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The Moveable Festivals.

ADVENT SUNDAY is always the nearest Sunday to the feast of S. Andrew, (Nov. 30,) whether before or after. The term Advent denotes the coming of our Saviour. In ecclesiastical language it is

the denomination of the four weeks preceding the celebration of His birth.

SUNDAYS.-SEPTUAGESIMA, SEXAGESIMA, QUINQUAGESIMA,-preparatives to Lent. Many reasons are given for these names, but in my apprehension the best is a consequentia numerandi, because the first Sunday in Lent is called Quadragesima, containing about forty days from Easter ; therefore the Sunday before that,

being still farther from Easter, is called Quinqua

gesima, five being the next number above four; and so the Sunday before that Sexagesima, and the Sunday before that Septuagesima. The observation of these days is at least as ancient as the time of Gregory the Greata.

The EMBER-DAYS are so called from a Saxon word, Ymbren-Dagas, Ember-days, signifying a circuit, or course, which is applied to these fasts because they occur in certain courses once a quarter. In the Latin they are called Jejunia quatuor temporum, 'the fasts of the four seasons," because they were kept in the four parts of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The word week is applied to the "Jejunia," or three fasting days, though they do not make up a whole week.

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SHROVE TUESDAY is so called because it was the time when sinners were shriven or purified from their sins by a general confession and absolution before the penitential season of Lent.

Be

fore the Reformation this

practice was compulsory,

and the abuses which this led to were among the causes of the Reform; it was then left optional, and has since fallen into disuse. The modern

a Sparrow, p. 111.

practice on the continent is for the penitents to confess to the priest seated in a sort of watch-box, called a confessional, which has a wooden partition with a lattice in it, but the ancient practice in this country was to confess to the priest seated in the open church.

ASH WEDNESDAY is so called from the ancient practice of strewing ashes on the head in the Penitential Office of the day, and was formerly called dies cinerum. These ashes were made of the branches of brushwood or palms, consecrated the year before; the ashes were cleansed, dried, and sifted, fit for the purpose. After the Priest

had given absolution to the people, he blessed the ashes, sprinkled them with holy water, and perfumed them thrice with incense, and the

people coming to him and kneeling, he put ashes on their heads in the form of a cross, with other ceremonies.

PALM SUNDAY is the Sunday next before Easter, and is sometimes called Passion Sunday. It is denominated Palm Sunday from the custom of carrying branches or sprigs of palm-trees, in imitation of those strewed before Christ when He made His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem.

MAUNDY THURSDAY, the day before Good Friday: on this day Christ washed His disciples' feet and gave

them a commandment to do likewise; hence it is called dies mandati, Mandate or Maundy Thursday. In the medieval Church the penitents that were put out of the Church on Ash Wednesday were on this day received back again, because there was a holy Communion in remembrance of our Lord's institution of it on this day, upon which this Sacrament was instituted for the remission of sins b.

GOOD FRIDAY. The Church on this day commemorates the sufferings of

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The Crucifixion.

These are the two swords, the ear of Malchus, S. Peter's sword, represented as a small falchion; the pillar to which our Saviour was bound, the scourge, the crown of thorns, the three dice, the five wounds of

b Sparrow, p. 125.

The following are the emblems of the Crucifixion represented on the Altar at "the Mass of S. Gregory;" see p. 52:

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Christ, the hammer, nails, and pincers, the ladder, the spear, generally crossed by the sponge on the reed, the seamless garment, the purse, the cock, and the lantern. Not so common are the pitcher from which our Saviour poured the water when He washed

RT GO

From Poppies in the Chancel of Cumner Church, Berks.

Crown of Thorns and Nails, stained glass.

S. Peter's Sword,

from a MS. in the Bodleian Library.

190

Scourges, from Abbot Ramrigg's Chantry, 8 Alban's Abbey

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