LULUABOURG, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF
In the central-southern part of the Belgian Congo, entrusted to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut Missionaries), who have worked there since 1887.
It was erected as a mission *sui iuris* and under the name of Upper Kasai on 26 July 1901, with territory detached from the Apostolic Vicariate of the Belgian Congo; raised to an Apostolic Prefecture on 18 March 1904, and to an Apostolic Vicariate on 13 June 1917. After several territorial cessions for the creation of other missions, it received the new name of L. on 10 March 1949.
It has an area of 196,000 km² with 1,500,000 inhabitants, of whom 386,558 are Catholic, with 2,158 churches and chapels, served by 26 diocesan priests and 155 religious, assisted by 5 male and 29 female religious communities. It has a major and a minor seminary; more than 2,000 schools (including vocational and 5 normal schools) and 120 charitable and welfare works (among which 15 hospitals, 2 leper asylums, and 5 orphanages). It has a printing press with a periodical of 13,000 copies.
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"LUMEN CHRISTI! DEO GRATIAS!"
An ancient Christian acclamation used when lighting a lamp. In Roman monasteries (Benedictine), when, during supper, nightfall necessitated lighting the lamp, the candle-bearer, entering, would exclaim aloud, “Lumen Christi!”, and all would respond, “Deo gratias!” (*Ordo* of John the Architect, ed. C. Silva-Tarouca [V. BIBLICA.], p. 214). It may already have been in use in the time of St. Benedict (F. J. Dölger [V. BIBLICA.], p. 37). It is also attested on two lamps from the 5th century, one found at Selinunte (Sicily) and the other at ancient Cuicul (Djemila in Numidia), both bearing the inscription “Deo gratias!” around the Christogram (F. J. Dölger, p. 37 sg.). Similarly, the blessing formula with “Lumen Christi!” appears on many lamps from Palestine or Asia Minor. It is used in the Mass of the Presanctified (of St. Gregory) in the Greek rite during Lent (F. J. Dölger, pp. 19-20). This explains why in Africa, when lights were lit, Catholic households could be heard shouting “Deo gratias!”, while the Donatists cried out “Deo laudes!” (F. J. Dölger, pp. 37-38).
This Christian acclamation of “Lumen Christi!” replaced a pagan rite already practiced by the ancient Romans. According to Servius (*Commentary on the Aeneid*, ed. Thilo, I, Leipzig 1881, p. 720), when lights were lit, the Romans would remain silent for a moment so as not to lose, through an idle word, the grace when the candle-bearer uttered the acclamation. Similarly, in the 4th century, an acclamation to the light was made in Spanish households, as Ammianus Marcellinus recounts: “boys, as was customary, would cry out upon bringing in the evening lights, ‘Vincamus’...” (F. J. Dölger, pp. 40-41). The use of an acclamation or blessing formula when lighting a lamp is still observed today in monasteries or southern regions (F. J. Dölger, pp. 143-44). The ancient Christian acclamation “Lumen Christi!” is preserved in the rite of Holy Saturday.
Outside the church, after blessing the new fire, the deacon in the procession lights the three candles on the top of the *arundine* (q.v.) three times, each time raising his voice to say, “Lumen Christi!”; all respond, “Deo gratias!”. In Rome, this procession with the new fire, introduced in the 8th century (*Ordo Suburbicatis*; B. Capelle [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 113-114), was conducted in silence (“cum supplici silentio”), not only on Holy Saturday but also in the evenings of the last three days of Holy Week. In the Mozarabic rite, however, after blessing the new fire on Holy Saturday evening, the bishop, upon entering the church, would say three times “Deo gratias!”, and the people would repeat II.
The silent rite of the *Ordo Suburbicatis* was still used in the *Ordo* of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical of the 10th century (M. Andrieu [V. BIBLICA.], I, pp. 495-525; B. Capelle, pp. 117-118). But from an *Ordo* of northern Italy from the 10th century (published by H. M. Bannister, in *Miscellanea Ceriani*, Milan 1910, p. 135), the cry “Lumen Christi!” is recorded for the first time; it appears again in the *Ordo Cassinensis hebd. maj.* of the 12th century (ed. T. Leuterman, Montecassino 1941, p. 78 sg.), perhaps of Beneventan origin: the deacon, after the still-silent procession, having greeted and pointed out to the faithful the paschal choir lit by the acolytes with the flame taken from the new fire brought from outside, would proclaim three times “Lumen Christi!”; this cry referred to the paschal choir itself, not, as today, to the triple candle.
The first mention of our current usage—that is, of “Lumen Christi!” in the procession and of the *arundine*—appears in the *Ordo Apameus* of the year 1114 (B. Capelle, p. 118), in *Ordo Romanus XII*, no. 30 (12th century), and in *Ordo Romanus XIV*, no. 94 (14th century). The *tricereum* (*arundine*) originally had a purely practical purpose: if the wind extinguished one flame, another would remain lit (Ordo offic. Ecc. lat.; F. J. Dölger, pp. 32-33). The cry of “Lumen Christi!” in the Spanish usage, however, derives from the ancient Christian acclamation used when lighting a lamp (F. J. Dölger, p. 40). In some particular rites, instead of “Lumen Christi!”, the hymn of Prudentius, “Inventor rutili,” was sung in the procession until modern times (*Missale Treverense*, 1608); the Cluniacs, in the procession of light during these last three days of Holy Week, recited Psalms 52, 50, 66, and 69 (B. Albers, *Consuet. Farfenses*, in *Consuet. Monast.*, I, pp. 48, 55). The use of such resplendent light on the Holy Night derives from the rite observed in Jerusalem on that night.