A New Video of Sarum Vespers and Compline

Speaking of Sarum Vespers, the YouTube channel of an Oxford-based early music group called Antiquum Documentum recently published a video of Vespers and Compline celebrated in the Use of Sarum for the feast of St Cecilia this past November. The music is very, very good indeed, and includes work by Thomas Tallis, and his contemporaries Nicholas Ludford and John Sutton. The church in which the service was held is the famous St Mary’s, where Oxford University began, and where St John Henry Newman began serving as vicar in 1828, and earned his reputation as one of the great preachers of his time. The text of the service can be read in Latin and English, with some very useful liturgical notes, in this document (I will add some explanatory notes below):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JGD8eVjZLd_XsSDUHJH8BPFvr43oQOSd/view?pli=1.

– In the Roman Office nowadays, Vespers on the evening of Nov. 21 would be of the Presentation of the Virgin, rather than First Vespers of St Cecilia, but the former feast was not of general observance at Sarum. (It is in an appendix in Dickinson’s critical edition of the Sarum Missal.

– The five Psalms of Tuesday Vespers (121-125) are said under a single, semidoubled antiphon “Triduanas a Domino poposci”, the last of the five for Lauds and Vespers in the Roman Breviary. (This was a very common arrangement in medieval Uses of the Roman Office, especially for feasts of the middle or lower grades, but in some places, even for those of the highest solemnity.)

– After the Chapter, one of the responsories from Matins is said; this was by far the norm, rather than the exception, for first Vespers of all but the lowest grades of feasts in almost all medieval Uses apart from that of the Papal court, the Use which became the breviary of St Pius V.

– There is no audible response to the versicle or to “Benedicamus Domino”; the antiphon of the Magnificat is also semidoubled.

– At Compline, the chapter is said before the hymn, rather than after it is in the Roman Breviary, which in this regard is very much the outlier.

Beautiful Sacred Art at Ss Gregory and Augustine Parish Church in Oxford, England

What a small parish can achieve with good taste and the will to have a beautiful church, even with limited means.

Here are some photographs from my recent visit to the little parish church of Ss Gregory and Augustine in Oxford, England. The art and furnishings have been carefully chosen to match the simple but elegant early 20th-century architectural design. (The parish was founded in 1912). It is has an arts-and-crafts feel to it, and I was told that it is modelled on a Flemish Renaissance style. Grahame Greene and Tolkien both have associations with the church, and Msgr Ronald Knox visited as a preacher. The current parish priest is Fr John Saward, who is known for his books and writings on the liturgy and art, especially the recently re-published classic, The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity, and the Truth of Catholicism. He told us that he has a new book coming out soon, to be published by Angelico Press, on angels. I can’t wait!

Fr John is the driving force behind the current look of the interior, and he very kindly gave us a guided tour himself. Some of the art is from the period following the founding of the parish, but most of it has been commissioned by him within the last 15 years or so, and was painted by the excellent Catholic artist James Gillick. James is a successful portrait and still-life painter who works in oils in a naturalistic style. The color schemes and blend of styles he has used are all carefully chosen to work as an integrated whole. The furnishings, many of which have also been commissioned for the church by Fr John, including a spectacular reredos and other wood carvings, are overseen by James and his brother Gabriel, who is an architect. Together they have a church design and restoration company, Gillick Brothers. Other members of their family have also contributed to the project: the statues have been restored to their original decoration by their father Gordon; curtains in dark purple have been made by Hannah, a seamstress, to cover the reredos and side-panels during Passiontide; and the carpentry for the new exposition throne and crucifix niche above the tabernacle was done by Benedict Gillick.

Here we see the church interior, with its reredos dominating the sanctuary.

The artworks in the reredos are in a variety of styles that blend very nicely. The pictures of Ss Gregory and Augustine have a Baroque look to them, while the Madonna and Child, with its gilded background and cherubic child, has the look of a late 15th or early 16th Italian Renaissance work. The cherubic quality is present but understated, which makes it more accessible to the modern eye.

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Respect for Tradition is Vital if We Want a Culture of Beauty

Without it we have nothing to guide us

The traditional assumption is that when we apprehend beauty in the world around us, we are discerning a property that belongs to the objects regarded. Consistent with this, we call beauty an objective quality. This is to distinguish it from the subject - the person who views the object and makes a judgement on its beauty.

The strongest argument in favor of this assertion, I would say, is that when the assumption of the objectivity of beauty was broadly accepted, the culture that emerged from that society was more beautiful that it is today. Each of you ask yourself: which art, architecture or music is the most beautiful? Most people pick something from the past when people believed this. Similarly, I might ask which part of Oxford do the 10 million visitors visit each year? Or which part of Florence do similar number of tourists go to look at? Is it the part of town with the old buildings with designs rooted in the assumption of objective beauty and incorporating traditional harmony and proportion, or the new buildings built sine WW2 by architects who abandoned the old principles. It is the former. If you do not agree with me on this, you are entitled to your opinion, and you are very unlikely to accept the rest of my argument.

Would you rather pay for a holiday in Florence to see the Duomo…?

….or this 21st century student accommodation?

To categorize beauty as an objective quality is not to say that everyone makes the same judgements. Clearly there is a subjective element too, because we see differences in opinion from person to person on what is beautiful.

When there is a difference of opinion, one might ask, how do we know who is right? What standard is there to help us make such a judgement?

This is not an easy question to answer. In another context, if we were considering the morality of someone’s action for example, we might look to the Magisterium or to Scripture directly for an authoritative judgement. We can know that murder is wrong because Scripture tells us so!

However, there are no equivalent ‘Ten Commandments of beauty’ that God has revealed to us. As a consequence, it is usually fruitless to attempt to make rational arguments that one thing is more beautiful than another, or that my judgment is more accurate than yours, because there is no accepted visible standard that we can use to back up such a claim.

What about those criteria already mentioned - integrity, clarity and due proportion - some might ask? Can’t I apply these criteria to get a definitive answer?

These can help to a degree, but the difficulty here is that we still have to make a personal judgment on the degree of integrity, clarity and due proportion that the object possesses, and so are effectively left with the same difficulty, except multiplied by three!

The capacity of unaided human reason to judge beauty is so variable that we cannot be sure of the validity of any single judgment.

All is not lost, however; just because it is difficult to be sure that any single human judgement is good, it doesn’t mean that we have no measure at all. We know that human nature is drawn to beauty just as it is drawn to the common good, and so we can look at the broad pattern of likes and dislikes of most people over time in a society to consider what is beautiful. We might term this the ‘common taste’ and it is analogous to concepts such as common sense, common law and the highest of these, the common good.

This ‘common taste’ or, put another way, the common sense of what is beautiful, is that standard that emerges over time, and in the consideration of most people in a society. Another word for this common taste over generations is tradition. As an aspect of the culture, the artistic traditions of a society can vary from society to society even while retaining universal principles. So, for example, within the iconographic tradition of sacred art, each national church will tend to develop it’s own style: Greek icons are distinct from Russian icons, which are in turn distinct from English Romanesque icons.

The best way to decide if a piece of art is beautiful, therefore, is to ask what tradition tells us about it. If something has been considered beautiful by many people for a long period of time, there is a greater chance that it is beautiful than for those objects which only a few people appreciate for a short period of time. Tradition is not an infallible guide, but more reliable than a panel of elite intellectuals in a university art department!

In consulting tradition, we consider the society for whom a beautiful object was intended. So we would say that the cosmos was made for all men to behold and so if we want to consider whether or not the cosmos is objectively beautiful we ask ourselves if generally, men have thought that it was.

Similarly, when we look at sacred art, the best guide to the goodness of the style is consideration of the impact that it has on the worshipers in the churches for whom it was intended. Does it on the whole draw people to God as hoped? The pool of people to draw on in this latter category is much smaller than ‘all men’ and so the reliability of the judgment of the effect will be less certain, but nevertheless it is still the best that we have.

Popular culture vs tradition

This appeal to general opinion is likely to disturb some readers who, sensing that popular art and culture is low-brow and superficial, worry about an overreliance on democracy and popularity. However, if we give at least as much weight to the past as to the present, we have a good chance of overcoming the vagaries of fashion. Much of what is popular today will not even be known by the next generation. Some popular items will remain known and appreciated in subsequent generations, however, and it is these are more likely to be truly beautiful. Chesterton called this approach of considering both past and present opinion, the ‘democracy of the dead’. The more we look at the art that transcends its own time and has been considered beautiful by many people in the society for whom it was intended, the greater chance we have of being able to choose the best.

I would argue that we should be so respectful of tradition that in judging the best art we should adopt a general principle referred to by Benedict XVI as a ‘hermeneutic of continuity.’ By this principle, the default position is always with tradition. We assume that tradition has the best answer, the best content, the best style, unless we have compelling evidence that it does not. If current needs are identical to those of the past, we conform to tradition. Where needs are different, it must respond in accordance with the needs of the community (not to the mere whim of the artist). This principle was articulated in a different way by Pius XII in the encyclical Mediator Dei when he said the following:

What we have said about music, applies to the other fine arts, especially to architecture, sculpture and painting. Recent works of art which lend themselves to the materials of modern composition, should not be universally despised and rejected through prejudice. Modern art should be given free scope in the due and reverent service of the church and the sacred rites, provided that they preserve a correct balance between styles tending neither to extreme realism nor to excessive “symbolism,” and that the needs of the Christian community are taken into consideration rather than the particular taste or talent of the individual artist. (195)

These principles guide our judgment. There is room for much variation, and individual expression and taste even while remaining in conformity to the principles that Pius articulates. This is true of all artistic traditions. They conform to principles which can be applied differently according to different needs. This is not the same thing as having unbending rules that cannot be adapted to different situations. Indeed it is the mark of a living tradition that it can always adapt to contemporary needs without contravening the principles that define it. It is clear that Pius XII understood this.

Would you be more excited about studying here, Magdalen College, Oxford?

...or here, at Oxford’s 20th century Mathematical Institute, on the right?

Cardinal Newman’s Church in Oxford

Since the Church has just celebrated the canonization of St John Henry Newman, I thought I would share some pictures I took of the famous university church of Oxford, St Mary’s, while I was there in August. Newman was appointed vicar of this church in 1828, and became very popular as a preacher; it was also here that John Keeble, on July 14, 1833, preached the famous sermon titled “National Apostasy”, an event which Newman himself considered to be the formal beginning of the Oxford Movement. There was a church on this site before the Norman Conquest, which became Oxford’s very first building, used for lectures, for the meeting of senior members known as “congregation”, and for the awarding of degrees; however, only one part of the building as we see it today dates from the 13th century, its very beautiful spire, constructed in 1270, with pinnacles added ca. 1320.

The side of the church on High Street has a Baroque porch added in 1637 by Nicholas Stone, the master-mason of King Charles I; the twisted columns to either side of the door were clearly designed in reference to the ancient columns of similar design at St Peter’s in Rome. Four years earlier, Gian Lorenzo Bernini had just finished the magnificant bronze canopy over the main altar of St Peter’s, which copies the same ancient model. During the trial of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1641, which would lead to his execution under the Puritans, this portico with its statue of the Virgin Mary was adduced as evidence of his “Popish” leanings; bullet holes made by Cromwell’s soldiers can still be seen in the statue.

The nave of the church, seen here from the loft at the back of the building, was completely rebuilt in 1510. There was a rood screen that separated the chancel from the nave, which was taken out at the Reformation; the current one, which is much smaller, was installed in 1827. The organ mounted on it is modern, from 1986.

The chancel was completely remodelled in 1453, and is obviously now much less decorated than it would have been originally. The stalls, however, are originals of the late 15th century; the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child is by the Venetian painter Francesco Bassano the Younger.

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Vespers Celebrated in the Sarum Rite in Oxford

One of the highlights of the Schola Sainte-Cécile’s pilgrimage to England last month was a celebration of Vespers according to the Use of Sarum, which took place on the evening of August 21st at the chapel of Balliol College in Oxford. The previous day, the Mass of St Bernard of Clairvaux was also celebrated there in the traditional Roman Rite, both ceremonies by the kind permission of the chaplain of Balliol, Canon Bruce Kinsey. (Pictures 1-3, 5-6 and 8 courtesy of the Schola Sainte-Cécile; the rest are mine.)

The chapel of Balliol College

The priest during the Gospel at Mass. The brass lectern in the form of a crowned eagle on a stand was made in Tournai (modern Belgium) between 1470 and 1530; others of the same workshop are preserved at the cathedral of Urbino, at Southwell Minster in England, and at Santissima Annunziata, the Servite church in Florence.

The complete program for the Vespers can be seen at this link on the Schola’s website, with the full text and music in Latin, and a French translation: https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/programmes/2018-2019/09-sanctoral/08-21-Vepres-rit-de-Sarum.pdf. The Office was that of First Vespers of the Octave day of the Assumption, with the commemoration of Ss Timothy and Symphorian. The Sarum Use presents a number of interesting ritual differences from the Roman. The celebrant spends most of the ceremony in a choir seat at the back of the chapel, rather than in the sanctuary, and only dons his cope for the incensation at the Magnificat; this can in fact also be done in the Roman Rite, and is normative in the Dominican Rite.

At the beginning of the Office, everyone present, clergy, choir and laity, turns to face the altar for Deus in adjutorium. The five psalms are 109, 110, 111, 129 and 131, the psalms of the Christmas octave; these were used on feasts of the Virgin Mary in many medieval rites. They are sung under a single antiphon, a cento of texts from the 4th and 2nd chapters of the Song of Songs.

“Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te; favus distillans labia tua, mel et lac sub lingua tua, odor unguentorum tuorum super omnia aromata; jam enim hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit, flores apparuerunt, vineae florentes odorem dederunt, et vox turturis audita est in terra nostra: Surge, propera, amica mea; veni de Libano, veni, coronaberis. – Thou art all fair, my love, and there is not a spot in thee. Thy lips are as a dropping honeycomb, honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the sweet smell of thy ointments is above all spices; for winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers have appeared in our land; the vines in flower yield their sweet smell; the voice of the turtledive is heard in our land. Arise, make haste, my love. Come from Lebanon, come; thou shalt be crowned.”

The chapter is then sung recto tono, Sirach 24, 11-12, one of the few texts that coincide with the Roman Rite: “In all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord. Then the creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and he that made me, rested in my tabernacle.” This is followed by the one of the prolix responsories from Matins, which is led by two cantors who stand in the middle of the choir; for this part of the ceremony only, these two cantors wear copes. (Most medieval Uses have a responsory between the chapter and hymn at First Vespers of major feasts.) According to the surviving Sarum customaries, this is the only part of Vespers at which the members of the chapter and choir may sit.

R. Super salutem et omnem pulchritudinem dilecta es a Domino, et Regina caelorum vocari digna es: * Gaudent chori angelorum, * consortes et concives nostri. V. Valde te nos oportet venerari, quae tam sancta et intacta es Virgo. Gaudent. Gloria Patri. Consortes. (Above health [Wis. 7, 10] and all beauty, thou art beloved by the Lord, and worthy to be called the Queen of heaven; the choirs of angels rejoice, our fellow heirs and citizens. V.  Greatly must we venerate thee, who art so holy, and virgin untouched. – This responsory is sung in many other medieval Uses, including the Dominican Rite, which has many textual affinities with Sarum; the verse is often different.)

There follows the hymn O quam glorifica, which was originally written for the Assumption in the 9th century, and found in most medevial Uses apart from the Roman; it was incorporated into the Liturgy of the Hours for the feast of Our Lady’s Queenship on August 22nd, with none of the usual cack-handed textual changes. There follow the versicle “Exaltata es”, and the antiphon of the Magnificat, which is semidoubled. (My attempt to capture this on video was sadly not successful.)

Aña Ascendit Christus super caelos, et praeparavit suae castissimae Matri immortalitatis locum: et haec est illa praeclara festivitas, omnium Sanctorum festivitatibus incomparabilis, in qua gloriosa et felix, mirantibus caelestis curiae ordinibus, ad aethereum pervenit thalamum: quo pia sui memorum immemor nequaquam exsistat. – Christ ascended above the heavens, and prepared for His most chaste Mother the place of immortality; and this is the splendid festivity, beyond comparison with the feasts of all the Saints, in which She in glory and rejoicing, as the orders of the heavely courts beheld in wonder, came to the heavenly bridal chamber; that She in her benevolence may ever be mindful of those that remember her.

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Reminder: Dr Kwasniewski’s Lectures in England, October 26–30

Friday, October 26th – SS Gregory & Augustine, Oxford
6:00 pm – Votive High Mass for St Gregory the Great
7:30 pm – Refreshments
8:00 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “Pillar and Ground of the Roman Rite: The Roman Canon as Doctrinal and Moral Norm”
9:00 pm – Signing of Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile (Angelico, 2018)

Saturday, October 27th – Annual LMS Aylesford Pilgrimage: Relic Chapel, Aylesford Priory
12:45 pm – Confessions (Fr Neil Brett)
1:30 pm – Missa Cantata (Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP
de Rivera, Missa a cuatro voces
Kwasniewski, “Benedicta et venerabilis” UK PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Ego mater” WORLD PREMIERE
 (All sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
3:00 pm – Talk by Dr Kwasniewski: “The Spirit and Spirituality of Gregorian Chant”
3:45 pm – Enrolment in the Brown Scapular
4:15 pm – Vespers (Little Office of Our Lady) and Benediction

Sunday, October 28th – Shrine of St Augustine, Ramsgate, Kent
12:00 pm – High Mass for the Feast of Christ the King
Kwasniewski, Missa Rex in Æternum  WORLD PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Christus vincit” UK PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Jesu dulcis memoria” UK PREMIERE
 (All sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
2:30 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “On Living Tradition: The Basic Good of Catholic Culture and the Spiritual Discipline of Fine Art” 

Sunday, October 28th – Church of St Anne Line, South Woodford, London
6:00 pm – High Mass for the Feast of Christ the King
7:30 pm – Talk by Dr Kwasniewski in Parish Hall (7 Grove Crescent, South Woodford, London, E18 2JR): “Tradition as Ultimate Norm: Clearing up Confusion about Essentials and Incidentals”

Tuesday, October 30th – Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London
6:00 pm – Vespers with Palestrina’s Magnificat quinti toni
 (Sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
6:30 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “Liturgical Reform, Ars Celebrandi, and the Crisis on Marriage and Family”
7:30 pm – Signing of Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile (Angelico, 2018)

Dr Kwasniewski’s Upcoming Lectures in England

On this first day of October, I am happy to be able to publish the schedule of my upcoming lecture tour in England, kindly sponsored by the Latin Mass Society of England & Wales. The tour serves in part as a launch for my new book from Angelico Press, coming out in mid-October: Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile.

I shall be giving five lectures from October 26th to October 30th at five different locations: Oxford, Aylesford Priory, Ramsgate, and two in London. All details are listed below, as well as in the attached posters from the LMS.

In addition, two new choral compositions will receive their world premieres by the ensemble Cantus Magnus, under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn: a motet “Ego Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis” (SATB) on October 27th and the Missa Rex in Æternum (ATB) on October 28th; these will be joined by three UK premieres of other motets.

My thanks in a special way to the Latin Mass Society of England & Wales and to Cantus Magnus for the invitation and preparations. I certainly look forward to meeting the attendees at each of the events.

SS Gregory & Augustine, Oxford

Friday, October 26th – SS Gregory & Augustine, Oxford

6:00 pm – Votive High Mass for St Gregory the Great
7:30 pm – Refreshments
8:00 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “Pillar and Ground of the Roman Rite: The Roman Canon as Doctrinal and Moral Norm”
8:30 pm – Signing of Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile (Angelico, 2018)

Aylesford Priory

Saturday, October 27th – Annual LMS Aylesford Pilgrimage: Relic Chapel, Aylesford Priory

12:45 pm – Confessions (Fr Neil Brett)
1:30 pm – Missa Cantata (Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Fr Matthew Goddard FSSP
de Rivera, Missa a cuatro voces
Kwasniewski, “Benedicta et venerabilis” UK PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Ego mater” WORLD PREMIERE
 (All sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
3:00 pm – Talk by Dr Kwasniewski: “The Spirit and Spirituality of Gregorian Chant”
3:45 pm – Enrolment in the Brown Scapular
4:15 pm – Vespers (Little Office of Our Lady) and Benediction

Shrine of St Augustine (designed by Pugin)

Sunday, October 28th – Shrine of St Augustine, Ramsgate, Kent

12:00 pm – High Mass for the Feast of Christ the King
Kwasniewski, Missa Rex in Æternum  WORLD PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Christus vincit” UK PREMIERE
Kwasniewski, “Jesu dulcis memoria” UK PREMIERE
 (All sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
2:30 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “On Living Tradition: The Basic Good of Catholic Culture and the Spiritual Discipline of Fine Art” 

Sunday, October 28th – Church of St Anne Line, South Woodford, London

6:00 pm – High Mass for the Feast of Christ the King
7:30 pm – Talk by Dr Kwasniewski in Parish Hall (7 Grove Crescent, South Woodford, London, E18 2JR): “Tradition as Ultimate Norm: Clearing up Confusion about Essentials and Incidentals”

Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory

Tuesday, October 30th – Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London

6:00 pm – Vespers with Palestrina’s Magnificat quinti toni
 (Sung by Cantus Magnus under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn)
6:30 pm – Lecture by Dr Kwasniewski: “Liturgical Reform, Ars Celebrandi, and the Crisis on Marriage and Family”
7:30 pm – Signing of Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile (Angelico, 2018)

For Oxford:

For all events: