Note 113 — CHAP. VI.
Reading edition
Footnote 113:
(return)
Why does a deacon perform this ceremony? since other benedictions are reserved to bishops and priests. Rupert assigns as a reason, that Christ's body was wrapped in spices by his disciples, and not by the apostles whose successors are bishops and priests: besides, the hymn sung by the deacon is the præconium Paschale, or announcement of the Resurrection, which was first made by inferiors to their superiors, by the women to the apostles. We may add that both the fire and the 5 grains of incense are previously blessed by the priest, and in the præconium itself there is not any form of blessing, strictly speaking. In the church of Ravenna however the bishop used to bless this candle (S. Gregory ep. 28, lib. 9). In the Roman church, according to cardinal Gaetani, the last of the Cardinal priests usually blessed the fire, and the last Card. deacon lighted the lumen Christi, or triple candle, and the Paschal candle. The deacon used to bless the latter either at the steps of the presbytery, or from the ambo; and hence we find a marble column, intended to support it, fixed to the ambo in S. Clement's S. Laurence's, and S. Pancras' churches at Rome. See another marble column destined for the same use ap. Ciampini, Vet. mon. cap. 2.