Until the Papacy transferred its seat to Avignon, the green plain between Helena’s Basilica and the Lateran was, once a year, the scene of a beautiful and mystical ceremony. On the Fourth Sunday in Lent, when the Church, to encourage her children in their forty days’ career of penance, replaces her sombre vestments by those of crimson and gold reserved for great feasts, when the organ, dumb since Ash Wednesday, once more fills the cathedrals with joyous music, when the Mass begins with the command to rejoice—then the Pope, accompanied by the Cardinals, went to the “Mother of all the Churches,” St. John Lateran, and there, with a prayer of wonderful beauty, blessed and sanctified the “Golden Rose.” The rose being the emblem of Divine love, shedding around the sweet fragrance of charity, often found a place in the ceremonial of the Church. For this particular occasion a cunning jeweller fashioned a flower in pure gold, blossom and leaf and stem, and the Pontiff prayed to the Creator of all beautiful things, who was Himself the true Joy and Hope of His children, to bless the flower carried as a sign of spiritual joy, in order that the faithful, contemplating it, might raise their hearts to the heavenly Jerusalem, and persevere in the sweet odour of good works until they should be eternally united to Him who is the flower come forth from the branch of Jesse, who called Himself the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley; and that, in the company of all the blessed, they might glorify forever the Divine Flower who shall reign in Heaven eternally. When the prayers were over, the Pope came forth from the Lateran, wearing the mitre and holding the Golden Rose in his hand; mounting his white palfrey, and accompanied by the whole Pontifical Court, he rode down the green way to the Basilica of the Holy Cross. There he preached a sermon on the virtues symbolised by the rose (there is still one of these sermons extant, delivered by Innocent III) and then celebrated Holy Mass. When that was over, he returned on horseback, still holding the Golden Rose and followed by the whole gorgeous cavalcade to St. John Lateran, where, if some royal prince happened to be present, his was the honour of assisting the Holy Father to dismount, and he received, in reward for his filial piety, the Golden Rose from the Pope’s own hands. In our days the ceremony of blessing the Rose takes place in a hall of the Vatican, and the Holy Father sends it as a gift usually to some Catholic princess—I remember that a few years ago he sent one to our little English Queen of Spain. I heard of another, and a very touching, present sent by Leo XIII to a royal lady who was awaiting the birth of her child—the baby’s entire layette, marvels of beauty worked by the nuns, and all blessed by the Holy Father for the small Christian who was to wear the garments!