this touching ceremony the choir continued to sing anthem after anthem; but few present did more than listen vaguely and enjoy the sound, so preoccupied, or rather so fascinated, all seemed to be by a ceremony so rarely used in the church, and so fully recalling our divine Saviour's act and instruction before the Last Supper. Few have ever seen it in church, save as to-day here in St. Peter's, on Holy-Thursday. It may be said to be carried out, too, on a larger scale and in a practical way, all these days in Rome. There is a large institution here called La Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, where, during Holy-Week, thousands of poor pilgrims, who have come on foot, and reach Rome weary and foot-sore, are received, and supplied with two meals a day and beds for three days and nights. There is one department for the men, and another for the women and children. Each evening, after the conclusion of the services in the churches, they return to the institution. Cardinals, bishops, priests, and laymen in numbers, nobles and private individuals, are there, and wash their feet (thoroughly) and wait on them at the table. In the female department princesses, duchesses, and ladies of every degree and station, titled and untitled, are there to perform the same offices for the women and children. All these ladies belong to several charitable confraternities and associations in the city; and by one of their rules no one of them is allowed the privilege of uniting in this work in Holy-Week unless she has, during the past year, paid at least a stated number of charitable visits to the prisons and hospitals. We do not know whether the men have the same admirable rule.
After the washing of the feet in St. Peter's, the pope retired, and the pilgrims followed. The services in the church itself were over. But there was something else, which as many as could wished to see. The pope was to serve the pilgrims at table. In the large hall mentioned above as being situated over the vestibule of the church, and from which the pope went out to the loggia to give the blessing, a long table had been prepared and decorated. Soon the pilgrims entered and stood at their places; and the hall was filled with thousands of spectators. The pontiff came in, attended by three or four cardinals, his own attendants, and a number of bishops. He said the grace, and a monsignore read a portion of the Scriptures, and then continued to read a book of sermons. Meanwhile, the pope was passing to and fro, from one end of the table to the other, helping each one to soup, to fish, and to wine; and finally, giving them his special blessing, he retired. The services had commenced at nine A.M. It was now two P.M.
The holy oils were blessed, not in St. Peter's, but in St. John Lateran's; for St. Peter's is the cathedral of the pope as Pope and Bishop of the Catholic Church. St. John's is his cathedral as Bishop of Rome.
On Friday morning the offices in St. Peter's were precisely the same as in every other cathedral, differing only in the presence of the sovereign pontiff and the cardinals, and the large number of bishops, who attended robed in purple cappa magna. The "Improperia," sung while the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops approached to kneel and kiss the cross, is accounted the master-piece of Palestrina. It is unequalled in its expression of tenderness and of sorrowful reproach. Sung as it was by that unrivalled choir, on this day, when the church is desolate and stripped of all ornament, and the ministers at the altar are robed in sombre black; when burning lights and the smoke of incense are banished from the sanctuary; when one thing only is presented—the image of the crucified Redeemer; one theme only fills prayers, anthems, and hymns alike—the sorrows and death of our Lord on Calvary—its effect seemed overpowering. You thought not of the wondrous charm of the voices; you heeded not the antique melody or the skilful harmonies, as word after word, clearly and distinctly uttered, fell on your ear; the music but rendered more clear and emphatic their sense as it sunk into your heart. You felt that the reproaches of the loving and forgiving Saviour were addressed to you personally, and you bowed in sorrowful confusion as well as in adoration, while you saluted him in the words of early Christian worship, Agios o Theos.
During the service, that portion of his Gospel in which St. John narrates the history of the Passion, was chanted in the same manner as had been the narration by St. Matthew on the preceding Sunday. Prepared as all were, by the services of the days past and by the sublime "Improperia" we had just heard, words cannot express the awe which came on them as they listened to this vivid recitation in music of that grand drama of Good-Friday on the summit of Calvary. It is on such occasions, and with singing like this, that one realizes what force and truth and majesty there is in perfect music, inspired and consecrated by religion.
On Saturday, the bishops were divided between St. Peter's and St. John's. In the latter church, besides the usual services, there were also the instruction of catechumens, the baptism of converts with the form for grown persons, and at the mass a grand ordination, at which tonsure, all the minor orders, subdeaconship, deaconship, and priesthood were conferred on those who had been examined and found worthy of the grades to which they aspired. In all, they were about sixty.
In St. Peter's, the services were only the usual ones of the church for this day—the blessing of the font, the chanting of the prophecies, the blessing of the paschal candle, and the solemn high-mass celebrated by a cardinal. The pope was present. One would have thought that, at his age, after the fatigues of the days past, and in view of the long functions of the morrow, it would be proper that he should have one day of quiet, or at least of comparative quiet. But Pius IX. never thinks of sparing himself. Many of the bishops were at St. John's. But those who were in St. Peter's heard the grand mass "of Pope Marcellus," as it is called, by Palestrina. This is the mass which was composed and sung in 1565, and which, it is said, won from the pope and cardinals the reversal of an absolute prohibition they had almost determined on, of all music and singing in church save the Gregorian chant, on account of the bad taste and abuses of musicians and singers, who introduced profane and worldly music even into the mass. No one who heard those grand religious choral strains could fail to see how solemnly, and fully, and appropriately they expressed in music the sublime character of the service. Such music does not distract; on the contrary, it fixes the thoughts, and soothes and guides the feelings into a channel of devotion. It would have been impossible for the cardinals, after listening to this exquisite mass, to arrive at a different conclusion.
From Thursday until Saturday, all the bells of Rome had been silent. There was a visible shade of sorrow on the city, a public grief, as it were, for the tragedy of Calvary. But in view of the joyous resurrection close at hand, this silence of sorrow is soon to pass away. It was near eleven A.M. when the high-mass commenced at St. Peter's. At the Gloria, a signal was given, and the gigantic Bourdon and the other bells of the basilica broke into a grand peal. The guns of St. Angelo answered, and, quick as sound could travel, all the thousand bells of all the steeples and belfrys of Rome, without exception, joined in the clamorous yet not unpleasant or unmusical chorus. The rooks, and ravens, and doves, and swallows flew to and fro, frightened from their nests, half-stunned, and utterly distracted. When the pealing chorus ended—and it lasted for a full half-hour—Rome had put off her sadness, and friends were exchanging the happy salutations of Easter.
In the afternoon an Armenian bishop celebrated high-mass, according to their rite, at four P.M. in one church, and, at the same hour, a Chaldean prelate celebrated high-mass, according to his rite, in another. In the earlier centuries, this mass of the resurrection was celebrated by all after midnight, on Saturday night. The Orientals have brought it forward to Saturday afternoon; the Latins have gradually advanced it to the forenoon. Sunday dawned, a bright, clear, pleasant, cloudless Italian spring day. At an early hour carriages of every kind were pouring in long lines over every bridge across the Tiber, and hurrying on to St. Peter's, and tens of thousands were making their way thither on foot. By nine o'clock, the sanctuary is filled with bishops robed in white copes and mitres, and with cardinals in richly adorned white chasubles. Soon the Swiss Guard take their places, and the Noble Guard appear in their richest uniform. Lines of Pontifical Zouaves and the Legion of Antibes, and other soldiers, keep a lane open up the middle of the church, through the immense crowd of, it was estimated, forty thousand persons, from the door of the sanctuary. One tribune on the south side of the sanctuary was filled with members of various royal families now in Rome, some on a visit, some staying here permanently. On the other side was a tribune for the diplomatic corps, which was filled with ambassadors, ministers resident and envoys, in their rich uniforms and covered with jewelled decorations.