While I am working off only a limited range of photos, it appears the increasingly-standard elements of a typical papal mass were present at this morning's Chrism Mass: Benedictine altar arrangement with seventh candle, the pontifical dalmatic, and possibly the cardinal-deacons, though it is hard for me to tell yet from the somewhat blurry photos if they are concelebrants or cardinal-deacons. The concelebrants wore vestments that appear at first glance somewhat better in quality than usual, though it seems some improvements in this area might still be needed. The pope wore modern, though dignified, Gothic vestments, but also, as on Palm Sunday, carried the ferula of Pius XII instead of the newer form of the pastoral staff. What happens tonight, at the Vesperal Mass of the Lord's Supper, though, will be of even more interest.
