ment hewn out of a rock, in which never any man had been yet laid.. OFFERT. Ps. 101. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee; turn not away thy face from

me.

SECRET. Accept, O Lord, we beseech thee, the offerings we have made; and mercifully grant, that we may receive, with pious sentiments, what we celebrate in the mystery of the passion of our Lord. Thro' the

same.

COMM. Ps. 101. I mingled my drink with tears, because when thou hadst raised me up, thou didst cast me down, and I withered as grass; but thou, Q Lord, continuest for ever; thou wilt arise, and have mercy on Sion, because the time to have mercy on her is come.

POSTCOMM. Largire. Grant, O Almighty God, that we may have a lively hope, that thou bast given us eternal life by the temporal death of thy Son, represented in these adorable mysteries. Thro' the

same.

Let us pray.

Bow down your heads to God. PRAYER. Respice. Look down, O Lord, we beseech thee, on this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ scrupled not to be delivered up into the hands of wicked men, and undergo the punishment of the cross. Who liveth.

MAUNDAY-THURSDAY.
INSTRUCTION.

took aund, or basket of bread, HIS day probably took its name among our English

THIS

which was handed about, and with which the fast of this day was broken after Mass by a particular privilege, Others think it took its name from the mandate, or commandment, which Christ gave his apostles to wash one another's feet, after the example he had set them. This pious ceremony is still practised in religious Communities, and in Collegiate and Cathedral Churches.

This day is likewise called, in some Churches, Absolution Thursday, from the public absolution and reconciliation, that was this day granted to the Penitents. But as to the solemn Office, called Tenebræ, (from the darkness, in which the Office was concluded by putting out all the lights, and which is now celebrated on Wed

nesday in the afternoon) it used, like the night-office throughout the year, to be celebrated after midnight.

The ceremonies peculiar to this Office of Tenebræ, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening, are very ancient, being in use at Rome in the seventh or eighth century; and by many are considered as mystical, and alluding to the history of the passion of Christ. Thus, say they, the putting out the candles one after another at each Anthem in Matins and Lauds, and at the six last verses of the Benedictus, signifies the flight of the apostles upon Christ's being seized. The hiding lighted the uppermost candle in the triangular candlestick, expresses the death of Christ, from whose body and soul the Divinity parted not. While this candle is concealed behind, or at the corner of the altar, the Miserere Psalm is said, to beg the effects of Christ's death for us: The producing it again, signifies his glorious resurrection. The noise likewise made at the conclusion of the Office, according to the same authors, signifies the spliting of the rocks, and the confusion nature was in, at the death of its Creator. Lastly, say they, the silence of the bells from the Gloria in excelsis in the Mass of this day, to the same in the solemn Mass of Holy Saturday, is to represent the silence of the apostles, who durst not confess Jesus Christ.

Others will have all these ceremonies to be only so many vestiges or footsteps of venerable antiquity. The use of bells is not by far so ancient as Christianity: And during the times of persecution, it is not to be supposed that the Christians could use any public signal to call people to their assemblies. When Constantine the Great granted peace to the Church, they adopted the signals they found in use. Hence, in some places, they assembled by the sound of trumpets or of horns: in others, by the noise made with brass pans, or on a board struck with a mallet; which last method is still used by the Greeks under the Turkish empire.

In ancient times the candles were not placed on the altar, but either in lustres that hung from the ceiling, in sconces, or were carried by Acolyths, or placed in large chandeliers; some of which were in form of a cross, others triangular, others like that described by Moses, Exod. xxxi. 17, &c. And as, on greater solemnities, the midnight-office was prolonged till the approach of day, the lights were gradually put out. And to preserve

some footsteps of this ancient custom, might perhaps be the reason that there are the same number lighted in the triangular candlestick, as there are Psalms with Anthems sung at Matins and Lauds.

And as the lights were all put out at the conclusion of the Office, so now during the six last verses of the Benedictus, the six candles on the altar are put out. But as it is now the custom to keep the blessed sacrament on the high altar, and to keep a light always burning before it; so to preserve the ancient practice, the lamp is put out, but one of the lighted tapers is kept to light it again: Or perhaps it was formerly used to keep one light after the rest were put out, to light the Clergy or the Monks to their cells. The noise made at the end of the Office seems originally to have been nothing, but a signal given by the superior for all to depart.

But whatever was the origin of these ceremonies, whether mystical or natural, the manner, in which these three last days of Lent ought to be spent, is evident. We ought to add to the rigour of our fasts, increase our devotion and sentiments of compunction, meditate on the sufferings and death of Christ, and pray fervently for the happy effects thereof in our souls. These will be best produced by uniting our fasts, prayers, watching and sufferings, with those of our suffering Redeemer. Of themselves they will be of little avail, but united to, and sanctified by, those of Jesus Christ, they will prove extremely profitable.

MAUNDAY-THURSDAY.-MATINS.
I. NOCTURN.