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 …
Paschal Candle for a Double Dominican Jubilee
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 Saints Gregory & Augustine: An Archdiocesan "Latin Mass" Parish Success Story
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. …
Cathedra of the Manila Cathedral Restored
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…
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…
The Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Freiburg Münster
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…
The Napoleon III Pontifical Set
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 in Jerusalem: The Station of the Holy Women
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…
The Penitential Symbolism of the Train and Cappa Magna
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…
The Ciborium Veil Seen on Holy Thursday
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…
Spy Wednesday Tenebrae at St. Kevin's in Dublin, Ireland
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…
A Rare Glimpse Into the Music of Holy Week and Easter Liturgies From the Lateran Archbasilica in 1941
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…
Traditions of Holy Week in Spain: The Capirote
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…
Book Notice: Reprint of the Rituale Romanum
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…
Before and After: Our Lady of Grace, South Houston, Texas
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 …
A Distinctive Seventeenth Century Altar
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…
Update on the Restoration of the Benedictine Monastery of Norcia
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…
Vestments of St. Stephen - A Sixteenth Century Solemn Mass Set
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…
Baroque Style Cherubs Restored to a Northern Italian Parish
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 …
Saint Agnes Podcast: Chant in the Parish
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…
Vestments and the Celtic Revival
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…
Book Review: Manners in God's House - First Prayers and First Missal by Neumann Press
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…
The Reliquary Bust
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…
Two Seventeenth Century Works of Liturgical Art Sent to the Holy Land
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…
Benedictus: An Affordable Missalette for the Traditional Liturgy
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 …
Examples of the Custodia Eucharistica
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…
Some Characteristics in the Evolution of Vestment Design and Decoration Through the Centuries
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 …
From Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: Brief Analysis of the Question of Aestheticism in the Classical Roman Liturgy
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 …
Martyrs Cope of the Mid Nineteenth Century
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…
In Tribute to a Priest, Ceremoniere and Liturgist: Fr. Dana Robert Christensen, KHS
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
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 …
