It was a little more than a year ago that we published an article on Private Chapels Brought to Light by Social Distancing and recently one of our readers sent in some photos of their own private chapel which we thought would be of interest to share with our readers. Privat…
This is a newly completed set of altar cards with prayers for the Requiem Mass. The borders and illustrations I drew in ink on paper; the text is set in a typeface that I designed myself. I imitated the style of printed books from the 15th century, and from the 19th century…
The St. Anne Hymnal is a compilation of simple traditional Catholic liturgical hymns that can be used throughout the year. It is especially designed for bi-lingual parish communities, as it includes hymns for both English and Spanish speaking congregations. The hymnal was…
Over recent decades parishioners at the church of Saint Agnes in St. Paul, Minnesota have developed a special devotion to the famous Divine Mercy image as well as the Diary of Saint Faustina and the Chaplet and Novena of Divine Mercy. For some years now this familiar image…
More good news from Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), keepers of a great intellectual heritage as one of the world's premier Catholic liberal arts colleges. Their recently acquired New England campus chapel has gone through a significant renovation that gives it a distinct…
2021 is a Jubilee year for the Dominican Order and for our English Dominican Province. For in 1221, our holy father Saint Dominic sent a band of preaching brothers to England, and they set out from the university town of Bologna to the university town of Oxford. On the day …
The Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri is a unique parish community and a truly inspiring place to visit. It was formally established by Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke (later Cardinal) when he was Archbishop of St. Louis in 2007. …
The post-World War II cathedra of the Cathedral of Manila was recently restored. The chair is a symbol of ecclesiastical dignity, rank and office. It is the seat at which the bishop officiates solemnly in his own diocese. The throne consists of three parts, namely, the p…
The sacred arts are alive and well at the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary in downtown Vancouver, Canada. The following photos are from a sung Mass celebrated on the feast of the Annunciation. The Spanish style vestments show influences from the (Hispano) Mozarabic rite. The…
The Cathedral of the German city of Freiburg im Breisgau conserves a particularly interesting piece of medieval holy week heritage. Built around 1330, the Heiliggrabkapelle can be found on the epistle side of the Cathedral, within the last bay before
the transept. The exter…
We have had the pleasure of presenting some of this set before, but today we are pleased to be able to provide some further details of the set than have previously been shown here or elsewhere. The set in question was a gift of the Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808-1873…
Good Friday processions draw many Christians to the holiest shrine in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Good Friday generally happens twice per year, with one Good Friday reserved for Catholics who follow the Gregorian calendar and another for the E…
In today’s day and age, whenever one comes upon images of prelates using the Cappa Magna, the comments will commonly include words like luxury, pomp, magnificence, dignity, vanity… It seems that in our common imagination extra long pieces of clothing have become a symbol of…
Sacred objects have always been veiled, evidenced in various cultures throughout the history of the world. From the most ancient times, in both the Latin and Eastern churches, ciboria have been veiled. This is a universal Catholic custom. In some ways the ciborium veil a…
Many thanks to our good friends at St. Kevin's , Harrington Street (Dublin, Ireland) for all their hard work in creating one of the finest EF parishes in the Catholic world. St. Kevin's is home to the Latin Mass Chaplaincy of the Archdiocese of Dublin. I was immens…
Thanks to our good friends at the Fondazione Domenico Bartolucci we have this wonderful glimpse of the past, an inestimable peek into the solemnity and beauty of liturgies in Rome in the years just before the changes of the 1960's revolution. The images are of the offi…
The global pandemic has disrupted the normal celebration of the Holy Week in Spain, where, for a second year, the government has forbidden the celebration of public processions. As many of our readers will know, the Holy Week processions in Spain are one of the key cultural…
European readers have been asking where to get a good copy of the Rituale Romanum . A few years ago this excellent edition was reprinted in Germany. It makes a great gift for priests, seminarians, deacons, subdeacons, religious brothers and sisters and others. If I may sa…
The liturgical firm, Granda Liturgical Arts , recently shared a before and after view of a project they worked on at the parish of Our Lady of Grace in South Houston, Texas in the autumn of 2018. The project was no doubt a challenging one, taking place within the context of …
The altar and reredos that we are featuring today has elements dated to the 17th and 18th centuries respectively and is situated in a Franciscan convent in the north of Italy. The mainly monochromatic design of the altar and its gradines is what particularly caught my atte…
Many will recall the tragedy of 2016 when an earthquake severely damaged the basilica of Nursia (Norcia) which is built above the location traditionally considered the birthplace of Ss. Benedict and Scholastica. The basilica had been, until the disaster, the home of a group…
The following set of vestments are located at the Museu de Alberto Sampaio in Portugal. It presents a really nice example of a pre-seventeenth century set which, as we noted recently in another article , contains one the velvet fabrics so characteristic to that period of tim…
Watching the creative process unfold is a rare privilege and it is one that I always particularly enjoy where woodcarving is concerned. Recently Mussner G. Vincenzo created a pair of baroque-styled cherubs to replace originals that had been stolen some years earlier. Here …
The following is a short podcast on the subject of Gregorian chant at the church of St. Agnes in St. Paul, Minnesota. The interviewer is the pastor, Fr. Mark Moriarty, who is interviewing the parish chant masters Paul LeVoir and Mark Pilon. St. Agnes has the rare distinct…
A subject that has long fascinated me is the question of vestments inspired by Celtic illumination. One need only think of the famed Book of Kells to think of the potentialities it might hold for vestment work. For whatever reason, however, such work has been few and far be…
When my daughter was in preschool I purchased this wonderful book for her, Manners in God's House . This was her first missal. From this helpful start her imagination was captivated and her attention was riveted. During the week we would read together and ponder the i…
For many, the thought of a reliquary brings to mind a small ostensorium shaped object, but if you turn toward Europe a much grander tradition can be found: the reliquary bust. The purpose is absolutely identical of course, but these combined the function of the reliquary wi…
The Terra Sancta Museum in Jerusalem recently featured some interesting liturgical metalwork in the form of a crozier and altar cross. Here again we would point out the important fact that while the worldly mind only sees material value, the liturgical and spiritual mind se…
After a long winter, finally it has arrived. For the first time ever, English-speaking Catholics have their own modern paper missalette booklet for praying the Traditional Latin Mass. Known as Benedictus (similar to the Magnificat paper missalette which was unveiled over …
A few years ago we had an article on the "urn" (or what is also referred to as the repositorium, custodia or capsula) used during the Triduum for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament after the altar is stripped and the tabernacle emptied at the end of the Mass…
Those who have studied vestments are familiar with the fact that there are clues that can help identify their age and even their place of origin and/or destination . One of the most obvious is the matter of the particular shape (or "cut") of the vestment -- though …
One of the best things to come out of 2020 was the terrific new book, Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius & Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass , published by our good friends at Angelico Press . The author is a man of great learning (a graduate of …
The following cope, embroidered in gold on red silk lamé, was produced in the north of Italy in the mid-19th century and includes various images of early martyrs upon it. Before we look at the saints in question, let's first take a look at the back and front of the cope…
One of the most devoted priests we know to the cause of the Roman Rite is our good friend Fr. Dana Christensen of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Fr. Dana is a priest of great merit and renown with a growing online following. He is well known for his efforts to …
The humeral veil ( velum humerale ) is a long rectangular piece of fabric, generally accompanied by two ribbon ties near the breast, that is worn over the shoulders by the priest when performing Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament or carrying the Sacrament in procession, or …
Here at Liturgical Arts Journal , we are fortunate to be able to feature not only the most primary of the liturgical arts, but also the rather more obscure, and in that vein we are pleased today to be able to present the decorative cases that would protect the precious mitre…
We are pleased to show another example of some of the embroidered work coming out of the atelier of Sacra Domus Aurea . To date, much of the embroidered work that is out there has mainly consisted of embroidering small symbols and designs -- perhaps a cross, or perhaps a des…
The Terra Sancta Museum in the Holy Land is filled with precious treasures beyond measure donated from Europe and the world beyond. While the worldly eye will look at these objects purely in terms of their monetary value, a spiritual and liturgical eye does not see this; it…
Readers of LAJ know only too well the story of the mid 20th century when much that was beautiful in the realm of liturgical art was dispensed with or covered over in the name of noble simplicity. Of course, embedded within this was a mistaken notion which mistook simplicity…
Any pilgrim to the Eternal City will have no doubt noticed the Marian shrines which can be found throughout the city, not attached to churches but rather found in the streets of Rome. To Romans these are known as "Madonnelle" and come in various forms, shapes and …
The Church has always been the guardian of all the riches of its own inner life and remains the bearer of a sacred tradition. This is manifestly seen through beautiful vestments reserved for exclusive use at the altar. The apostolate of making verily beautiful vestments i…