The Archconfraternity of St. Stephen is the only official international guild of altar servers. It exists for their formation and organization. It promotes a high standard of serving at the altar by which the server can sanctify his soul and obtain salvation. He can also ed…
The Guild of St. Stephen for Altar Servers (Sancti Stephani Archisodalitas)
The Archconfraternity of St. Stephen is the only official international guild of altar servers. It exists for their formation and organization. It promotes a high standard of serving at the altar by which the server can sanctify his soul and obtain salvation. He can also ed…
The Christmas Preface: Praefatio de Nativitate Domini
The Preface prayers are some of the most solemn written pieces of prayer in the history of Western civilization. Authorship is unknown. We can only imagine these prayers were written by priests in Rome. It is impossible to know how old they are, but we can assume they are o…
A Precious Neopolitan Monstrance Gifted to the Holy Land in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
The Terra Sancta Museum is host to numerous liturgical treasures that are of inestimable value, and while these objects value may well also be 'material' in nature, it is actually their cultural, liturgical and spiritual value which is their greatest and most import…
Ss. Peter and Paul by Eric Armusik
E ric Armusik is a classical figurative artist based out of Pennsylvania whose work we have featured before, but it is specifically his depiction of Ss. Peter and Paul that I wished to draw your specific attention to today. This particular work was commissioned from the arti…
The Benedictine Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore
The Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore is one of the most well-known territorial abbeys in the Benedictine world. It is located in Tuscany, near Siena and is also quite close to Assisi. The beautiful red brick buildings stand out against the blue sky and sandy countryside. As …
The Roman Basilica of Saints Celso and Giuliano
For fans of Pope Pius XII, the Roman Basilica of Santi Celso e Giuliano (Saints Celso and Giuliano) is one of the most important sites in the city. It was here the future pope was baptized by his uncle Don Giuseppe Pacelli with the name 'Eugenio' when he was only tw…
The Spanish Church and Altarpieces of San Juan de Recesende
The church of San Juan de Recesende is located in the small town of Recesende, Spain. Originally the church was of Romanesque era origins, and while some of these origins still remain visible down to this day, the church has gone through various modifications over the centu…
The Twelfth Century Wilten Chalice, Paten and Fistulae
The collection of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna , Austria, contains a rather interesting and unique bit of medieval metalwork: the twelfth century Wilten Chalice and Paten (the name of which is derived from the fact that it originally came from Wilten Abbey in Tyrol,…
Velvet and Gold: A Cardinalatial Antependium from the High Renaissance
We're on the cusp of the feast and octave of the Nativity, so it is an apropros time to share a bit of festal gold, this time coming in the form of an antependium dated to circa 1517-1526, a design which is attributed to two painters of the Florentine school, Andrea del…
The Church of Saint-Roch in Paris
Paris is a city of churches with over 200 stunning Catholic churches / chapels / oratories, each with a unique design and character of its own. One of our favorites is Saint-Roch , a magnificent temple that brings to mind the insistence of St. Thomas Aquinas on three propert…
Cardinal Burke's Titular Church in Rome: Sant'Agata dei Goti
The recently restored Sant'Agata of the Goths is a hidden gem in Rome, tucked in behind the Angelicum, on the downward slope of the Quirinale Hill. It is dedicated to St. Agatha of Sicily, the renowned martyr of Catania, one of seven women commemorated in the Roman Cano…
An Example of a Leather Antependium from Old Quebec City (1675-1725)
In the past we have featured some historical leather veatments as well as some of the leather antependia that can still be procured from contempoary atelier's such as Lutson , a firm located in Gascony, France. In the course of some other, unrelated research, I happened…
Advent in the Roman Missal: The Rorate Mass
The first time I attended the Votive Mass "Rorate" in honor of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, I was living in the Sandy Hill neighborhood of Ottawa, Canada. In the pre-dawn hour I recall walking in the dark, frigid cold to the nearby FSSP parish. Upon entering the war…
A Monastic Inspired Marian Chasuble from Talleres de Arte Granda
It has been a little while since we've had the opportunity to feature some new vestment work, and with the Feast of Immaculate Conception being just yesterday, it seemed an opportune time to feature a bespoke commission that Talleres de Arte Granda recently completed fo…
Five Marian Chasubles for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception
With it being the feast of the Immaculate Conception, we wanted to share a few antique Marian chasubles that feature the Immaculate Conception (or at very least Marian imagery). In the past we've done this by showing some of the famed and ever popular Cerulean blue chas…
Icons and Illuminations by Ioanna Belcea
In previous articles we have featured the compelling liturgical art of the studio of Ioana Belcea and today we are going to continue our consideration of her work, this time not of her mosaics and frescoes, but rather her iconography and illuminations . The beauty of such pi…
Before and After: The Restoration of Belmont Chapel in Newport, Rhode Island
The Belmont Memorial Chapel is a small church that is located on the grounds of Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island. While that goes slightly outside our usually rather tight sphere of focus here at LAJ, I believe our readers will be very interested in this particular …
Silver Elegance: An Eighteenth Century Italian Thurible in White Silver
Silver, like gold, does not have a singular expression. Rather, silver comes in a range of different shades. Some silvers are very cool and greyish in their hue while others have other underlying secondary colours such as pink/red. However one of those beautiful shades, in…
The Sagrestia Vecchia (Old Sacristy) of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence
Sacristies are generally places you do not want to miss when you're touring an older European church. Generally speaking, while you may not get a look at the sacred vestments, these are still places of great interest, being more akin to chapels than mere dressing rooms,…
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens (Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens)
The truly stupendous Amiens Cathedral at once takes hold of the soul -- it is one of the finest churches raised to the Glory of God. Constructed from 1220-1270, a short period for a Gothic cathedral, this lovely church is renowned for its unusual unity of style. Like other …
Fourth Century Roman Glassware of Ss. Peter and Paul, St. Lawrence and St. Agnes and Other Roman Martyrs
Coming out of fourth century Roman workshops were a series of decorative glasswork referred to as the golden or gilded glasses. These glassworks come from the paleochristian period and contain various depictions of Christian imagery, particularly the depiction of popular Ro…
Guest Article: A Visual Reconstruction of the First Mass in Wyoming
Guest Article by George Capps and Polly Capps Paule On July 5, 1840, the Flemish Jesuit Pierre-Jean De Smet offered Mass atop a bluff near present-day Daniel, WY . Assembled to witness the ritual was an immense crowd of fur trappers and Indigenous peoples who had convened for…
Unusual Polychromatic Iconostases of Eastern Europe
Typically, when you think of a Byzantine iconostasis, you either think of something either entirely gilt in gold leaf, or you think of one that has been left with its wood uncovered and stained (usually in a dark walnut sort of colour), possibly with some occasional gold le…
New Church Architecture: St. Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax, Virginia
The Church of St. Mary of Sorrows is a new church project that was undertaken by McCrery Architects in Fairfax, Virginia. This particular project follows, as McCrery generally does, a traditional, neo-classical idiom. McCrery sets the backdrop and goals of the project for …
The Lower and Upper Treasury Museums of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
Aficionados of sacred vestments and other objects of liturgical art are reasonably familiar with the fact that if you proceed into the subterranean levels of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (accessed through the baptistery and ultimately through the adjacent gi…
Before and After: St. Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington, Virginia
Most of our 'Before and After' series tend to focus on the interior of a church, with little or no mention of the exterior . (Generally, the interior is where the focus primarily is.) Well today, we are pleased to present a project executed by the architects, O'B…
A Carved Processional Statue and Bier for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington
Processional statues are something that one primarily sees within the Catholic countries situated around the Mediterranean. I speak here of countries like Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal. Typically these statues are placed upon ornamental bases -- called biers -- that are …
Chigi Family Chapel in Ariccia
It is a rare opportunity to see, frozen in time, the private family chapel of a noble Roman family. Visitors to the Palazzo Chigi of Ariccia, just outside Rome (a little past Castel Gandolfo), have the pleasure of visiting this unique time capsule, a ducal palace that was t…
Before and After: St. Philips Catholic Church in Rolling Ground, Wisconsin
Our 'Before and After' series tends to get quite a bit of attention and interest -- and also a lot in the way of parishes and parish priests aspiring to do the same within their own parishes. The problem is almost always the same; how to beautify a church that had e…
The Palatine Chapel at the Royal Palace of Caserta
The largest palace in Europe is the Royal Palace of Caserta, near Naples. Here is where the kings of the the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies lived. Construction began in 1752. Visitors wander the recently restored rooms and courtyards and gardens and marvel one of the most be…
The Carmelite "Capela des Ossos" (Chapel of the Bones) in Faro, Portugal
Over the years we have featured a few ossuary chapels -- or 'bone chapels' if you prefer. Mainly we have featured these within the context of a few famous examples within Italy, but today I thought we'd share a far less seen example that can be found in the Igre…
A Black Marian-Themed Cope from the Renaissance
Renaissance era copes have to be amongst some of the most beautiful historical copes one can run into -- at least the one's that have passed down to us (and suffice it to say, typically it is only the very best examples that have managed to survive down to our own day a…
Constantinople's Icon of the Mother of God Nicopeia in Venice
Anyone who has studied the history of the Eastern Roman Empire will know about it's relationship with Venice. Venice found itself on the edge of that Empire, often benefiting from trade and commerce with it, but at times the relationship was far more fractured and strai…
Ambitious 'Catalogue Vestments' From the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Since the advent of the gothic revival, we've become rather fixated on symbols -- perhaps to a fault at times. I say 'to a fault' because not every vestment requires an explicit symbol (the vestment itself stands in its own right). Still, when done correctly, th…
A New Cathedral: Holy Name Cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina
The erection of a new cathedral is, all things being equal, a rare event. After all, how often does this sort of event occur within ecclesiastical life, particularly in already established, non-mission territories? It is something we seldom see, but recently the architects …
The Basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome
Guest Article by Ishmael Obinna Adibuah The early Christian architecture of Rome offers visitors an opportunity to discover a different artistic style from those that dominate much of the city, namely the Renaissance and Baroque. Churches with this architecture are also of a…
The Charming, Rustic Rural Church of Saint Edmé near Chaserey, France
Quite a few of the churches we have featured here on LAJ over the years are great basilicas, cathedrals and monasteries and the like. The reason for that, of course, is that they generally have a fair bit of art to feature within them, and of course, they are typically of g…
The Chapelle Corpus Christi in Paris: Tomb of St. Peter Julian Eymard
One of my most favorite quiet little corners of the city of Paris is the Chapel of Corpus Christi, tucked away near the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most famous city landmarks in Paris. Here one can pray in silence in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed daily for E…
Memento Mori Requiem Vestments from the Cathedral of Segovia, Spain
Segovia Cathedral in Spain is more properly known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption and of Saint Fructus, being constructed between the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries in a late gothic style. Within the cathedral are found a great many liturgical orname…
Three Altars of the Holy Souls in Purgatory
With it presently being the observance All Souls and the month of the Holy Souls, what better time to showcase some altars dedicated to the Holy Souls of Purgatory? Just the other day we had explained here that the purpose of memento mori is not macabre; rather it is to bri…
Eighteenth Century Memento Mori Vestments from Poland
With All Souls Day around the corner, it is time to once again the explore the rich tradition of the use of memento mori for black liturgical vestments. Memento mori appear all throughout the Church's tradition; walk into a Roman basilica and you will be greeted by var…
The Surhuméral of See of Toul, France
In France it is called the "surhuméral" (or "super-humeral") and it is variant on the more widely known "rationale." It is a unique privilege that is reserved to only the prelates of specific Sees. Bernard Berthod, in his excellent Dictionnaire…
The Fifteenth Century Antependium of Gandino's Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta
In a previous article from a couple of years back, we shared with our readers the fifteenth century cope of San Paziano and in the course of that article we also shared also the corresponding chasuble and dalmatic from the set (while also making a very brief reference to th…
The Rustic Beauty of the Chapel of St. Anne in Lawton, Michigan
For a very long while now I've enjoyed a certain kind of Eastern European church architecture that one can find in the more rural regions of Russia and other select parts of Eastern Europe. It is a style that, for me at least, is defined by one simple but defining chara…
Splendours of New Spain: A Set of Embroidered Vestments Made in Mexico in 1730
The following set of fully embroidered, floriated vestments originally came from eighteenth century Mexico, approximately the year 1730, made by Mexican embroiderers. People often make the assumption that the Church in the new world was inherently limited in its ability to…
Churches of Constantinople: The Chora Church
Continuing on with our considerations of some of the churches of the once great imperial Christian city of Constantinople, we will today turn our attention to the second greatest extant structure after Hagia Sophia, the church of St. Saviour in Chora, or what is generally s…
The Peculiar Ninth Century Asturian Church of Santa Cristina de Lena
In the midst of research for another topic, I stumbled across the rather unique and peculiar mid-ninth century church of Santa Cristina de Lena located in Lena, Spain. This particular church architecturally falls into a style of architecture known as "Asturian" c…
A Selection of Antependia from the Fifteenth Through Twentieth Centuries
Antepedia, or altar frontals, have to be one of my favourite liturgical textiles. For one thing, they help to accentuate the altar and they further clothe it in its own kind of of 'vestment.' Second, they have a great deal of ornamental potentiality, ranging from ve…
Elena Neigum on the Icon as Silent Theology - Preserving the Byzantine Canon in Contemporary Liturgical Art
Elena Neigum is an established iconographer and educator who is focused on the analysis of contemporary threats to the Byzantine iconography, advocating for the reaffirmation of the icon as a sacred and theological act within the life of the Church. -- LAJ Guest article by E…
Dom Joseph Gajard, OSB: Master of Gregorian Chant
Sometimes older priests will say, "Everything I know about Gregorian Chant I learned from Dom Joseph Gajard." This is a common sentiment expressed by many clergy who learned about the beauty and flexibility of plainchant from this devoted French master of venerabl…
