During the whole week, there is a great ascending of La Scala Santa on the knees; priests distribute absolution and blessing.[1] The churches and the officiating priests are clothed in mourning, dark violet, until Easter. Easter Sunday and the day following, are distinguished in Rome by a worldly pomp and splendor which are any thing but edifying. Yet these days, after all, are not without moments which are so.
Although I and my young friend were present at all these festivals, we received the full impression merely of two, partly because we saw the others imperfectly or not at all, or because they were of that kind from which no impression can be received. The festival of Palm Sunday in St. Peter's, when the Pope is carried out and in, as on Christmas-day, in great state, surrounded by his peacock's feathers, (which seems to me symbolical in its own way,) was infinitely wearisome from its length and uniformity.
La Lavanda, the feet-washing, for instance, in the transept of St. Peter's, I was not fortunate enough to see properly, on account of the great throng in the gallery; and from my dislike to crush in amongst the ladies, who, on this occasion, were half wild and like furies. Such of my countrymen, as witnessed this ceremony, were delighted by the manner in which the Pope performed it, and by his humble, mild expression. The fact of the coarse fishermen,
- ↑ The Penitentiary-General sits in St. Peter's church, and distributes penance and absolution, by means of a long switch, with which he quietly touches the heads of such as kneel before him, to receive this kind of ecclesiastical punishment.—Author's Note.
