[Footnote 137: Orders are generally conferred on the saturday of each ember-week, besides the saturday before passion and easter sundays. A minute detail of the numerous ceremonies of ordination can not be expected in a work on the ceremonies of holy-week. The reader may find them all enumerated in the Pontifical, and on their antiquity he may consult Morinus, De Ordinationibus; Martene, De Ant. Eccl. Rit. t. 2. etc. On the service of holy saturday see the MS. Pontifical of the Apamean church and various Ordines ap. Martene, lib. IV, c. 24. Formerly after the mass there was general communion; and at Rome no Vespers were said (Alcuin), and 7 altars were consecrated.] [Footnote 138: In the afternoon the parish-priests bless with prayers and holy water the houses and paschal food of their parishioners. In the Ordo Romanus, besides the blessing of milk and honey, there is a formula of benediction of a lamb and other food. Durandus also (lib. 6 Ration.) mentions the blessing of the lamb, a custom which is preserved at Rome till the present time. The shops of the _pizzicaroli_ are illuminated and gaily decorated, probably because _they_ have peculiar reasons to rejoice at the conclusion of the _austerities_ of lent.] [Footnote 139: For the ceremonies of Easter-sunday see The Pontifical Mass sung at S. Peter's on Easter-sunday etc. By C.M. Baggs. D.D. Rome 1840.] APPENDIX PECULIAR CEREMONIES OF HOLY-WEEK AT JERUSALEM Having spoken of the blessing of the paschal candle at Rome, we may for a few moments turn our thoughts towards a city still more ancient, and trodden by holier and more exalted beings than even the apostles and martyrs of the eternal city. The justly-celebrated traveller John Thevenot in his Voyage du Levant describes the ceremonies of holyweek performed at Jerusalem; the distribution of palms, the washing of the feet on Maunday-Thursday at the door of the holy Sepulchre; and the procession to the holy places or stations performed by the Catholic Christians. Concerning this the eloquent Pere Abbe de Geramb, in his interesting Pelerinage at Jerusalem in 1832, informs us that "by means of a figure in relief of the natural size, whose head, arms, and feet are flexible, the religious represent the crucifixion, the descent from the cross, and the burial of Jesus Christ, in such manner as to render all the principal circumstances apparent to the senses and striking".