PROCESSIONS
447
PROCESSIONS
About the time of St. Gregory tlic Great, and possibly
earlier, two forms of procession played a great part in
papal ceremonial. The one was the procession to the
"Station", the other the solemn entry of the celebrant
from the sccrelariuni, or sacristy, to the altar. A good
description of the stational procession is given in the
St. Amand Ordo, n. 6 (Duchesne, "Christian Wor-
ship", 474). The pontiff, the clergy, and the people
assembled in the appointed church, where the clergy
vested antl the office was begun. The poor people of
the hospital went first with a painted wooden cross;
the seven stationary crosses, with three candles each
and a retinue, followed, and then the bishops, priests,
and subdeacons; finally came the pope surrounded
by his deacons, with two crosses borne before him and
the schola canlonim or choir following behind him.
As the procession moved along to the stational church
where Slass was to be offered the Kyrie Eleison and
the litanies were sung, from which the procession itself
was often called lilania. The solemn entrance of the
celebrant as he proceeded from the sacristy to the
altar was of course a procession on a smaller scale, but
this also is minutely described in the first "Ordo".
The pontiff was again surrounded by his deacons and
preceded by the subdeacons, one of whom swung a
thurible, and a consjiicuous feature was the group of
seven acolytes carrying tapers, which make us think of
the seven candles now lighted on the altar at a pon-
tifical High Mass. In this procession to the altar the
antiphon of the introit was sung. On certain special
occasions, notably St. Mark's Day (2.5 April), which
coincided with the old Iloman festival of the Robigalia,
and in Gaul on the three Rogation Days before the
feast of the Ascension, there were processions of ex-
ceptional solemnity (.see Litany).
Although not now formally recognized as a pro- cession in the liturgical books, we may say that the sprinkling of the congregation with holy water at the beginning of the parochial Mass on Sundays preserves for us the memory of the most familiar procession of the early Middle Ages. The rite is prescribed in the Capitularies of Charlemagne and of Louis the Pious, as well as in other ninth-centurj' documents. For example a Council of Nantes before the year 900 en- joins that "ever}' Sunday before Mass, each priest is to bless water in a vessel which is clean and suitable for so great a mysterj', for the people to be sprinkled with when they enter the church, and let him make the round of the yard [ati'ium] of the said church with the [processional] crosses, sprinkling it with the holy water, and let him pray for the souls of them that rest therein" (Mansi, "Conciha", XVIII, 173). In the monastic ceremonials of the same period this holy water procession on the Sunday morning was usually described in much detail. After the sprinkling of the high altar and of the other altars of the church in order, the whole body of the monks, after being sprinkled themselves, went in procession through the cloister, making stations there, while the celebrant assisted by two lay brothers blessed the different portions of the mona.stery (see Martene, "De antiq. eccles. rit.", IV, 46-9). At the present day the Roman Missal, which is the primary liturgical authority for this "Blessing of the people with holy water to be im- parted on Sundays" (Benedictio populi cum aqua benedicta diebus dominicis impertienda), says nothing about a procession, though some such progress of the celebrant and assistant clerks around the church very commonly takes place. The rubric only directs that the priest having intoned the antiphon "Aspcrges me" is to sprinkle the altar and then himself and his assistants. After which he is to sprinkle the clergy and the people, while he recites the IMiserere with his a.ssistants in a low voice. The other ordinary pro- cessioas, as opposed to the extraordinary processions, which thebishop may enjoin orpermit as circumstances may call for such a form of public supplication, are
.specified in the Roman Ritual to be the Procession of
Candles on the Purification of our Lady (2 February),
that of Palms or Palm Sunday, the greater litanies
on the feast of St. Mark (25 April), the Rogation pro-
cessions on the three days before the Ascension, and
the procession of the Blessed Sacrament on the feast
of Corpus Christi. The prescriptions to be observed
on all these occasions are duly set down in the Roman
Ritual. For their history etc., see Candlemas;
Corpus Christi; Holy Week; Litany, etc. We
might also add to these "ordinary" processions the
carrj'ing of the Blessed Sacrament to the altar of
Iiolop:na, XVII Century
repose on Maundy Thursday and the return on Good Friday, as well as the visit to the font on Holy Saturday and the procession which forms part of the rite of the consecration of the holy oils in cathedral churches on Maundy Thursday. This latter function is described in full in the Roman Pontifical. In earlier times a series of processions were usually made to the font after Vespers upon every day of Easter week (Morin in "Rev. benedict.", VI, 1.50). Traces of this rite lingered on in many local churches down to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it finds no official recognition in the Roman service books.
Under the heading of "extraordinary" processions the Roman Ritual makes provision for the following emergencies: a procession to ask for rain, another to beg for fine weather, a third to drive away storms, three others assigned respectively to seasons of fam- ine, plague, and war, one more general on occasion of any calamity {pro quacunque trihulaliniie), one rather lengthy form (in which a number of the Jubilate and Laudate psalms are indicated for recitation) by way of solemn thanksgiving, and finally a form for the translation of important relics {reliquiarum insignium) . In the majority of these extraordinary processions it is directed that the Litany of the Saints be chanted as in the Rogation processions, a supplication special to the occasion being usually added and repeated, for example in the procession "to ask for rain" the peti-
