The Finery of Tradition
The rich, pungent smell of ancient things was my first taste of the Ursuline Monastery, which has found itself ensconced quite comfortably within the steep, narrow streets of Old Quebec for almost 400 years now. It belongs there as much as the snowy landscape which has grown up around it.
The air was thick when I entered the door which creaked most satisfactorily. I was met with silence all lit by the winter sun playing on the wooden floors. I wandered the rooms slowly, deliberately, anticipating the sprites of memory to leap around every corner; up old stairs, into nooks and crannies. I was in search of one thing - my mom. My mom as a child.
This was her school. This is where she learned to paint, to sew, to sing, to do all the things I loved her for. This is where she learned to make pretty little altars in honor of Our Lady. This is where she became who she was; here among these nuns, these lovely women of supreme gentility endowed with a fierce will to serve God as he deserved in a strange new land.
They hailed from France at the beginning of things. They knew beauty because of this. The beauty of French customs and traditions. And when, in 1639, they were invited to come to this harsh Canadian wilderness by its intrepid Bishop Francois de Laval, they came. Through three months of frightening winter seas in a small wooden ship, they came. But they did not come alone. They brought their customs and traditions with them like so many cuttings of a beautiful vine planted carefully in pots, all lined up in their memories, ready to set flourishing into new soil. For, along with all the necessities of food, blankets, beds, and furniture – they brought their Catholic traditions, which echoed with the words of Jesus, “she has chosen the better part.” For man indeed does not live on bread alone.
I witnessed this most wonderfully as I wandered through a room quite unlike all the rest. It was filled with bobbins of golden thread, rich brocades glowing pink and silver, almost impossibly intricate embroidery thick with symbols of bees, flowers, crosses, and Our Lady’s presence everywhere. It seemed incongruous that such finery should have dwelled in the rough and tumble country Canada was at the time. But these were nuns, mind you. And they were married to a King. And the King’s court must be clothed in robes of light no matter how rugged the winter outside their door. This was the King’s chamber where I had wandered – this room of ancient vestments, altar frontals, and tabernacle robes embroidered by long ago brides whose lyrical love echoed still. I heard it quite plainly and was filled with joy. These vestments from their nimble fingers, their artistry, their tradition, blossomed with a tangible grace – from the sturdy roots of their Catholic French hearts in Canadian soil.
They purposefully passed their traditions on to their students. Each nun taught a young girl to embroider and sew. The girls were taught to apply the simpler embroidery on the vestments at first. They were shown how to cut into the gorgeous brocade material with growing confidence. Patterns were designed and memorized and carefully preserved. Even to this day you can see them in this room under careful glass. There would be some girls who found a deeper artistry within themselves and the nuns watered it unto full abundance sharing more and more of their secrets and techniques with them. And from those girls grown later into women, it passed to others.
In his wonderful book on Tradition, Yves Congar says this:
The Churches were established by the spoken word, of course, and organized in like manner…but the apostles...not only had they heard Jesus teach, they had followed him everywhere; they had seen him praying, welcoming people and healing the sick; they had seen Him celebrate the Last Supper and break bread after giving thanks to God. Immediately after Pentecost and during the next thirty years, the Christians celebrated the Breaking of the Bread, although no written text on the matter existed. It is enough for the apostles to have seen Jesus celebrate it. The Church, which had seen the apostles do it after Him, thus learned the Eucharist from its actual celebration. And so it was with many other things.
These vestments before my eyes were, indeed, one of those “many other things.” Taught by watching and imitating. Young hands learning to love the art by watching the love in an old nun’s eyes as she plied her needle. And down through the ages this love burned on as love will do.
It occurred to me as I wandered this room, that I had just recently felt this joy of lived tradition, in my own native city of St. Louis. I had seen these colors, this brocade, this impossible, gold filigreed finery, in about as unlikely a place as this Ursuline Monastery nestled in the New World; in an old, little, city parish called Epiphany of Our Lord tucked between highways and neighborhood bars.
This is a Church like so many a church, which has undergone a hurried transformation through the wild, unruly “experimental” years and wears the scars of the sixties and seventies. It was gutted and impatiently “restored” to bury all remnants of the tradition that went before. Truthfully, it seemed a bit exhausted by the unruliness. This is where, by the meanderings of providence, I found myself going to daily Mass before work each day. Then a funny thing happened. Through the fog of early-morning-mind I started noticing the vestments. These glorious, brocaded, shimmering vestments sweeping onto the altar day after ordinary day. I learned to anticipate them each morning. What will it be today? I found myself, well, quite smitten. The fog lifted and I began to take careful notice of the Mass and its dramatic wonder. The priest who wore these lovely garments was an ordinary diocesan priest who I strongly suspect had a heart very much like those Ursuline nuns; gentle of manner yet fierce with a love of tradition. Everything on that altar glowed. The tabernacle, the altar frontal, the vestments, the lace. It was as if this old, tired Church was feeling spring slowly return and I saw it sprouting here and there.
One of Maggie’s vestments up close
I don’t know where I got the cheekiness – I am usually quite reticent, actually – but one day I found myself knocking furtively on his sacristy door and asking if I could see his vestments up close. I wanted to touch them and photograph them. With a quick and bustling kindness he simply said, “Oh, sure!” and opened all the drawers in his sacristy. With a dramatic joy of his very own he swept one vestment after another out of the drawers and onto the old wooden table. He was clearly smitten with them himself. I soon knew why.
Like a prism catching light the colors of the Church seeped out as a feast to my eyes. Purples, the deep red blood for Martyrs, white with damasked roses, blues, rose, and black, and the green of Galilean hills when Jesus walked with us in ordinary time.
There was one vestment created by an old artist in Poland. There were some of antique origin, made in some mysterious shop in Italy with a long and illustrious line of embroiderers and seamstresses. All lovely names and places rich with obvious traditions passed down faithfully, something you would expect from the old world of Europe.
Then at the very end, with a best-for-last smile, he flourishes this marvelous robe of white and golden leaves that left me speechless and says, “Oh, and this one was made by Maggie.” Maggie. What a happy, bouncy, ordinary name. It struck like simplicity among the brocaded pedigrees of all these illustrious, foreign artists. I found myself smiling and asking quite simply, “Who is Maggie?” “Oh, she’s a homeschool mom I know who likes to make vestments and is quite wonderful at it.” Maggie. I wanted to know this Maggie. And in another bout of cheekiness, that is exactly what I did.
She was as lively, open hearted and enthusiastic as her name implied. And I found that she, too, had her own story of gorgeous tradition passed down in a providential and particular way right here in this ordinary American city. Yves Congar would marvel that here too his words rang true. I asked her many questions. She most graciously answered them all.
Her creative roots were humble. She grew up around sewing and had many outfits lovingly created for her by her grandmother. She learned to sew herself as a child, and her mother gifted her with her own sewing machine as a senior in high school. For many years she made curtains and pillow cases.
The taffeta dress
Later, when she became a mom herself, she was faced with her first flower girl dress. Her kind Aunt Sandra walked her through the project and introduced her to the glories of expensive silk taffeta – her first taste of gorgeous fabric, and her first taste of terror in cutting into something so precious. Aunt Sandra got her through. There must always be an Aunt Sandra to help tradition along!
One day, her pastor approached her. He knew she sewed (Those wily, wise pastors see everything). Would she be able to fix his vintage cope, he wondered? By that time, she had grown braver and readily took the project in hand. This is a woman who had cut into expensive taffeta and lived, after all.
I had a lot of fun doing it, and it turned out great. He then asked if I would perhaps make a green vestment for him. I did. Then his mother requested I make him a white set. You can’t say no to a mother. Word traveled fast along the priestly vine. One of my best friends, who is a priest, said, "Oh, you are making vestments now? Great! Let's design one!" It was a kind of rabbit hole from then on. There was a lot to learn. I have been actively making vestments since then. It's been about 10 years now. - Maggie
Maggie knew she needed to know more about this providential artistry beginning to blossom in her heart. She had heard of a Monastery of nuns in the rural wilds of Kansas who were steeped in their own traditions of vestment creating.
I had heard of The House of Ephesus from many of my priest friends. Many consider them the gold standard of vestment making. I ended up getting invited to a learning retreat with them. Since I had already been doing vestments for roughly four years, it turned out I had a lot more experience than the other women attending. One of the main artists, Sister Misericordia, and I had a strong connection immediately. Over the years, I have gone back on my own for visits to keep our working relationship strong. Since their ministry and mission does not include a lot of mentorship, they usually send lay women to me if they want to learn. We have been working on a vestment manual for several years now. My hope is that lay women across the country can learn to serve their priests by making vestments locally.
The sisters generously allowed Maggie to buy their exclusive silk brocades and linings. As her business grew, she discovered her own supplier but still continued to receive her brocades from Ephesus. More importantly, the sisters shared their patterns and motifs with her, and passed on their techniques for applying designs that she had until that time only muddled her way through.
Maggie at work in the shop
With this confidence planted in her by the nuns, she has gone on to create her own designs especially with the demand for a more Semi-Gothic revival among her priestly customers who have become quite savvy about such things. And so, the vine of tradition thriving in Ephesus Monastery had been planted firmly in her own memory and began thriving in her own world. Tradition had been transplanted.
It has not been easy. Just like the original nuns of the Ursuline Convent, she juggled the cares and practical concerns of her vocation with the demands to preserve artistic tradition. She was a mother and a wife and a teacher living in the world. Her art needed to be enfolded into that atmosphere and become a part of it.
Several years ago the idea of a thriving vestment business seemed overwhelming. I really prayed about it. I homeschool my kids (at that time I had 6 in school). It was a lot. I learned I had to submit to my duties as a wife and a mother first. I gave it all to God. If it was going to work, it would be because HE made it work. And it did... I laid down a schedule for myself. I would do school during specific hours and sewing would not intrude upon that time. I had to decide on my work hours. It was all about priorities. Once I put them in the right order, things worked out, and now I have more business than ever! I just had to learn where the proper place is for work and remember what is most important. I think it helps that I am past having babies and toddlers. It is ok to put things on hold during those hard years or at least be less demanding of your artistic productivity. There will be many years that you don't have as many pulls on your time. That is when creativity can take off.
These days Maggie has a small community of her own called Sew Divine. One friend, Toni, whom she had taught to sew long ago now joins her to help make the vestments. Another friend, Mary Grace, specializes in embroidering albs, surplices, and altar linens used in the Mass. Every Thursday they meet together to sew and converse about their families, books, new designs they have seen. Maggie loves Thursdays. She treasures the company of these like-minded artists who share her joy and enthusiasm. Tradition is by necessity a communal thing.
She has become quite the favorite among young seminarians who come to her with many ideas for future vestments. Sometimes they come without knowing anything at all except they want what is beautiful. Their hearts all quite earnestly in the right place. And they work through the process together with Maggie. She passes on her knowledge and her love of beauty to them. They catch hold and tradition moves forward to be rooted into their hearts.
Every morning now I still wait for the vestment to tell me the glory of the day: virgin, doctor, martyr, Our Lady, Our Lord. Sometimes I see Maggie’s handiwork slipped gorgeously over the priest’s shoulders and I smile at the marvel. A home school Mom of six named Maggie Sieve, living in a Modern American city, found herself, quite providentially, taking up the long and beautiful traditions of her Catholic Church and planting them anew in her mind, her imagination, her hands, her needle, glorifying God with the beauty of her artistry. And what can one say to this new and beautiful spring creeping slowly back into the Church except: Blessed be God forever! And the traditions that keep Him amongst us.
