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Accordingly the liturgy of holy-thursday bears the impress both of sorrow and of gladness: it is not unlike a fitful day of April in our northern climes, when the sun now bursts from the clouds which had concealed his brilliancy, and now once more the sky is shrouded in murky gloom an apt emblem this of the over-changing state of man, who at one moment quaffs the inebriating cup of earthly joys, and yet a little, and it is dashed from his grasp; and sickness, sorrow and death are his portion.
Besides palm-sunday, three other days in the week are particularly devoted to the commemoration of the history of our redemption; holy-thursday, because on it our Lord instituted the blessed Eucharist, and his passion began; good-friday, on which He was crucified and died; and holy saturday, on which His sacred body remained in the tomb.
Four rows of large elms form the whole length on the banks of the Seine. On holy-thursday, the Cours-de-la-Reine begins to be used as a fashionable promenade, and it may be said that on that day, it has a very gay appearance. The first is the principal entrance to Rouen from Havre and Dieppe, and the second, at the opposite extremity of the quay, the entrance from Paris, Evreux, etc.
On holy-thursday the Pope used generally to preach after the gospel, and in the mean time the Cardinals stripped the altar: after the sermon the Pope blessed the people as usual, and then began the Credo, according to Benedict, Canon of S. Peter's.
It is much to be regretted that the cross, which used on holy-Thursday and good-Friday to glow with 628 lights , 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.
The general communion customary on holy-thursday is prescribed by the English bishop Walter in the 10th century, in the capitulary of Theodulph of Orleans, and by all ancient pontificals and missals, according to Martene T. 3, p. 98. It is practised also by the Greeks, as Leo Allatius testifies. De consensu utriusque Ecclesiæ lib. 3.
There still remains another remarkable ceremony customary in S. Peter's on holy-Thursday. After the office of Tenebræ, 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.
As holy-thursday is in great part devoted to the sufferings of Christ, the festival of Corpus Christi with its procession was instituted about the middle of the thirteenth century by Urban IV at the petition of B. Juliana of Mount Cornelione, and in consequence of the miracle of Bolsena, well known as the subject of one of Raffaello's frescoes in the Vatican. See Bened.
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