We may here recapitulate
the principal ceremonies of the day, as Morcelli has done in his
Calendar. The oils are blessed in S. Peter's; the Pope assists at mass
in the Sixtine chapel, carries the B. Sacrament to the Pauline chapel,
gives His solemn benediction from S. Peter's, washes the feet of
thirteen priests and serves them at table. In the afternoon Tenebrae
in the Sixtine chapel; and the Cardinal great Penitentiary goes to S
Peter's.
[Sidenote: S. Peter's on holy thursday-evening.]
In this basilic the B. Sacrament is preserved amid many lights in the
_Sepulchre_ in a side-chapel[78], and several confraternities come
in procession to venerate the relics, of which we shall speak in the
next chapter. It is much to be regretted that the cross, which used
on holy-Thursday and good-Friday to glow with 628 lights[79], and to
produce a splendid effect by the _chiaroscuro_ which resulted from it
in this vast and magnificent fabric, is no longer suspended before
the Confession, in consequence of irreverent conduct on preceding
occasions.
[Sidenote: Washing of the altar.]
There still remains another remarkable ceremony customary in S.
Peter's on holy-Thursday. After the office of Tenebrae, the chapter of
that basilica proceeds in procession from the chapel of the choir to
the high altar. The black stoles which six of the canons wear, and the
yellow and extinguished tapers of the acolythes, are signs of mourning
for the sufferings of Christ.
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