Pontifical gloves in use at Buckfast

A friend with a keen eye for esoteric matters liturgical has very kindly sent me a link to a set of photographs from the celebration of Easter in 2011 at Buckfast Abbey. The Abbot is wearing Pontifical gloves in the celebration of the Ordinary Form of Mass. They can be seen in the third photograph in the top row where he is blessing the Gospel reader and most clearly in the bottom right photo of the Abbot preaching. The link is here.  

For an introduction to the history and use of  Pontifical gloves or chirotecae for the uninitiated there is an online article here.

My friend enquires if I have you ever seen this before, other than, as he adds, perhaps on the late Cardinal Siri. As the link above states their use is still permitted under current rules for the novus ordo. I cannot say that I have - but then perhaps I was not looking sufficiently closely.

I am, not, of course, objecting to such a use of Pontificalia, but would welcome it - as intended in traditional practice it emphasises the special nature of the prelate's office on a Solemn occasion.

Building the past

I read on the Medieval Religion discussion group an interesting piece from the international edition of Der Spiegel about a project, starting next year, to build a Carolingian monastery from scratch and only using the technology and usages of the time. The article is here.

The project is inspired by the famous early ninth century St Gall monastic plan, and about which there is a website here.

There is apparently a somewhat similar project building a castle in France, but it is not something we do very much in this country these days. Admittedly the other year I did see the local council reconstructing part of the motte of Oxford castle which had collapsed - due I think to the proximity of the modern road rather than the failings of eleventh century earthmovers.

On the other hand there are such spectacular rebuildings as Castell Goch near Cardiff by the Marguess of Bute in the late nineteenth century and, more applicable to the beginning of this thread, the rebuilding on its old foundations of the abbey at Buckfast by its community. There a small group of monks, not themselves trained stonemasons, built the church on traditional lines in about twenty years early in the twentieth century. This is a good instance not only of what can be done, but also of real;ising how it was done in past centuries.

As I write this I recall that at that time the Buckfast community were mainly German, exiles from the Kulturkampf, so, perhaps, regrettably, such things are not very English after all.

Meanwhile for anyone who wants to live for the next forty or so years as a monk in the age of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious - well, the prospects look quite good in contemporary Germany.

Quincunx

Last November I wrote a post aboutThe Westminster pavement which linked to an article by the artist David Clayton. He has now followed that with a piece on the New Liturgical Movement about the Quincunx, a central element in the design of that and other cosmatesque pavements. His post can be read here.

The Quincunx in the cosmati pavement of Sants Cecilia in Trastevere

In England, apart from the great medieval Westminster pavement, a modern cosmati floor can be seem in the sanctuary of Buckfast Abbey.

Ordinariate Ordinations

This Saturday Edwin Barnes, formerly Bishop of Richborough, will be ordained to serve in the Ordinariate as a Catholic priest in St John's cathedral in Portsmouth. His blog Ancient Richborough is an excellent one, and informative as to the process of discernment and practical steps he and others have taken in recent months. Please keep him in your prayers.

On his blog he has an illustrated account of the ordination of David Silk to the priesthood at Buckfast Abbey, about this I wrote the other day in my post Ordination of Fr Silk for the Ordinariate.

Ordination of Fr Silk for the Ordinariate

The New Liturgical Movement has pictures, courtesy of the copyright holder the Ordinariate Portal, of the Ordination of Fr. David Silk, the former Anglican Bishop of Ballarat as a priest within the Ordinariate. The ordaining bishop was the Bishop of Plymouth and it took place in the very fine, rebuilt, abbey church at Buckfast in Devon.

Given the long standing tradition of Anglo-Catholicism in the dioceses of Exeter and Truro, it will be interesting to see what the response to the possibilities the Ordinariate offers in the region. The area that produced the Rev. Mr Gorham of 1850 judgment fame may yet give a new lead. Fr Silk may well have a new and active ministry in the south-west, building on his established roles as a liturgist and former diocesan bishop in Australia.

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Solemn Mass at Buckfast Abbey

I was impressed and delighted to see on the New Liturgical Movement that last Sunday there had been a Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the High Altar of Buckfast Abbey, which also has a monthly EF Mass.

There are more photographs and comments here.

To the comments I would add a commendation to visit not only Buckfast itself but the surrounding area which is rich in history. In the wake of Bl.John Henry Newman's beatification visitors should visit Dartington, the home and burial place of his Oriel and Oxford Movement colleague Richard Hurrell Froude, and where Newman himself stayed in 1832 and again on a last visit to Froude who died in 1836.

I have known Buckfast for many years, and its twentieth century rebuilding is a remarkable and moving achievement by the monks. The abbey's website is here.