Better very late than never, we thank our friend Mr James Griffin of The Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music for sharing with us these pictures of a Vesper ceremony in the Sarum Rite celebrated back in March, and for providing the written description of the ceremony.
Faithful readers of this site may recall my photo-essay from February 2020, following the Sarum Vespers for Candlemas Eve in Philadelphia, which was attended by 700 or more persons. For many of the faithful in this part of the country, that event is etched in their memories as a last hurrah before the Covid-related shutdowns brought an end to public worship.
The clergy and servers are led to the chancel by the verger (as the Sarum Customary puts it, “the sacristan with the rod”). At the beginning of Vespers, the candle-bearers enter in surplices, which are exchanged for full albs partway into the ceremony.
We welcomed many priests from far and wide to attend in-choir. Many wore the black cappa, as did the canons of Salisbury Cathedral, a practical measure for any cavernous stone church in a northern climate. The officiant was Fr. Armando G. Alejandro, Jr., a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and chaplain for the Durandus Institute.
Just before the officiating priest, the rectores chori — rulers of the choir — make their entrance. Each ruler carries a stave, sometimes called a baculus cantoralis, as a sign of his office. It should be said that the practice of cantors with staves is hardly unique to the Sarum Use, having been practiced in various monastic houses and cathedrals in Europe, and even in some places in Latin America until the 20th century.
The number of rulers varies by the rank of feast being observed, from four to none. In the Sarum calendar, March 1 is the feast of St David of Wales, which by evening gives way to First Vespers of St. Chad of Mercia, Bishop and Confessor (March 2), so according to that rank we assigned two rulers: myself and Peter Carter (co-founder of Durandus, as well as founder of The Catholic Sacred Music Project). In the photo above, we enter in surplices and academic hoods (cut according to the pattern of the Warham Guild), which are later exchanged for copes.
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A huge component of the right timing that made this event possible was the presence of the British men’s early music ensemble Gallicantus, which was already planning to participate in other activities at Princeton around that time. They were supplemented by choral scholars associated with The Catholic Sacred Music Project or elsewhere in the local area. All singers were outfitted with blue choristers’ cassocks from St. John the Baptist in nearby Allentown, New Jersey.
The overall structure of Vespers in the Sarum Use is the same as in the classical Roman rite, though often with the addition of a responsory after the chapter. After the officiant intones Deus in adjutorium meum intende (with its response), there follows five psalms. The antiphon before each psalm is intoned by a cleric, in descending order of seniority. The first antiphon was begun by Fr. Zack Swantek, who as Chaplain for the Aquinas Institute (Princeton’s Catholic campus ministry) occupied the Dean’s stall and ceremonially fulfilled the role of Dean. Beside him was Fr. Jason Catania, a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter who officiated the first Sarum Vespers event in 2020.
For each intoning cleric, the Precentor approaches him to demonstrate how to sing the intonation (by either humming it out or singing it for him outright, in a lower voice). The Precentor is accompanied by the book-bearer, who also brings the candle as well as the antiphonary. This gesture isn’t directly described by the Sarum Customary, but it seemed to make sense for practicality that the book-bearer would hand the candle over to each intoning cleric before opening the book.
For each of the five psalms, the verses were sung in alternation between the choir alone (using fauxbourdons I generously received from Henri de Villiers, whose Schola Sainte-Cécile participated at a Sarum Vespers at Oxford in 2019), and with the whole congregation, with their lines fully notated in the program and supported by the chapel’s majestic organ. Clara Gerdes Bartz (Director of Music at Most Holy Redeemer in New York City), who played the organ for the Sarum Vespers of 2020, returned to assist us on the organ this time as well. For the appointed hymn of the day, Iste confessor, Clara supplied the even-numbered verses with organ-only arrangements written by Thomas Tallis.
Before the responsory begins, the candle-bearers bring silken copes to each of the rulers of the choir so that the rulers may be suitably clad while singing its verses. The candle-bearers also change from surplices to albs and begin lighting any side altars that will be censed during the Magnificat. In our case, the servers brought lights to the altar of the side chapel. In the photo above, they walk past several icons placed there by David Clayton, who spoke about them in the academic presentation before Vespers began. The icon on the far right is of St. Chad of Mercia, which was written by Ander Scharbach of Baltimore, Maryland specially for this event. (It was also printed on the cover of the service leaflet.)
During the singing of the Magnificat, the officiating priest prostrates and kisses the step before the altar. He then censes the main altar, as well as any other altars in the church. For this event, we repeated the Magnificat of Robert White, written during the brief restoration of the Sarum Use under Queen Mary I (and which proved overly ambitious our first time around). Keen observers might notice that the altar frontal in the photo above uses the Lenten array: a bleached linen, often accented with red or symbols of the Passion, which was prescribed in the Sarum Use for Lent instead of the violet that we are accustomed to in the Roman Rite.
The officiant was led to the side altar in the Marquand Chapel by the candle-bearers, accompanied by the thurifer and book-bearer, to continue the censing.
After the conclusion of Vespers with the collect of St. Chad and the Benedicamus Domino, we then shifted to the rite of Exposition and Benediction. This may prompt two questions from astute readers, which I’ll try to pre-empt here.
The first question: “why follow a medieval liturgical event with Benediction when that ceremony didn’t exist as we know it until the Tridentine period?” Indeed, although the pre-Reformation English church practiced reservation of the Blessed Sacrament (often in the form of the hanging pyx), there wasn’t a rite of Benediction as we know it today. Yet it was understood by the event planners that the rite of Benediction was nonetheless desirable — especially within the year of the National Eucharistic Congress — and that doing the rite would provide a bridge between medieval and modern practice, connecting the Sarum Use to the living Church.
The second: “since the Princeton University Chapel isn’t a Catholic church and there was no Mass, why did the reserved Sacrament come from?” In recognition of the Catholic student community’s needs, the Catholic Diocese of Trenton authorized a tabernacle to be erected in the University Chapel many years ago. Masses are celebrated daily, and formal Adoration takes place twice a week. The tabernacle is presently in the Marquand Chapel. In the photo above, the chaplain retrieves the Host and is accompanied by servers to the main altar as the choir sings a Litany of Saints with Sarum chant and arrangements of Thomas Tallis. Archaic petitions of a general nature in the Litany (such as “to grant peace and true concord and victory to our kings and princes”) were, of course, retained; but we removed ones that were specifically directed to the safe delivery of a child that Queen Mary I was believed to have carried during a phantom pregnancy in 1555.
During Exposition, the choir sang another of Tallis’s arrangements, O sacrum convivium, and then the priest lifted the monstrance and gave the Benediction.
The Blessed Sacrament was reposed while the choir sang Tallis’s Laudate Dominum, and then the clergy, choir, and servers exited in procession down the nave. A festive reception followed in Whig Hall, though still meatless on account of Lent and Friday.
I’m grateful to the many people who made this unique celebration possible, especially the Aquinas Institute at Princeton, and I hope to bring the work of the Durandus Institute to even more places across the United States and the world in the coming year. For those who want to learn more, I invite you to watch the video of the three lectures that preceded the Sarum Vespers, given by myself, David Clayton, and Gabriel Crouch (director of Gallicantus).
An icon of St. Chad of Mercia, made by Ander Scharbach specially for this event.
