According to the Ordo Romanus, children after baptism
on this day were to take no food or milk before Communion "and on all
days of Easter-week let them go to Mass, and let their parents offer
for them, and let all communicate". As Cabassutius proves in his
notitia Ecclesiastica saeculi primi, they used to receive the B.
Sacrament under the form of wine alone. The bishop dipped his finger
into the sacred blood, and then put it into the mouth of the child a
practice observed in modern times in some parts of the East, according
to the learned Maronite Abraham Ecchellensis; afterwards a little milk
and honey was put into their mouths, as an emblem (according to John
the deacon) of the promised land, to which they were called. This
custom of giving communion to children was not of necessity for
salvation, as Cardinal Noris proves in Vindiciis Augustinianis Sec. 4,
and the Council of Trent observes. In some places an abuse crept in
of putting the milk and honey into the consecrated chalice, but it was
prohibited by an African Council.]

[Footnote 122: In the 4th century, S. Basil writing to the clergy of
Neocesarea observes, that the litanies, which they then used, were
introduced after the time of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus (Epist. 63). In
Gaul about the year 452, S. Mamertus bishop of Vienne appointed solemn
litanies to be recited on the three _rogation_ days. "At Rome," say
Palmer, "no doubt litanies were in use at an early period, since we
find that in the time of Gregory the great (A.D. 590), the appellation
of litany had been so long given to processional supplications,
that it was then familiarly applied to those persons who formed the
procession". Vol. 1, p. 271. That holy Pontiff gave the following
directions; "Let the litany of the clergy set out from the church of
S. John the Baptist, the litany of the men from the church of the holy
martyr Marcellus, the litany of the monks from the church of SS John
and Paul: the litany of the handmaids of God from the church of the
blessed martyrs Cosmas and Damian, the litany of the married women
from the church of the blessed protomartyr Stephen; the litany of the
widows from the church of the blessed martyr Vitalis, the litany of
the poor and children from the church of the blessed martyr Cecilia".
Vita S. Gregorii a Joanne Diacono, lib. 1, c. 42. That the litanies
were recited on holy-saturday appears from several ancient _rites_
quoted by Marlene (De Ant. Eccl. Ritibus, lib.