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Having described the ceremonies of low-mass, we shall subjoin a brief account of those customary at high-mass when celebrated in the papal chapel: we shall thus avoid unnecessary repetitions in the course of this work. The beginning of the mass is said by all persons within the sanctuary: and the Pope recites it before the altar with the celebrant.
There was, at any rate, no denying that the affair had become unexpectedly complex, and that its farther development promised to be rich in comedy. In the charmed contemplation of these possibilities Bernald sat over his fire, listening for Pellerin's ring. He had arranged his modest quarters with the reverent care of a celebrant awaiting the descent of his deity.
The Mass being over, and the celebrant having doffed his sacred vestments and rejoined his brother cardinals, the Cardinal of San Clemente repairs once more to the Papal Throne, preceded by two chamberlains who carry two folded banners, one bearing the Pope's personal arms, the other the arms of Holy Church.
An appropriate passage from the prophecy of Osee is sung by one of the choir, and the precept from Exodus concerning the killing of the paschal-lamb, a type of Christ, by the subdeacon. The Pope and the Card. Celebrant also read both these lessons, after each of which a tract is sung by the choir; and between them a prayer by the Celebrant.
The Holy Grail is a chalice. It is brought into the temple in solemn procession in a veiled shrine and deposited on a table. Thus, also, the chalice, within its pall, is brought in at the sacrament of the mass and placed on the altar before the celebrant. In the drama boys' voices sing in the invisible heights: Nehmet hin mein Blut Um unserer Liebe willen!
Organ music pealed; choir boys appeared from their robing-room beside the entrance, pacing two and two as they chanted. The celebrant stood in his place at the altar, and antiphonal music rolled among the arches; pierced by the dagger voice of a woman in the arcades, who called after the retreating butcher's boy to look sharp, and bring her the joint she ordered.
Celebrant commences the beautiful, charitable, and ancient prayers of this day with the words, Let us pray, dearly beloved, for the holy church of God etc. This form is repeated before each prayer, except that which is offered for the Jews : for their soldiers, bowing the knee before our Lord, mocked him saying in derision, Hail king of the Jews.
It is peculiarly interesting to walk out of the Michelangelo gallery into the little room containing the Fra Angelicos: to pass from a great melancholy saturnine sculptor, the victim of the caprice of princes temporal and spiritual, his eyes troubled with world knowledge and world weariness, to the child-like celebrant of the joy of simple faith who painted these gay and happy pictures.
And as he spoke the despairing words, "My God, my God, wherefore is my spirit heavy, and why dost Thou afflict me?" the priest was indeed the image of Jesus suffering on the hill of Calvary, but the man remained in the celebrant the man, conscious of himself, and himself experiencing, in behoof of his personal sins and his own shortcomings, the impressions of sorrow contained in the inspired text.
He turned to the altar again, and there, as he had known it would be, in the midst of clear light, all was at peace: the celebrant, seen as through molten glass, adored as He murmured the mystery of the Word-made-Flesh, and once more passing to the centre, sank upon His knees. Again the priest understood; for thought was no longer the process of a mind, rather it was the glance of a spirit.
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