The video on this page is testimony to a long
and haunting aspiration to revive the Use of Sarum
as a living liturgical rite in the Church of our
own time.
This celebration took place in the chapel of
Merton College, Oxford, February 1997 on the Feast
of the Purification (Candlemas). Though it was
celebrated in an Anglican college chapel, this
Mass was under Roman Catholic auspices. Its use
was justified in a Roman Catholic context by the
fact that Pius V's legislation, Quo primum
of 1570, respected the existence of liturgical
traditions going back more than 200 years. Therefore,
the Use of Sarum has not been technically abolished
and has remained in occasional use.