[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 altars used to be stripped every day, as Du Vert (Ceremon. de l’Eglise T. IV.) and Cancellieri (De Secretariis T. IV.) have shewn.  The custom of washing the altar is observed in the Latin church in those of the Dominicans and Carmelites; and also according to Benedict XIV “in many churches of France, Germany and other remote countries” among which Cancellieri reckons Spain.  It is mentioned by S. Isidore (lib. de Eccles.  Offic. c. 18) by Alcuin (de divinis offic.) and in the Sarum, Parisian and many other missals quoted by Martene.  What however is its meaning?  While Monsignor Battelli, in his dissertation on the subject, maintains that this custom was instituted for the sake of cleanliness, rather than from a wish to denote any mystery, and that this day was selected