Our good friends at Arouca Press have published a wonderful new book that highlights the writings of Monsignor Schuler, penned over the span forty years for one of our favorite publications, Sacred Music, of which he was once the editor.  This new volume is a collection of his most significant articles, edited by his good friend Dr. Virginia A. Schubert.  Monsignor Schuler was a ..read more

The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus located in Caterham, Surrey, England was built in the year 1881 and follows a classic gothic revival pattern, typical to the tastes of the time and place in which it was built, taking in many regards the template of a medieval parish church.  The church building proper was designed by Edward Ingress Bell (1837-1914). While the general architecture ..read more

There is a chasuble that is found in the treasury of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Austria that for a long while I have sought to feature, but regrettably very little information is available about it, beyond the fact of where it is located. Some date the chasuble to the seventeenth century, but personally I would be more likely to place it in the very early eighteenth century. The ..read more

Photos courtesy of Allison Girone and FSSPThe National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori looks with pardonable pride upon the city of Baltimore. Its majestic spire rears aloft within a block of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption, the first cathedral in the nation. The shrine is known as “Baltimore’s Powerhouse of Prayer.”  St. John Neumann adorns the list of ..read more

Continuing on with some of our considerations of vestments appropriate to the Easter Season, as well as our considerations of the exquisite vestment and embroidery work of Mother Marie Lemaire des Anges and the Ursulines of Québec, here today we take a quick look at what is informally referred to by the Musée des Ursulines du Québec as the "Jesuit chasuble" -- no doubt because it was ..read more

Holy Name of Mary paintingMy favorite living oil on canvas painter is Raúl Berzosa, a Spanish-born artist from Málaga, Spain. His works are many and prolific, seen in various churches and chapels in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, England, and the United States. A sample of his works can be seen here.  His official website can be seen here. I first saw ..read more

In previous articles we have shared the incredible embroidery work of Mother Marie Lemaire des Anges of the Ursuline Convent of Quebec and had noted that she had passed this tradition down to her younger sisters whom she apprenticed in this art. In that vein, and to continue on with our exploration of their incredible works of liturgical art, today I wanted to share with our readers a ..read more

While I regrettably do not have any historical information on this particular set of vestments, given that it comes in a style we have not frequently shown here it seems worthwhile to look at it all the same. What I can say, just by virtue of looking at the style, materials and decorative forms of the set, is that this was likely made in France or Belgium in the second half of the nineteenth ..read more

One of the most pleasing styles of Christian architecture, to my mind, is neither gothic (with apologies to Pugin) nor baroque (with apologies to Bernini) but rather Italianate Romanesque, strongly rooted as it is in the classic Roman models that have come to characterize the most iconic and important churches and basilicas in Christendom.   It's a style characterized by its distinctive ..read more

On May 12, 1996 - Mother's Day - a watershed moment happened for the renewal of sacred liturgy. That day the Austrian-born Alfonse Cardinal Stickler, age 85, sang Pontifical Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. The day marked the first time a senior prelate with the rank of cardinal had celebrated a Solemn Pontifical Mass from the throne at St. Patrick's in the Classical Rite since ..read more