EFORE THE CAMPION MISSAL could be published, it was necessary to collect, scan, sort, clean, and carefully digitize more than 300 religious line art drawings. Credit for this goes to Kristen Ostrowski, who combed through hundreds of 19th century Missals, Antiphonals, Breviaries, and Graduals from a Benedictine Abbey and extracted the pictures which had survived intact.

The St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass (ccwatershed.org/Campion) contains approximately ninety (90) of these exquisite “woodcuts.” In my Blog entries over the next year or so, I will be releasing hundreds of these pictures for general use by Catholics everywhere.

The following piece of line art was not used in the Campion Missal (because we could not use all 300 images), but I think it is a lovely drawing:

          * *  7927 • B/W Christmas / Religious Line Art [download this pdf]

It was used in a book by Pustet for the Third Mass of Christmas (“Ad tertiam Missam in die Nativitatis Domini”). Here are the Scriptural references:

Prophecy Of Daniel, Chapter 2
[45] secundum quod vidisti quod de monte abscisus est lapis sine manibus et comminuit testam et ferrum et aes et argentum et aurum Deus magnus ostendit regi quae futura sunt postea et verum est somnium et fidelis interpretatio eius [45] According as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and broke in pieces, the clay, and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold, the great God hath shewn the king what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof is faithful.

Prophecy Of Ezechiel, Chapter 44
[1] et convertit me ad viam portae sanctuarii exterioris quae respiciebat ad orientem et erat clausa [2] et dixit Dominus ad me porta haec clausa erit non aperietur et vir non transiet per eam quoniam Dominus Deus Israhel ingressus est per eam eritque clausa [3] principi princeps ipse sedebit in ea ut comedat panem coram Domino per viam vestibuli portae ingredietur et per viam eius egredietur . . .
[1] And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east: and it was shut. [2] And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut [3] For the prince. The prince himself shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord: he shall enter in by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the same way.

UPPER RIGHT HAND CORNER: “O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel” — O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel

LOWER RIGHT HAND CORNER: “O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum” — O King of the nations, and their desire

UPPER LEFT HAND CORNER: “O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum” — O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples

LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER: “O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae” — O Morning Star, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness

* To learn more, you may want to visit the Campion Missal website [url].