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Since we’ve been in a mood for analyzing the Novus Ordo Mass of late, I thought I’d mention one other thing that seems to be preventing it from reaching its full potential: missalettes.
If my personal experience is any guide, the vast majority of parishes in America use those OCP missalettes, published four times a year and left in the pews of most Catholic churches. I expect this is done mainly for reasons of convenience. Missalettes are easy to use. Mass producing them brings the cost down, and when every parish uses the same missalettes, people become familiar with them and have no trouble following along when they’re visiting in a new parish. These are tangible benefits.
The downsides are pretty serious, however. Some relate to content. For example, by having a monopoly on missalettes, the OCP is able to keep a stranglehold on Catholic music in America and keep everyone singing Eagle’s Wings and Here I Am, Lord. But even without that problem, missalettes should not be used as a constant and permanent way for lifelong Catholics to follow along at Mass. As a “starter kit” for beginners, they’re fine. As a permanent fixture of Catholic life, they shape the sensibilities in exactly the wrong way.
The bottom line is that a missalette is a disposable book. It has the precise dates on the cover, so it’s clear that it will be used for a few months and then chucked into the recycling bin. That’s a powerful image right there. Think of the reverence that Jews have for the Torah. Think of the reverence that we used to have, and sometimes still do, for the Book of the Gospels. Think of the great affection that people historically have had for their family Bibles. And then think of those trashy little OCP Missalettes, God’s words packaged in a convenient form, intended to be used once and thrown away. I’ve heard stories of rabbis running into the burning synagogue to save the Torah. I can’t imagine anyone running into a burning church to save the missalettes.
This is unfortunate on so many levels. In the first place, it just doesn’t instill respect for the Mass. From childhood we are disposed to take a beautifully bound gold-leaf book more seriously than a flimsy little paperback. Continual use of missalettes will inevitably instill in people the general impression that Word of God is cheap. But furthermore, as so often happens with deliberately dumbed-down sources of information, missalettes leave people ignorant. Since the Masses are listed by their calendar date, there isn’t any need to keep track of the liturgical year per se. With a permanent missal, you have to keep better track of the weeks, and you become much more aware of liturgical seasons. By going through the same exact book over and over again, you begin to see how the liturgical year has a logic of its own. Missalettes, by using the calendar year as a crutch to keep people oriented, tend to obscure this.
Perhaps the worst thing about missalettes, though, is their impermanence. In a media-drenched culture like ours, we implicitly understand what sorts of things are published in periodical format. Phone books. News. Stock prices. Things that change. By keeping people reliant on missalettes, you leave them with the impression that it isn’t worth printing permanent books because the liturgy might change any day. No wonder so few Catholics have a real respect for the liturgy as an expression of the faith affirmed by the Church throughout the ages. No wonder so many feel they can “weigh in” on truths of faith and morals as though these could somehow be put to a vote. By their very impermanence, missalettes encourage people to think of the Church (with the help of the OCP) as yet another service provider looking to satisfy a particular market within our “consumer culture.” (And unsurprisingly, if you go to the OCP website, one of the first things they promise concerning their missalettes is that they are “always up to date!”)
I recognize that printing permanent missals is more difficult in the Novus Ordo Mass, on account of the expanded lectionary. It would need to include three years’ worth of Mass readings instead of just one, which would mean either three missals or else one very thick one. Also, with the new (and more accurate) translation of the Roman Missal due to be introduced soon, it might not make sense to invest in a good Novus Ordo Missal until the new ones are printed. (Though that may take a frustratingly long time — the present timetable sets the release for 2010, but it wouldn’t be at all shocking if it got extended for a few further years.) In the long run, though, missalettes need to go, or at least to be put on the back burner as a stopgap for beginners or travelers who forgot their missals at home. It does not befit the Sacred Liturgy of Holy Mother Church to be issued as a quarterly by the Oregon Catholic Press.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Ditto, Clara. Missalettes reaffirm in the minds of the laity that the Liturgy needs to be “updated” four times a year and therefore changed all the time. By reaffirming liturgical change as an unquestionable good, they also send the message that the Liturgy is something that each community can/should concoct for itself on a regular basis. “Sing a new Church into being…”
Finally, perhaps one of the best changes made in the Liturgy for the OF is the fact that God’s Word is now supposed to proclaimed. But how can it be fittingly proclaimed if everyone is reading alongside during the proclamation?
Hmm… Lots of trad communities have printouts for the propers…
Yes, and those should be a stopgap measure too. I’ve written about that one before:
http://www.cornellsociety.org/2008/02/get-a-missal/#more-2115
I disagree.
Well said. You make a very strong case.
“No wonder so many feel they can ‘weigh in’ on truths of faith and morals as though these could somehow be put to a vote.”
You’re on to something here. I find it bizarre that many Catholic pundits (the “neocons”) think that it is perfectly alright to have license to experiment with liturgy (within some vaguely set limits) and yet expect people to march lock-step when it comes to doctrine/morals. Does a Steubenville Charismatic service with drums and bass guitars really invoke a world where moral behaviors don’t change and doctrine is static. There is certain cognitive dissonance going on there. If people have choice and a mutable order in the most basic Christian action (worship), why are they to be expected to have a static one in terms of doctrine/ethics?
To be fair, however, growing up we basically ignored the missalettes, at least in my parish. After a while, you just didn’t feel like singing along, or if you did, it was always the same songs and you didn’t need to look at the words. And I never felt compelled to pick one up because it’s not like the language of what was being said was Shakepearean English. I suppose one could use it in order to not get distracted, but the Mass now is pretty darn transparent and doesn’t require much reference to the “user’s guide”.
I agree with you about the OCP missalets. But there is a bright side to them being temporary. Recently our parish invested in the OCP “gather” [ilk] hardcover missal/hymnals. I figure it will take 12 years or more for those to wear out.
But the printouts will likely be neccesary for years to come if you want people to understand the propers. (Which is I think neccesary.) Visitors new to the ancient Mass will be present in large numbers, they won’t have missals (or the ability to use them) and congregations won’t supply missals or someone to lead them through the Mass.
If we object to missalettes as “disposable” it’s not clear to me where we draw the line. Can magazines not include excerpts from scripture?
That would be a bit extreme. I don’t mean to propose that no sacred words should ever be printed except on gold leaf paper. I think the important question is: what people think of as the “main (physical) source” of the liturgy? A magazine quote is just a quote. People know that it’s coming out of the Bible. The same will be true of the printouts if only people will take my advice and start thinking about purchasing a missal once they begin assisting at the Traditional Latin Mass more regularly. The printouts can serve as backup for newcomers and those who forgot their missals, but people will understand that this is just an excerpt, and that it’s taken from another source, not made up by the person who prints the programs.
Even now, you see missals scattered around through the congregation at most Traditional Latin Masses. At a Novus Ordo Mass they’re virtually unheard-of. Which means that, in the minds of people raised in that Mass, there will be a strong impression that liturgy = missalette. That’s what I mainly want to avoid.
Maybe Arturo’s right that people basically ignore them after awhile. The Novus is pretty easy to follow even without a book. But in that case I’d propose just getting rid of them completely, or having a dozen copies available in the vestibule for newcomers or others who want them. When they’re sitting around in every pew, there’s too much tendency to think of them as “where the liturgy comes from.”
I agree Clara - and I would add that they really aren’t that easy to use. To follow the entire Mass, you have to skip around and there are no ribbons to mark the various parts. In our parish they also start to look pretty trashed well before their “expiration date” - leaving again the impression that the Word of God doesn’t need to be treated with care. Perhaps part of the problem is that maybe most parishioners don’t see the missalettes as containing the Word of God - they’re more like a printed program for a show.
Not to mention the hideous cover “art” on the missalettes. Why can’t images from our 2000-year history of sacred Catholic art go on those covers? Instead we are left with faceless picasso-esqu and downright diabolical renderings of holy persons and events. I suppose the cover art on the missalete fits the liturgy that normally follows.
At my parish recently, a pious older lady asked the priest what to do with old Missalettes (which my parish, incidentally, does not use; she had them from elsewhere). She had been saving them for years, giving the reason that the scripture in them was holy and that she could never bring herself to throw them in the garbage. Her sensibility was clearly formed elsewhere — and, though quaint, what a poignant reminder of the hold that physical things can have on the mind, when properly honored! One can picture an overflowing box of these booklets, never perused, accumulating in this good woman’s house.
To connect to the point, the very fact that we’re all trained to throw these books away is a very bad thing, and supports Clara’s points.
I’d also note that the Catholic Bishops and OCP have a financial motive here — subscriptions to missals are a nice cashflow business with stable operating income that doesn’t require much marketing or novel product designs to sustain; in other words, OCP can make far more money reselling cheap books for years than it could selling one good book once. And it’s a scandal worth noting that the USCCB makes a sizeable amount of money from licensing its ridiculous non-standard version of the New American Bible for the lectionary and compelling everyone to use it; and that translation is in flux, remains in flux, and has little hope of becoming stable anytime soon. Some English speaking countries have begun to allow the use of the Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition which is in the public domain and would therefore make for cheaper Missals which also, ahem, contain far better translations.
Clara, you shock me!!!! You are of the same opinion as….. LITURGISTS!!!!!!
Kidding aside, liturgists have been opposed to missalettes for years saying that there is no need for them since people can understand the language. They should only be given to people who are hard of hearing.
Missalettes are representative of our throw away culture. What a contrast with hand Missals which in some cases were/are passed down from generation to generation. Even if they are no longer used they still have value to the owner.
Great post, Clara.
“you leave them with the impression that it isn’t worth printing permanent books because the liturgy might change any day”
Well, is this not, in fact, the case?
To think that seasonal paperback (as opposed to permanent hardcover) missalettes are objects to impiety is a subjective (one might say biased) statement. I don’t agree that the rite of the Mass should change because of seasonal missalettes (which is effectively what numerous post-ers have said). Also, to comment on the *content* of the said missalettes is a whole other issue.