is a square piece of linen so called,
because the Corpus or body of Christ is placed on it. 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. This is one of the ancient
instances of communion under one kind; for, as Leo Allatius observes,
either it is received under the form of bread alone, or if some drops
of the sacred blood were sprinkled on the host, all the species
of wine have disappeared before communion. (De utriusque Ecclesiae
consensione, p. 875). Neither in the Latin or the Greek church is the
mass of the pre-sanctified a _Missa sicca_ or dry mass: in which not
only the consecration, but also the communion, and all those prayers
which are said over the holy Eucharist, used to be omitted. See
Durandus in Rationali c. 1. This is the only day in the year on which
mass is not offered up in the Latin church, and even on it the priest
communicates: on holy Saturday mass is said,