"Episcopus ... accepto tabernaculo sive ostensorio cum sanctissimo Sacramento, per se scilicet et sine alterius ministerio, illud ambabus manibus velatis elevatum tenens, vertens se ad populum, cum illo signum crucis super populum ter faciet.... Dataque benedictione, Episcopus deponet sanctissimum Sacramentum super altare". Gavantus says the same (sect. i., part iv., tit. xii., n. 7): "Ascendit (celebrans) ad altare, genuflectit, et ipsemet nullo diaconi ministerio accipit velatis manibus, ut prius, tabernaculum, benedicit cum eo populum ... nihil dicens, et gyrum perficiens reverenter reponit". Merati thus comments on the passage: "Celebrans ... ascendit ad altare ... et absque alterius ministerio accipit velatis manibus ostensorium". Baldeschi gives the same directions. But in spite of these authorities, it is customary in some churches for the deacon to ascend with the priest, to take the ostensorium, and present it to the celebrant, to receive it from the same after the benediction, and to replace it on the corporal. This usage is established in Rome, and has been confirmed by a decree of the 12th August, 1854, published in the _Analecta_. _Question_: "An liceat sacerdoti accipere ostensorium per manus diaconi istud ex altari acceptum porrigentis, ut populo benedictio impertiatur, et post benedictionem remittere ostensorium diacono, qui super altare deponet, prout fit in nonnullis ecclesiis? Vel ipsemet sacerdos debeat accipere ostensorium ex altari, et data benedictione, super altare deponere, sicut expresse docent Gavantus in rubrica Miss. part. vi., tit. xiii., n. 7; Merati in Gavantum", etc. _Answer_: "Quoad primam partem, licere etiam ex praxi ecclesiarum Urbis; quoad secundam partem, provisum in primo". Hence it appears that the _Instructio Clementina_ and the _Caeremoniale_ have been too rigorously interpreted by old authors. We are at liberty to choose whichever of the two usages may agree better with the arrangements of the altar, and may be more easy to carry out. This is the common opinion of recent authors, and is founded on Roman usage and on the decision just cited. In addition, if the deacon is to receive the ostensorium from the priest's hands, the priest is not bound to complete the circle: he returns towards the altar, on the epistle side, where the deacon is. This follows from the decree of the 21st March, 1676, No. 2776: