Blessing of lambs

Lambs, decorated with flowers and ribbons (the first with a red and the latter with a white one) by Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, are offered by the abbot of the Trappist monastery at the Three Fountains (the one wearing a pectoral on cuculla). Earlier the same day the lambs are blessed during a solemn Mass in the Basilica of St. Agnes outside the Walls and then presented to the chapter of canons of the Lateran Basilica (in the picture they are in mantellettas) and to the pope who blesses them. Benedictine sisters from the church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere used to make pallia of the lambs’ wool which were given to new metropolitans.