On the blog Idle Speculations you can find an extremely interesting article
about the Holy Year 1825. What was even more remarkable for
me was the quotation from the Nicholas Wiseman`s account on the Jubilee
Year of 1825 in his work Recollections of the last four popes
and of Rome in their times.
The article is interesting
in light of current Pontificate and shows that there were already Popes long
back ago, even before Vatican II, who did things in their own way.
"Some reader may perhaps ask in what, after all, consists the Jubilee,
what are its duties, and what its occupations ? A Catholic easily
understands it.
It is a year in which the Holy See does all it can to make Rome
spiritually attractive, and spiritually only. The theatres are closed,
public amusements suspended; even private recreation pressed within the
bounds of Lenten regulations.
But all that can help the sinner to amendment, or assist the devout
to feed his faith and nourish his piety, is freely and lavishly
ministered.
The pulpit is occupied by the most eloquent preachers, awakening the
conscience or instructing ignorance ; the confessionals are held in
constant possession by priests who speak every language ; pious
associations or confraternities receive, entertain, and conduct
from sanctuary to sanctuary the successive trains of pilgrims ; the
altars are crowded by fervent communicants ; while, above all, the
spiritual remission of temporal punishment for sin, known familiarly to
Catholics under the name of an Indulgence, is more copiously imparted,
on conditions by no means over easy.
Rome, during that year, becomes the attracting centre of
Catholic devotion, the magnet which draws it from every side. But it
does not exhaust it, or absorb it ; for multitudes go back full of
gratitude to heaven and to the Holy See for the blessings which they
feel they have received, and the edifying scenes in which they have been
allowed to partake. ...
But more serious still were the preparations necessary to lodge and feed
the crowds of pilgrims who were expected. To prevent any alarm on this
head, on the part of foreign princes, the Pope sent word to the
embassies that he did not wish them to make any provision for their poor
countrymen, as he took upon himself this duty of hospitality. He
observed that he would rather pawn the church plate of Rome, than be
wanting in its discharge.
There is in Rome a large house, attached to a Church of the Holy
Trinity, expressly established for the charitable entertainment of
pilgrims. Hence it is called La Trinita dei pellegrini.
It is divided into two sides, one for men and the other for women. The
ground floor is laid out in immense refectories, above which are
dormitories equally vast.
During Holy Week there is a certain amount of activity in the house; as a
considerable number of pilgrims then arrive, perhaps half a refectory,
and as much dormitory, may be occupied.
During the rest of the year, the establishment sends a huge carriage,
now rather modernised, to the hospitals, to bring away all discharged
patients ; to whom, under the title of convalescents, it gives three
days' hospitality, and leisure often to look out for some occupation.
The revenues of the house, the fruit of charity, are tolerably abundant ;
so that it used to be said, that, in the interval between two jubilees,
they were employed, the first half of the time in paying off the
liabilities incurred, and the second in accumulating for the coming
celebration. But, in addition to the accommodation permanently secured
at home, the charity provided immense lodgings in the wide and airy
corridors of religious houses.
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| Holy Mass in Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini |
In the month of November, our confraternity of the Holy Trinity, to
which many English belong, lodged and fed for three days, 23,090 men and
15,754 women, in all 38,844 persons besides 350 members of branch
confraternities. From this some idea may be formed of the scale on which
hospitality was exercised during the entire year.
The order observed was the following.
The pilgrim, on his arrival at the house, had his papers of pilgrimage
examined, and received his ticket of hospitality. In the evening the
newcomers were brought into a hall surrounded by raised seats, and
supplied with an abundant flow of hot and cold water.
Then, after a short prayer, the brothers of the confraternity, or the
sisters in their part of the house, washed their feet wayworn and sore
by days or weeks of travel ; and the ointments of the apothecary-, or
the skill of the surgeon was at hand, to dress wounds and bandage
sores.
This was no mere ceremony, no symbolical rite ; but one saw and felt how
in olden times " to wash the feet of the saints," when 'they asked for a
night's harbour, was a real act of charity worthy of the Christian
widow. It was evidently an exquisite relief to the jaded wayfarer.
Thus refreshed, the pilgrims joined the long procession to supper. A
bench along the wall, and a table before it, railed off to prevent the
pressure of curious multitudes, were simple arrangements enough, but the
endless length of these, occupied by men of every hue, and many
languages, formed a striking spectacle.
Before each guest was his plate, knife, fork, and spoon, bread, wine,
and dessert. A door in each refectory communicated with a roomy hall, in
which huge cauldrons smoked with a supply of savoury soup sufficient
for an army.
This was the post of honour ; a cardinal or nobleman, in the red coarse
gown and badge of the brotherhood, with a white apron over it, armed
with a ladle, dispensed the steaming fluid into plates held ready; and a
string of brothers, at arm's length from one another all round the
refectory, handed forward the plates with the alacrity of bricklayers'
labourers, and soon furnished each hungry expectant with his reeking
portion.
Two additional rations were served out in the same manner. The guests
fell to with hearty goodwill, and generally showed themselves right good
trencher-men. Opposite each stood a serving man, who poured out his
wine, cut his bread, changed his portions, and chatted and talked with
him. Now these servitors were not hired, but all brethren of the
confraternity ; sometimes a royal prince, generally some cardinals,
always bishops, prelates, noblemen, priests, gentry, and artificers.
Then, occasionally, a sudden commotion, a wavy movement through the
crowd -would reach from the outer door, along the passage to the
lavatory, just as prayers were beginning.
All understood what it meant.
The Holy Father was coming without notice. Indeed none was required ; he
came simply to do what every one else was going to do, only he had the
first place. He knelt before the first in the line of pilgrims, taking
his chance of who it might be. If any priest were in the number, he was
naturally placed first; and he would probably feel more sensitively than
a dull uneducated peasant, the honour, not unmixed with humiliation, of
having so lowly an office discharged, in his person, by the highest of
men on earth.
And then, he would find himself waited on at table, by that master who
coming suddenly in the night upon his servants, and finding them
watching, knows how to gird himself, and passing along, ministers to
them.
It was said that among the poor pilgrims came in disguise persons of high rank, who, after they had passed their triduum
of charity among the poorest, faring as they, and receiving the cup of
water as disciples in Christ's name, resumed their place in society, and
remained in Rome as visitors, without any indelicate recognition.
It was whispered that one couple, a German and his wife, were of even
higher blood. Indeed, I remember one used often to remark, that the
elegant language, the polished manners, and the half-easy,
half-embarrassed air of some pilgrims, bespoke a different class from
that of the general run.
But one thing is very noticeable on all such occasions —the naturalness,
and absence of embarrassment (so well expressed by the Italian word disinvoltura),
with which these poor people received the attentions of persons whom
they knew to be of such superior station, civil or ecclesiastical.
While they allowed all menial service to be performed by them, without
awkward bashfulness, or any attempts to prevent it, they accepted them
with an humble thankfulness and a natural grace that showed how clearly
they appreciated the motive which prompted their being rendered.
They manifestly understood, that not merely to them, but to Him also whom the poor represent, were they offered.
Supper ended, and its baskets of fragments for the morrow's breakfast
put by, the long file proceeded up-stairs to bed, singing one of the
short religious strains in which all Italians can join, a sort of
simultaneous, yet successive, chorus winding along, stunning to your
ears at the spot where you chanced to stand, alternately swelling and
fading away, as it came from one or other side of the stairs, then dying
away in the deep recesses of the dormitory above, yet seeming to be
born again and grow at the beginning of the line, still unemerged from
the supper-hall.
During the day, the pilgrims were conducted in bands from sanctuary to
sanctuary ; were instructed at stated times; were directed to
the performance of their higher religious duties, by frequenting the
Sacraments ; and at the close of the three days were dismissed in peace,
and returned home, or remained in the city at their own charge.
The Holy Father was the soul of all this work.
To see him, and carry back his blessing, was of course one of the most
highly coveted privileges of a pilgrimage to Rome. Hence he had
repeatedly to show himself to the crowds, and bless them. They were
instructed to hold up whatever they wished to have blessed ; and
certainly scarcely ever did Rome present a more motley crowd, arrayed in
every variety of costume, from the sober, and almost clerical, dress of
German peasants, to the rainbow hues of the Abruzzi or Campania.
But the Pope manifested his hearty sympathy in his Jubilee by a more
remarkable proof than these. He daily served in his own palace twelve
pilgrims at table, and his biographer
tells us that he continued this practice throughout his reign.
To his accompanying them I well remember being an eye-witness. For one
of such delicate health and feeble frame it was no slight undertaking to
walk from the Vatican to the Chiesa Nuova ; but to perform this pilgrimage barefoot, with only sandals on his feet, was more than any one was prepared for.
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| Chiesa Nuova |
He was preceded by the poor, surrounded and followed by them. Tears
flowed on every
side, and blessings were uttered deep and warm. His look was calm and
devout, and abstracted from all around. It reminded every one
forcibly of St. Charles at Milan, humbling himself by a similar act of
public devotion, to appease the Divine wrath manifested in the plague."
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