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. They all carry elegant _aspergilli_[80]
of box or other wood, and having prayed for a short time in silence,
they chant the anthem "They divided my garments etc." and the psalm "O
God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me?" A fine cloth, which covered
the altar, is then removed from it, and the Cardinal-priest of the
church and the six canons pour whine upon the altar, and wash it
with their _aspergilli_ or brushes. After the other canons, beneficed
clergymen, etc. have in turn washed it in like manner: the Cardinal
and the six canons begin to dry it with sponges and towels: all then
kneel down, and the ceremony concludes with the verse "Christ became
obedient unto death etc." the Our Father, and the prayer of the day
"Look down, we beseech thee etc."[81] The chapter then venerates the
relics shewn as usual from the gallery above S. Veronica's statue.

[Sidenote: Antiquity and meaning of these ceremonies.]

The _stripping_ of the altars, which is practised on this day
throughout the western church, is mentioned in the most ancient _Ordo
Romanus_: indeed anciently the