The Mass in Honor of St. Walburga, composed by the Rev. Cyprian G. Constantine, O.S.B., organist/choirmaster of the Archabbey and academic dean of the Seminary, had its European premiere at the Abtei St. Walburg, in Eichstätt, Bavaria, on Saturday, Feb. 25, the feast day of Saint Walburga.

St. Walburga (710-779) was one of several members of an Anglo-Saxon family who participated in the missionary activities that carried Benedictine monasticism from England to the Continent. Her relics are preserved today at the Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt, Bavaria, which was founded in the year 1035. The Bavarian abbey made new foundations in the 1930s in Pennsylvania and in Colorado. For many years, nuns from the Abtei St. Walburg were a presence on the Saint Vincent campus; now the monastery of St. Emma in Greensburg carries on their tradition. The abbey also made a foundation in Colorado, now the Abbey of Saint Walburga, in 1935.

Fr. Cyprian, a native of Boulder, Colorado, was chaplain for the Abbey of Saint Walburga there for several years while on loan to the Archdiocese of Denver. He composed the Mass in Honor of Saint Walburga to honor that saint, as well as to remember the influence of the Benedictine nuns of the Abtei St. Walburg and their daughter houses. The Mass, composed for congregational use, is regularly sung in the monastic services here at Saint Vincent Archabbey. This is the first time the Mass has been sung outside the United States, and this also marks the first time that an English-language Mass has been sung at the 970-year-old Abtei St. Walburg in Germany.