Arundine (from Lat. arundo «reed»)

ARUNDINE (from the Latin arundo, “reed”). - A staff adorned and surmounted by three candles arranged in a triangle, used in the rite of Holy Saturday. After the blessing of the fire (v.) at the church door, the deacon enters, holding the a. in his right hand, and sings the Lumen Christi three times—at the entrance, halfway down the church, and near the altar—raising his voice each time and lighting one of the three candles. The a. then remains beside the high altar until Low Sunday. The rite perhaps derives from a custom existing in Rome, where, on Holy Thursday, about the ninth hour, at the door of the Lateran, a candle placed upon a reed was lit with a spark struck from flint; seven lamps were then lit from it and Mass was begun (Ordo Rom. I, appendix 1, of the Carolingian period). The miniature of an Exultet (Cod. Vat. lat. 3784, twelfth century) suggests that originally the a. was no more than the staff furnished with one or more candles, used to light the Paschal Candle. In any case, the present ceremony of the Lumen Christi appears only in the Ordo Rom. XII, 30 (late twelfth or early thirteenth century).