Announcement - The Formation of NEW Monastery - Sarum Use
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    A NEW monastery is being formed according to the Sarum Use.

    Applications are being accepted from men who may discern the Calling of the Holy Spirit to a monastic life dedicated to traditional sacred classical music and corresponding sacred arts (calligraphy, iconography, stone and wood carving, stain glass, Opus Anglicanum, etc.). The primary focus and dedication of this community will be the praise, worship and adoration of God through the music of the Schola Cantorum of Men within the context of the historic Sarum rite.

    This monastery is in its beginning stages and will be singularly unique in the world. Currently we are located in California - USA. It will be an autonomous (non-canonical - not necessarily under one particular bishop and or diocese), self governing monastic community using the Sarum rite which pre-dates the Tridentine rite.

    If you do discern a calling to this way of life, prayer, praise and adoration of God, then please contact us at: SarumSociety@aol.com .
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    Ken,

    Out of interest: won't you require permission to celebrate the Use? I ask because there's some confusion even in England about the licitness of modern Sarum celebrations (as opposed to historical re-enactments), given that the Recusants used the Tridentine liturgies and the restored Bishops turned down the suggestion from Rome that they might like to use Sarum.

    ps it's not that I hope you don't get permission: the Council of Trent, for all its centralising tendencies, recognised the value of long-established variants of the Roman Rite, and there is arguably modern precedence for resurrection of a variant that has dropped out of use.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    That's a good point: a priest would need permission to use a form of Mass no longer approved, or to pray the Office using it. On the other hand, lay people are free to use an old form of the Office, as they have no obligation to say the Office at all (unless they are members of a third-order).

    Ken, can you say anything about how far things have come in practice? What do you and your colleagues do, so far?

    Also, have you had to engage in research or make your own books for the Sarum-rite Office? I assume there's no existing handy Sarum equivalent of the Graduale or the Antiphonale.
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    Since we would be "non-canonical", our use of the Sarum version of Matins and Evensong (Vespers) would not need permission from any diocese or bishop; whether Catholic or Anglican. This would be strictly a community of lay men dedicated to the prayer, praise, worship and adoration of God through sacred traditional orthodox conservative classical music and their related arts. As to the Mass, we have two priests and a bishop standing by, ready, willing, able and authorized (Anglican not Roman Catholic). It is our hope that Rome would eventually give permission as well but that may be some time away.

    We envision ourselves as an "Oratory" and not of a Third Order.

    We are in the VERY VERY beginning stages, doing a lot of research, getting all our ducks in order. Currently, there are only three laymen seriously interested other than myself and the two Anglican priests and an Anglican bishop.

    I am amassing everything "SARUM" that I can get my hands on for this research. To the best of my research, I have not yet found or know of a musically notated Sarum Graduale or Antiphonale other that the two great photo-copied examples found in most large music libraries at Universities, etc.

    So, where we are now, is gathering a list of seriously interested men, doing research, putting together organizational documentation, guidelines, goals, talking and discussing, taking advice and suggestions, etc. We don't have an actual piece of property, house, building or such. However, I do have my eye on a vacant Catholic property nearby, complete with large Sanctuary, priory house and grounds. Also, there might be a possibility of locating / joining it to a newly formed Seminary and its mother church. So, its all in the stages of seeing what God's Will is for this.

    There have been other church musician (single men) that have personally expressed strong interest in this as a place of residence in addition to being an actual School of Sacred Music with a Schola Cantorum.
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    a priest would need permission to use a form of Mass no longer approved

    Chronak,

    I'm not sure it's that clear-cut. As I understand it [health warning: I'm not an authority on such matters, merely an interested layman]: Trent authorised the validity of Roman Rite variants that were at least a couple of hundred years old at the time. That authorisation has never been formally reversed - it's just that the English Reformation prevented the continuing celebration and development of Sarum and its English and Welsh cousins (e.g. Hereford and Bangor), and the restored hierarchy in the 19th century opted for the Roman form of the Rite, out of a sense of loyalty and because that's what English and Welsh Catholics were used to by then. Summorum Pontificum has established the principal that a form of the Rite that was once Holy does not cease to be so. Perhaps this can be extended to the Sarum Use? But, at any rate, the gap in the celebration of Sarum as a living Use makes it problematic.
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    Ken,

    I see we've been preparing comments at the same time. Having read yours, I have to suggest that talk of Anglican celebration of the Use complicates matters from a Catholic perspective, unless the clerics concerned intend to reconcile with Rome, in which case they're more likely to be encouraged to go down the Anglicanorum coetibus route.
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,021
    A Mass was said a few years ago in Washington, D.C. in the Sarum Use. It seems that most of the text of the Mass is very similar to the "Tridentine". It's more in the accents to the Liturgy - like using a different edition of Fortescue for all the ministers' actions. That's the way it seems to me. I would love to participate in such a Mass some day.
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    IanW - By "Anglican" I do not mean The Episcopal Church of America nor the current liberal, wacked out main stream Church of England. I am referring to "Anglicans" who are either of the Anglican Use which IS already in communion with Rome or certain other Anglican clergy and churches who are in current talks and sympathy with Rome. Our Schola would have a certain "ecumenical" background. We would eventually seek approval from a Catholic bishop too. The Sarum Use like the Ambrosian Use has never been "outlawed" by the Roman Church. Since it is almost identical to the Tridentine Rite, it is more a way of ceremony and proceedures.
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