of expiation and not in rills of burning. Here the deacon does not invite the faithful to kneel. The Church has no hesitation in offering up a prayer for the descendants of Jesus's executioners, but in doing so she refrains from genuflecting, because this mark of adoration was turned by the Jews into an insult against Our Lord during the Passion. She prays for his scoffers, but she shrinks from repeating the act wherewith they scoffed at Him. [Guéranger.]
Finally a prayer is offered for the Pagans who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
III. The Veneration of the Cross.—After embracing the whole universe in her charity, the Church invites her children to an act of solemn reparation, the veneration of that Cross upon which the Most Precious Blood was poured forth. This holy ceremony was instituted at Jerusalem in the fourth century. Cardinal Wiseman says. "We have in this instance a ceremonial expressive of the triumph of Christianity, of the exaltation of its sacred emblem above every other badge, a proclamation of the principle that through it alone salvation was wrought, the vindication of it from ignominy and hatred which for three centuries has been its lot and the paying of a public debt of honor, tribute, love and veneration to Him who hung upon it in reparation of the blasphemy, and, in his disciples, persecution, wherewith he had been visited." The celebrant takes off the chasuble, the badge of his priesthood, in order that the reparation which he is the first to offer to the outraged Christ, may be made with all possible humility. Standing on the step near the Epistle side of the Altar with his face turned toward the people, he receives the cross from the deacon, and unveiling the upper part as far as the arms, he raises it and sings the words—"Ecce Lignum Crucis" Behold the wood of the Cross! Then joined by the deacon and sub-deacon he continues "on which hung the salvation of the world!" the people kneeling down and venerating the Cross
