Fr. Bartus, an avid reader of
The New Liturgical Movement, sends along this item:
Fr. Andrew Bartus, ordained in July as a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, has received an ordination gift of a set of exquisite white-and-gold Spanish-style vestments. Designed and gifted by Garry South, of Los Angeles, whose hobby for more than 25 years has been designing traditional vestments, the chasuble is modeled on the shape and ornamentation of a 19th century Spanish set.
The set will be inaugurated at the Christmas Mass at Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church in Santa Ana, California, Fr. Bartus’s Ordinariate congregation that worships using the Anglican Use texts approved by the Vatican for former Anglicans that are received into the Catholic Church.
South’s interest in vestment design was sparked when he converted from the Evangelical and Pentecostal tradition of his youth to the Episcopal Church, and lived for several years in Washington, DC, just two blocks from the Georgetown University campus. He availed himself of every book in the university’s library on the history of liturgical vestments and vestment design. Since then, he has designed custom traditional vestments, in both Roman and Gothic styles, worn by deacons, priests, bishops and archbishops in the U.S., Canada and Australia. South intends to be received into the Ordinariate himself sometime next year.
The set he designed for Fr. Bartus utilizes a white-and-gold brocade with a wheat-and-grapes motif, as well as fleur-de-lis decoration on the orphreys, stole, maniple, burse and veil made of gold bullion. On the back of the chasuble is a silver bullion Agnus Dei, resting on the Book of Seven Seals as revealed to St. John the Apostle, surrounded by silver rays. Liberal use of both gold and silver thread throughout, and gold bullion galloon, make the vestments a dazzling sight.
The vestments are dedicated via inscription to the late Fr. Eugene Beau Davis, SSC, an Anglican priest at St. Mary of the Angels Church in Hollywood, California, who had longed to see St. Mary’s become part of the Ordinariate and worked tirelessly to accomplish that dream until his death of congestive heart failure in 2010.
The set was manufactured by well-known vestment maker C.M. Almy, whose workshops are in Maine. Almy made several trial shapes of the chasuble out of cotton duck material to ensure that the shape and drape was correct, since they had no remaining patterns in the Spanish style. South then made a paper mock-up of the front and back of the chasuble to ensure proper placement of the decoration. The set took about one year from conception to completion.
More photos follow below.
