New Spanish Style Vestment Set from Pluriarte in Spain

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 matching vestment set is the creation of our good friends at Pluriarte in Spain.  Fittingly, the three clerics hail from former colonies of Spain: the celebrant from the Philippines, the deacon from Venezuela and the subdeacon from Mexico.

Photo source: Holy Rosary Cathedral

Indeed, over the centuries the Latin liturgy has taken various forms in lands across the globe, as it has always been the center of a rich tradition of religious poetry and music and artistic symbolism.  In fact the art of Christendom in both its Byzantine and medieval phases was essentially a liturgical art which cannot be understood without some knowledge of the liturgy itself and its historical origin and development in various nations where certain accoutrements were embellished and adopted over time.  

While Europe is suffering today from a sense of cultural discouragement and a loss of faith in its own values, these vestments and their style survive and are teaching a new generation about liturgical arts that have been long forgotten, while having been uniquely developed over centuries.  Truly, they are evidence of a renewed interest in the celebrated traditions that past generations considered holy.  

The vestment set was commissioned last year for the ordination and first Mass of Fr. Ralph Oballo, FSSP.  The photos also show the statues fittingly veiled for Passiontide, a venerable custom in the Latin Church that brings to mind the moment in John 8:59 when Christ "hid" himself and went out of the temple before His passion and death.  

Cheers to the rector and clergy of the cathedral who are doing their best to bring the best possible liturgical praxis to the lay faithful.  Thank you!  The future depends upon whether Christians of the new age are equal to their mission - whether they are able to communicate their hope and faith through a liturgy that speaks volumes of spiritual experience and the liturgy as the supreme end of human culture in general and of worship in particular.  Let it go unsaid, this is an example of true 'inculturation' in the liturgy that has evolved from the ages.