by the mouth of the Baptift: "Every tree that bringeth not "forth good fruit, fhall be cut down, and caft into the fire

(12)." Every grace in our heart is a feed fown by the hand of God in its proper foil; muft ever grow, and push out new branches, flowers, and fruit of good works; which if it ceafes to do, it neceffarily decays and dies. Hence the Royal Prophet compares the juft man to a tree planted in a fruitful foil, well watered, and loaded continually with new fruit (13).

The church reads this day the hiftory of our Lord's paffion, not only to fhew it must be the principal object of our devotion this whole week, but alfo to teach us to accompany even our joy with a spirit of compunction, and the meditation on the cross, as S. Bernard takes notice (14).

CHA P. III.

On the Office of the TENEBRA.

O long as Chriftians fpent the greatest part of the nights during holy week, especially the four last days, in general watchings in the churches, this office was faid at midnight: which practice was ftill continued within the last fix hundred years, or in the twelfth century, as is manifeft from the old Roman order, and the comments of Mabillon and Martenne. It is the matins of the office of Thursday anticipated the evening foregoing. It is called the office of Tenebræ, from that Latin word which fignifies darkness ; for toward the end, all the lights are extinguished, both to express the deepest mourning, and in memory of the darkness which covered the whole earth at our Lord's crucifixion.

The noise which is made in the end, by beating a little the desks or books, and the ground, with the hands and feet, represents the earth-quake, and the splitting of the rocks, in the convulfive agonies, which even inanimate nature felt at the death of the Son of God. For the offices during these three days are a kind of funeral obfequies, which the church pays to her divine Spouse and Redeemer.

In a triangular candlestick, placed on the left, or epistle fide of the altar, are fet fifteen candles, feven on each fide, and one on the top. The candles on each fide are put out, one after every pfalm, beginning from the lowest toward the gofpel

(12) Matt. iii.ro. 2. in Dom, Palmar,,

(13) Pl, i. 3. (14) S. Bern. Serm. 1. &

gospel fide, then on the oppofite. After these fourteen, the white candle on the top being left burning, whilst the benedictus is fung, the fix candles on the altar are put out, one after each verse. At the beginning of the verfe, after the benedictus, the white candle is taken down from the top of the triangular candlestick, and hid under the altar, whilst the Miferere pfalm, and the prayer are recited; after which it is brought out again. These candles are not to be white, or made of blanched wax, but of common or yellow wax, as the ancient Roman Ceremonial of bishops prescribes; becaufe fuch are used by the church in times of penance or mourning, whenever she makes use of purple or black ornaments. But the candle placed on the top of the triangular candlestick is in moft diocefes white, because it reprefents Chrift himself. This number of candles, and this manner of placing them, and gradually extinguishing them, is a very ancient rite, and occurs in a manuscript copy of the old Roman Order (of the divine office) of the feventh century, published by Mabillon (1). The folemn rites used by the church, efpecially on great festivals, are of primitive antiquity (2).

Amongst the interpreters of facred rites, who wrote chiefly in the 9th and 11th centuries, fome tell us, that all these candles represent Chrift, and their extinction the mournful death of him who is the life and the light of the world. Others fay, thefe yellow candles reprefent the eleven apostles, the B. Virgin, and the other holy women, and all the disciples; and the extinction of these lights, their flight or mourning: But the white candle on the top of the triangular candleftick, Christ himself. On which account it is only hid under the altar, and again produced, to fhew that Chrift was only hid in the fepulchre for a fhort time, and rose again, fays Amularius. This laft allufion to his refurrection is admitted by all, even those who take all the candles to exprefs only the extinction of the life of Chrift, our light, and the deep grief of his church in her mourning; and perhaps only this was intended in the original inftitution of this rite.

On Wednesday, the Jews, in their great council, formed their confpiracy to take away the life of Chrift, by a criminal profecution which they charged themselves to carry on against him, before Pilate, the Roman governor. Hence the commencement of the stages of his paffion is dated from. this day; and Wednesday is a weekly faft of the stations in the

(1) Mabillon, Mufæum Ital. T. ii. P. 22. (2) See Bocquin Tr. Sur la Liturgie.

the Greek church, no less than Friday; and was also in the Latin church in the primitive ages.

THE

MAUNDY THURSDAY.

HE church on this day commemorates the laft fupper of our divine Redeemer, with the inftitution of the holy Eucharift, and the washing of the feet of the apoftles. The folemn confecration of the holy oils is performed by the bishops on this day. The rest of the office of the church on it belongs to our Lord's paffion.

This being the day on which our divine Redeemer, at his laft fupper, inftituted the holy facrament and facrifice of his adorable body and blood, in the bleffed Eucharist, and commanding his apostles, and their fucceffors in the Chriftian priesthood, to continue the fame, ordained them priests of the new law, and appointed them minifters and difpenfers of his facraments, Mafs is faid in white, with the greateft folemnity, in thanksgiving for, and in honour of this incomprehenfible mystery of divine love and grace. But in the High Mafs the peace is not given as ufual, in deteftation of the treacherous kifs of peace, by which Judas the Ifcariot, on this day, betrayed his divine mafter into the hands of his enemies. The laity all communicated on this day: Those who fafted, in the evening, in imitation of our Lord's laft fupper; and thofe who could not faft, in the morning (1). After Mafs, the bleffed Eucharift is removed from the tabernacle on the altar, and kept in fome other decent place. Anciently it was never kept on the high altar but either in fome rich tabernacle, placed in fome other part of the church, against the wall or fome pillar, decently ornamented, and often with great magnificence, as is still seen in fome cathedral and abbatial churches, as in the great Ciftercian nunnery of Flines in Flanders, &c. or in a gold or filver figure of a dove hanging above, and a little before the altar, which was let down by a rich cord fhut up in a gilt tube, which was bent in a bow over the altar, and came down behind it, as is ftill done in feveral old cathedral and abbatial churches, in France and in other countries (2). When the custom was introduced in many churches, to keep

the

(1) S. Aug. ep. cxviii. ad Januar. c. 7. Prat. Spir. c. 79, &c. (2) See Le Brun, Liturgie,

the Holy Eucharift in a tabernacle upon the altar, it was neceffary to remove it at this time, when, by the ancient rite, the altar is to be naked, and without any ornaments (3). Thus neceffity first gave occasion to the custom of removing the holy facrament from the altar. But it was always the custom that the place where it is reserved should be decently embellished. Though purity and devotion of heart is the most acceptable ornament to God, who wants not our gold, or jewels: Yet devotion itfelf teaches us to confecrate to God fome part of the richest ornaments we are poffeffed of, to testify how much we defire to honour him in his holy places and myfteries. This God himself commanded in the old law. Chriftians in the first ages, under the preffure of poverty and perfecutions, found means to furnish rich veffels and ornaments for the divine mysteries; which were much increafed when the Emperors themselves became zealous vo taries and protectors. Incredible were the prefents of the Popes to the churches for this purpofe, both before and after the church enjoyed peace and liberty, as is mentioned in the most ancient Pontificals, or fhort account of their lives and transactions. At this holy time of devotion to these holy mysteries, it is the custom to deck the repofitories with more than ordinary magnificence. Decency, at least, is a neceffary part of the refpect that is due. These repofitories the people call fepulchres of our divine Redeemer, and they vifit them to honour him made by death a facrifice of love and of proportion for our fins. Nor is there any inconvenience to reprefent his burial by anticipation, which the parts of the church-office which follow do not leave equal opportunities and leisure for.

With other confecrated hofts, one is referved on this day for the communion of the priest on the morrow, which is Good Friday. For no Mafs being allowed to be faid on that day, the priest fays the latter part of the prayers of the Mass without confecrating any elements, and receives the Hoft referved from the foregoing day. This is called the "Mafs "of the pre-fanctified myfteries, Missa præfan&ificatorum :" Such as is faid in the cathedral at Milan, on every Friday in Lent, and in the Greek church, on every day in Lent, except Saturdays, Sundays and the feaft of the Annunciation. After the Mass of Maundy Thursday, the bells cease to ring till the "Gloria in Excelfis," at the Mafs of midnight for Eafter, anticipated before noon on the eve. This is done

(3) Gavant.

as

1

as a fign of mourning, and in imitation of the filence and grief of the Apostles at the sufferings and death of Chrift.

The bleffed facrament being taken away, all the altars are uncovered, and ftript quite naked of all ornaments, to exprefs the most profound grief and mourning of the church, and to reprefent the nakedness and abandoned state of Chrift upon the cross.

Christ, at his last supper, not only washed the feet of his apostles, but gave all his difciples a ftri&t command to do the fame, that is, readily to ferve each other in exercifing all actions of charity and humility, of which he had fet them the example. Such offices performed in the true spirit of thofe virtues have an incredible efficacy in improving the heart in the strongest fentiments of thofe virtues; and the occafions of them have been ardently embraced by all the faints. In imitation of our bleffed Redeemer, Chriftians, kings, popes, bishops, fuperiors in religious houses, and others, wash the feet of fome poor perfons, or of their collegues and fellows on this day; which ceremony is called the Mandate, from the first word of the first anthem of it: Mandatum novum do vobis, &c. Hence this day is ufually called in English, Maundy or Mandy-Thursday. The Greeks filed it the Holy and great fifth-day of the week of the Paffion; which name is given it by John Mofchus (4), and S. Chryfoftom (5).

On this day the catechumens or candidates of baptifm were accustomed to bathe and wash their bodies, that they might approach the facred Laver decently and clean, when they were to be baptized on Easter-eve. It was alfo cuftomary for many others who out of a fpirit of mortification and penance had refrained from ufing the bath all Lent, to bathe this day in order to cleanse their bodies from all filth which they might have contracted by the aufterities of Lent (a). In like manner as it was among the ancients a mark of mourning

(4) Prat. Spirit. c. 79. (5) S. Chryf. hom. de Proditione Judæ,

T. 2.

(a) Bathing was anciently much in use and defervedly, for keeping the bodies clean, and the cutaneous pores open for the fake of infenfible perfpirations so essential to health. Bathing was more neceffary before the use of linen, efpecially in hot climates, when the obftruction of the cutaneous pores by fcurf or filth, expofed men to the most dreadful cutaneous diforders, as leprofies, &c. and to the most fatal internal difeases. On the advantages of bathing, and on the precautions neceffary to prevent all inconveniencies and dangers in using it, see Sir John Floyer, &c.