We add to our monthly “Archives” by presenting the small chapel in the sacristy, tucked behind the abbey’s Church of Saint Gregory the Great.

The Sacristy Chapel

While most visitors are familiar with the beauty of the abbey’s Oratory of Saint Gregory the Great, they may not have had opportunity to discover the small sacristy chapel located just behind the choir wall. It is in fact a kind of dual-purpose chamber with a double role, one could say, serving both a “material” and a “spiritual” function. For it serves “materially” as a place for the safekeeping of liturgical vestments, books, and sacred objects, thus provides the space for and preparation for liturgies. Spiritually, it is a place of prayer, both preparatory and final prayer for liturgies in the oratory, and even for the celebration of the Blessed Sacrament itself. Its architectural design thus encompasses both aspects, possessing functional storage space, as well as containing a consecrated altar. While this small chapel may not possess the sort of grandeur one finds in some cathedral or abbatial sacristies, it holds its own beauty and simplicity, offering a distinctive reflective quietude that does not escape the notice of any who encounter the space.  

Gabriel “Light” and Sullivan Candlestick

A sacristy, also called a “vestry,” typically serves this important function of liturgical preparation, yet its uses can extend even further. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the sacristy as a, “room in the church or attached thereto, where the vestments, church furnishings and the like, sacred vessels, and other treasures are kept, and where the clergy meet and vest for the various ecclesiastical functions.” While it does not necessarily or by canon law possess the sacred status of a church or oratory, it is more than an anteroom, meeting room, or closet: “The sacristy is not blessed or consecrated together with the church, and consequently is not a sacred place in the canonical sense. However, …it enjoys on the whole the same prerogatives as the church.” More than a dressing room, more than a mere storage room – it is a place for preparation and is often associated with prayer.  

Masses still are said in this modest chapel. Years ago, Bishop Ansgar Nelson was noted for his daily Mass there, often joined by a small group that felt entirely privileged to be able to attend. School alumnus Daniel McCarthy ‘77 wrote of his experience with these Masses: “Bishop Ansgar would say Mass each afternoon: sepulchral, solemn, devout. What I can remember about those Masses was how private they were, even with a few people standing there behind him. The altar faced so that his back was to us, a long, angular, stooped back. When he opened his arms in evocation, the span was wide, his arms thin but solid, weighted by his aged hands. There he stood saying Mass with dignity and intensity in his thickly accented English.” Abbot Matthew Stark still says Mass in this chapel, typically twice each week, joined by Jose Soares, oblate, artist, and staff member of the School and monastery. Father Benedict Nivakoff ‘97, prior of the “Monastero di San Bendetto in Monte” in Norcia, the Italian hometown of St. Benedict, visits our monastery regularly, and will say Mass in the sacristy chapel in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the only form used in the Norcia community. More regularly, prior to most Masses in the church, principal celebrants will pray at the sacristy altar, often joined by altar servers, and process from that altar to the high altar of the church to celebrate the Blessed Sacrament. Recessionals similarly will terminate in the chapel with a prayer and a sign of peace. 

The “sacristy credens” with diverse stoles

Architecturally, the sacristy sits directly behind the large blank wall at the rear of the monks' choir in the oratory. It is conveniently located immediately off of the slype, the hallway which serves as a gathering place for monks before processing in or recessing out.  The sacristy is not grand - about 21 feet wide and 29 feet long. It is dominated at the far end by its permanent, stone altar, raised one step up on a slate platform much like those in the main church. A pair of heavy iron candlesticks, dedicated “In Memory of Mark Sullivan ’43,” set off either end of the altar. Incorporated into the Belluschi design of the church, the sacristy is furnished with original circa 1960 solid wood wall cupboards, 32 total, 16 on either side wall. Its counters lie atop wide, shallow vestment drawers, “sacristy credens,” hidden by smoothly operated sliding doors. Each drawer is color-coded according to the seasons of the church’s liturgical year, offering organized storage of Mass vestments, tabernacle veils, and other miscellaneous items of vestiture. Generally, the chapel space is also the vesting sacristy where priests prepare for Mass, as opposed to the adjacent work sacristy, which contains sinks, a sacrarium, and a lavabo, as well as closets for cassocks and surplices, and provides space for altar servers to vest prior to their duties at the altar. The 32 wall cupboards are still used for the safekeeping of liturgical books for personal use and for vessels for Mass, such as for the School’s House Masses, celebrated each term in the eight residential dorms on campus. In pre-Vatican II years, just prior to the consecration of the Abbey Church, conventual Masses were still an idea of the future. Every priest would then celebrate a daily “private” Mass in one of the many side altars of the church, requiring places to store and maintain their diverse personal items. 

Inside the cabinets

The most distinctive visual element in this chapel is surely the two Annunciation “lights,” the stained-glass windows that provide the space with its coloration and temperament. Originally situated in Burgundy, these windows suffered the same fate of many windows and other sacred spaces and items battered by the excesses of the French Revolution and its aftermath under Napoleonic rule. We previously have noted the windows of the slype, originating from a monastery near Cologne, making their way to us through the donation of John Willam Mackay. The Annunciation windows are roughly contemporary with the windows of the slype. Their style, however, matches that of Saint Pantaleon Church (Troyes, France) which major reconstruction done in over the years 1523-1536. Centuries later, having been repeatedly resold and resituated, in England and America, the Annunciation windows similarly found their way from the Costessy Collection to Mackay’s father, the American industrialist Clarence Hungerford Mackay. When the Mackays’ impressive Long Island estate was no longer held by family and was subsequently to be demolished, the windows were again preserved, this time through a donation to this abbey.  

An art historian and stained-glass specialist (see Caviness, ed.) explains that “the two halves of the composition, though no doubt originally separated by a thin mullion (small vertical bar), are united by light directed from the left and by an oblique perspective system in which the orthogonals of a tiled floor and a vaulted colonnade converge to the left. The Virgin Annunciate is placed on the right, framed by the open arch of the portico of the Temple, a book resting on her left hand. Head bowed, she turns slightly toward the Angel, the dove in a mandorla of light hovers between them...” The description continues: 

Entering the adjacent “work sacristy”

While the historian of art may rightly notice the High Renaissance, one may also notice that the modesty visible in the figure of Mary in her “light” resonates with the modesty of the chapel itself. It thus quietly serves well in both aspects of its double function, materially supporting the liturgy, and spiritually providing space to pray. The theme of the Annunciation provides the perfect backdrop and theological underpinning for its work, leading to meditation upon our own participation in the work assigned then to “the handmaid of the Lord.”

St. Benedict “Light” visible at back of sacristy chapel