A Living Memorial to the Catholic Faith
S. Clement's Church in central Philadelphia holds a singular place in the American Episcopal Church. Founded in 1855 by Episcopalians devoted to the Catholic Revival, the parish has carried forward an unusually complete round of Catholic worship for more than a century and a half: a Sung Mass every Sunday, a Low Mass each weekday, Latin Vespers and Benediction in the afternoon, and the continuous round of a novena at the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency, prayed without interruption since 1944. The building is the work of the architect John Notman, who also designed the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square and served as associate architect for the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Logan Square. The priest who now leads the parish brings a formation that spans the Trappist monastery of St. Benedict's in Snowmass and a Japanese Zen training hall, and the church's musical life sustains a year-round calendar of choral and instrumental concerts in addition to the regular worship.
The cornerstone was laid on May 12, 1856, by the Rt. Rev'd Alonzo Potter, Third Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and the building was opened for worship on the first Sunday in January 1859. Bishop Potter returned on April 12, 1864, to consecrate the finished structure, assisted by Bishop Stevens and Bishop Lee of Delaware. The turn toward Catholic practice came in 1869, when the Rev'd Herman Batterson, long associated with the Guild of the Holy Cross, was elected rector and began to teach the Catholic faith to the parish. That character was cemented in 1874, when two English priests of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, the Cowley Fathers, preached a Lenten mission that made a sensation across Philadelphia. The Society was invited to take charge of the parish the following year, and a Cowley lay brother named Maynard left his mark on the building: he painted the sunflower ceiling of the nave and constructed the confessionals, one of which still stands in S. John's Chapel.
Other marks of the parish's place in Anglican history include the founding of S. Vincent's Guild for Acolytes, which began at S. Clement's in 1877 as a local guild for parish servers. The guild's rule was later adapted by the Church of the Advent in Boston, and because the Advent guild was more widely publicized, the origin of the society has often been credited to Boston rather than to Philadelphia. By the early twentieth century, the parish was a stable of Anglo-Catholic practice in the city. The Rev'd George Moffett, rector from 1895 until his death in 1904, began perpetual reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the Crypt Chapel, was the first to use the term "Mass" officially in the parish, and added a side altar and a relocated baptistery. His successor, the Rev'd Charles S. Hutchinson, oversaw a renovation of the east end in the early 1900s, including the construction of the Lady Chapel, also called the Boudinot Chantry. A 1914 redesign by Horace Wells Sellers, then a vestryman and architect, gave the choir and sanctuary much of the form they keep today. In 1929, the entire building was lifted and moved to accommodate the widening of 20th Street, a striking episode in the parish's long life. The Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency was dedicated in 1943, and the Continuous Novena at the shrine has been kept since 1944.
A Day of Prayer from Morning Office to Evening Benediction
The daily schedule at S. Clement's turns on three fixed points: morning, midday, and evening. The morning opens on Sunday with the 8:00 a.m. Low Mass, followed at 9:00 a.m. by Centering Prayer, a silent meditation practice associated with the Christian contemplative tradition. Centering Prayer is held at 9:30 a.m. during the summer months. At 10:00 a.m. the Rosary is recited, and at 10:30 a.m. the Little Hours of the Divine Office are sung in Terce. The principal Mass of the day, the Sung or Solemn Mass, follows at 11:00 a.m., and the day closes at 3:00 p.m. with Vespers and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, chanted in Latin from the Liber Usualis with pre-Urban Latin hymns.
The week follows a similar rhythm, scaled down but unbroken. A spoken Low Mass is offered in S. John's Chapel, or the Lady Chapel from Christmas until the Octave Day of the Epiphany, at 12:10 p.m. each weekday. Vespers and the Novena at the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency follow at 5:30 p.m. On Saturdays the Low Mass is at 10:00 a.m., and on the first Saturday of every month it is followed by the Holy Rosary led by the Society of Mary. Vespers and the Novena are then offered at 3:00 p.m. Holy Days add a Solemn Mass at 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and at 11:00 a.m. on Saturdays. Confessions are heard by appointment.
Theological and devotional breadth is present even within this strict pattern. Centering Prayer, a twentieth-century American contemplative method associated with the Trappist monk Thomas Keating and his co-teachers, is offered alongside the traditional round of Mass and Office. A visitor may arrive for the 8:00 a.m. Low Mass, take part in the silent Centering Prayer session an hour later, and return for the 11:00 a.m. Sung Mass, all within a single Sunday morning.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency and the Continuous Novena
The Marian heart of S. Clement's is the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency, dedicated in 1943. The image is venerated under a title that asks for clemency in prayer, and the parish has maintained a Continuous Novena at the shrine since 1944. Devotions are offered each weekday evening following Vespers, and on Saturday afternoons. The prayers associated with the shrine include the Novena Prayer, the Intercessory Prayer to Our Lady of Clemency as Mother of Divine Grace and Help of Christians, a Prayer During Wartime commending the men and women of the Armed Forces, and a Prayer When Absent from the Shrine that allows the devout to join the novena from afar. On Marian festivals, the Order of the Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency, founded in 1993 and modeled on the Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, takes part in processions, including the May Crowning of Our Lady.
Music, Organs, and a Year-Round Concert Tradition
Music has been a distinguishing gift of S. Clement's for more than a century. Peter Richard Conte serves as Organist and Choirmaster, with Bernard Kunkel as Associate Organist and Assistant to the Rector. The choral repertoire spans the full range of the Anglo-Catholic tradition: at major feasts, settings by Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd, Howells, Jongen, Vaughan Williams, Rheinberger, Messiaen, and Kodály are sung alongside the plainsong of the Missa pro Defunctis and the Missa Lux et Origo of the Easter Vigil. The Sung Mass on Sundays is the heart of the parish's musical life; Holy Week adds a Palm Sunday processional with the S. Matthew Passion of Victoria, a Maundy Thursday Mass to Josquin des Prez's Missa Pange Lingua, a Good Friday liturgy of the Passion, and an Easter Day Solemn Mass with music by Howells, Jongen, Byrd, and Mascagni.
The building has been a home to organ performance at the highest level. The instruments include a large organ in the east end of the church, installed during the early twentieth century under the rectorship of the Rev'd Charles Hutchinson, and a smaller organ in the chancel. Conte, who is also Principal Organist of Longwood Gardens, leads the Polyphonia Society, Saint Clement's Choral Artists-in-Residence, in regular performances of sacred and secular choral music.
The building is also a concert venue of note in the city. The Ravensong series, in residence at S. Clement's, presents period-instrument and historical-performance concerts, with programs devoted to the harpsichord repertoire of the Couperin family, Bach sonatas for harpsichord and violin, French chamber music of the Baroque, and a staging of Le Roi Danse in collaboration with the dancer Hubert Hazebroucq and the violinist Stefan Plewniak. Choral Arts Philadelphia, under the same artistic direction, has built a tradition of New Year's Eve performances that began in December 2014 with a complete Christmas Oratorio of J.S. Bach, and that has since included a Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine of 1610 and a New Year's Eve pairing of Bach's Magnificat with Handel's Coronation Anthems. A long-running Bach at Seven series has also used the building for evening programs of cantatas, motets, and chamber music performed on period instruments by the Bach Collegium.
A Priest Trained in Two Traditions
The current Priest-in-Charge, the Rev'd Justin Lanier, came to S. Clement's from the Diocese of Vermont, where he served as the 27th Rector of St. Peter's Church in Bennington. His formation includes time at the Trappist monastery of St. Benedict's in Snowmass, Colorado, where he was under the direction of the abbot, Joseph Boyle, O.C.S.O., and of the monk Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. Keating, who died in 2018, was a principal teacher of Centering Prayer in the Christian contemplative movement, and Boyle, who also died in 2018, sent Lanier to train in Zen monasticism. That training took him to Kyoto, Japan, where he entered the monastery Tofuku-sodo as a non-clerical monk under Keido Fukushima Roshi, the Rinzai Zen Master and head abbot of the Tofukuji lineage of temples.
In 2017, one year before Keating's death, Lanier joined Keating, Laurence Freeman, Tilden Edwards, and Richard Rohr for a gathering of young contemplative leaders at St. Benedict's, in the year before Keating's death. He was invited as a representative of Keating's teaching of Centering Prayer, and has continued in that work. Fr. Lanier now lives in Philadelphia with his wife Heather and their two daughters.
Devotional Societies and Parish Life
The Catholic Revival that shaped S. Clement's lives on in the parish through six devotional societies, each with a ward or chapter at the church. The Society of Mary, whose origins lie in the 1880 founding of the Confraternity of Our Lady, leads the Rosary each Sunday morning and at the Saturday Low Mass on the first Saturday of the month, and sponsors Marian feasts. The Guild of S. Vincent, founded at S. Clement's in 1877 as a local guild for parish servers, is the parent body of the International Order of St. Vincent, dedicated to servanthood, discipline, and the preservation of liturgical knowledge. The Guild of All Souls, founded in 1873, supports prayer for the faithful departed through daily prayer at the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency, where deceased members of the Guild are remembered.
The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, devoted to the veneration of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, supports the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and organizes the night-long Maundy Thursday Vigil, said to be the last remaining night-long Vigil in the city of Philadelphia. The Order of the Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency, founded in 1993, takes part in Marian processions. The Society of Charles, King and Martyr, devoted to the memory of the martyred British monarch, is also represented; the national meeting of the society was held at S. Clement's in 2017.
The wider life of the parish centers on a Sunday Coffee Hour held in the Rectory or the Parish Hall above S. John's Chapel, a Rector's Forum for adult education and discussion, an active Altar Guild that prepares the sanctuary and cares for the vestments, vessels, and altar linens, and a corps of ushers. The parish maintains a long-running partnership with Eddie's House, a program aiding young people transitioning from the foster care system, and offers pastoral support to those experiencing homelessness. The parish newsletter appears regularly, and the Ordo Kalendar, a liturgical calendar of services and devotions, is available by order.
The Great Feasts and the Liturgical Year
The liturgical year is kept in full at S. Clement's. The Great Feasts of the Christmas cycle are marked with the full round of Lauds, Little Hours, Prime, and Vespers: Christmas Day itself is celebrated with a Mass at Dawn, Little Hours, the Rosary, the Third Mass at 11:00 a.m., and Vespers at 1:00 p.m. The Epiphany on January 6 brings the Procession, Blessing of Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Chalk, and a Solemn Mass. Candlemas on February 2 includes the Candlemas Ceremonies and a Solemn Mass. Ash Wednesday opens Lent with both a Low Mass at 12:10 p.m. and a Solemn Mass at 7:00 p.m., each followed by the Blessing and Imposition of Ashes. The Fridays of Lent add the Stations of the Cross and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.
Holy Week is marked in full. Palm Sunday brings the Palm Ceremonies and Solemn Mass. Maundy Thursday includes the Solemn Mass, Procession to the Altar of Repose, Stripping of the Altars, and the Maundy at 7:00 p.m. Good Friday is observed with the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified at 12:00 noon. The Easter Vigil and First Mass of Easter are celebrated on Holy Saturday, and Easter Day brings the Procession and Solemn Mass at 11:00 a.m.
The feasts after Easter are no less carefully kept. Ascension Day is marked by the Procession and Solemn Mass. Whitsunday, or Pentecost, is celebrated with the Procession and Sung Mass. Corpus Christi brings the Solemn Mass, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, and Benediction, with music by Titelouze, Dvořák, Messiaen, Archer, and Kodály. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15 includes the Procession, Blessing of Herbs, and Solemn Mass, with music by Rheinberger and Mendelssohn. The patronal feast, S. Clement's Day on November 23, is marked by a Procession and Sung Mass, traditionally with Palestrina's Missa Tu es Petrus. All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day follow at the beginning of November, and the parish observes Michaelmas on September 29, the Dedication of the Church in April, the Immaculate Conception in December, and the Feasts of S. Joseph, the Annunciation, S. Joachim and S. Anne, S. Bartholomew, and other holy days throughout the year.
Planning a First Visit
S. Clement's welcomes visitors at 2013 Appletree Street, in central Philadelphia between the streets that converge on Rittenhouse Square. The principal Sunday service is the Sung or Solemn Mass at 11:00 a.m., preceded by the Low Mass at 8:00 a.m., Centering Prayer at 9:00 or 9:30 a.m., the Rosary at 10:00 a.m., and Terce at 10:30 a.m. The day ends with Vespers and Benediction at 3:00 p.m. Weekday Low Mass is offered Monday through Friday at 12:10 p.m., and the daily evening round of Vespers and Novena begins at 5:30 p.m. The Saturday Low Mass is at 10:00 a.m., with Vespers and the Novena at 3:00 p.m.
The worship is traditional and fully Catholic in its outward form, in keeping with the Anglo-Catholic heritage of the parish. English is used for the Mass, with Latin for the chanting of Vespers and in some Mass settings. Visitors will find a small, attentive congregation, a high level of ceremonial at the Sung and Solemn Masses, and a parish that traces its life to the very origins of the Catholic Revival in the American Episcopal Church. Sunday services are livestreamed on YouTube, and previous services are archived on the parish channel. Giving is available online through the parish's Realm portal.