Note 48 — CHAP III.
Reading edition
Footnote 48:
(return)
In the mass and office for the dead several prayers and ceremonies otherwise prescribed are omitted: so on this occasion, says Benedict XIV, "the church forgetting all things else thinks only of bewailing the sins of mankind, and condoling with Christ our Redeemer in His sufferings". As for the antiquity of this service, Martene remarks (lib. IV, c. 22) that the order of the nocturnal and diurnal offices of holy-thursday is found, such as we now observe it, in the ancient Antiphonarium of the Roman church, and in that of S. Gregory published by B. Tommasi, so that there has been scarcely any variation during the last thirteen hundred years.