A change in direction

From Sub Tuum:

Our worship at Spring Bank was always reverent and remains simple and identifiably Cistercian, contested and vague though that term may be, but these two photos, one from the Canon of the Mass on St. Bernard's Day 2008 and one from the Canon of the Mass at this morning's Conventual Mass for the Feast of the Founders, brought home that we have been fairly busy over the past two-and-a-half years:

St. Bernard's Day, August 2008.

The Feast of the Founders, January 2011.

On January 1, 2009, we moved to ad orientem celebration of all Masses. Last month, we finished the first phase of renovations to our oratory. In between there have been many less dramatic steps, from more frequent choir rehearsals to returning to more traditional vestments to numerous tiny clean-ups to the customary. We are a small house and are far from being a model of the liturgical renewal, but I think what we have done is a testament to the fact that no matter the circumstances in which you find yourself, there are always concrete ways to move forward.