S. Isidore of
Pelusium in the beginning of the 5th century says, that the white
linen cloth, which is spread under the divine gifts, is the clean
linen cloth of Joseph of Arimathea: "for we, sacrificing the bread of
proposition on the linen cloth, without doubt find like him the body
of Christ": it was anciently much larger than it is at present. The
purificator is a small towel, which serves to wipe the chalice and
the hands and mouth of the priest, after he has received the B.
Sacrament.]
[Footnote 97: The veil is used from reverence to the B. Sacrament:
on an ancient mosaic on one of the arches of S. Prassede, a person
is represented enveloped in it, holding a sacred vessel apparently
intended to contain the B. Sacrament. Ciampini, Vet. mon. T. 2.]
[Footnote 98: According to the Gelasian Sacramentary, "the deacons go
to the _sacrarium_ and walk in procession with the body and blood of
the Lord, which remained from the preceding day": with it the most
ancient Ordo Romanus ad usum monasteriorum agrees.]
[Footnote 99: In the fourth century Pope Innocent I in his epistle to
Decentius assigns as a reason, why the holy sacrifice is not offered
up on this day, the example of the apostles who, concealing themselves
for fear of the Jews, spent this and the following day in fasting and
mourning for the death of their master, and were thus debarred from
the holy mysteries. During the whole of Lent the Greek church still
celebrates, towards evening, only the mass of the presanctified,
except on Saturdays and Sundays, and on the feast of the Annunciation,
when the ordinary mass is offered up.
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