Unpacking my new Missals, I had the flippant thought that it was like Mummy Missal, Daddy Missal and baby Missal. As everyone has said, the CTS has done a fine job in producing books of excellent quality, worthy for use in the Sacred Liturgy. The Study Edition is particularly useful at the moment when we are finding our way around the ordinary, the propers and the commons.
Having used the Missals for a few days now, I am getting used to the page turns. For the moment, I still need to have the text for the "I confess" and the "Gloria": although in England we have been using the texts since September, it will be a few more weeks before I can confidently say them by heart.
What I should do (and writing this reminds me) is to sit down and learn them off by heart. This exercise has almost vanished from modern education but is worthwhile. Fr Reggie Foster often used to quote Cicero's warning: memoria minuitur nisi eam exerceas (the memory diminishes - unless you exercise it.)
As with many popular quotations, this is actually truncated. The text from Cicero's Cato Maior de Senectute 7.21 reads: At memoria minuitur. Credo, nisi eam exerceas, aut etiam si sis natura tardior. (But [it is alleged] the memory diminishes. I agree: if you do not exercise it, or also if you are by nature somewhat dull.)
The new Missals came last week. The courier firm tried to deliver them several weeks ago when I was away and I didn't get round to rearranging the delivery - I had them dropped to the school and picked them up from there. I find that for a priest living alone, the delivery of parcels is one of the more annoying day-to-day administrative problems. If I were to order £40 worth of groceries online, I could specify a one hour delivery slot and have them delivered free. If I'm ordering several hundred pounds worth of other goods, it's "between 8.30am and 6.30pm" or similar. Anyway it is great to have them at last.
10 comments:
"Mummy Missal, Daddy Missal and baby Missal" Oh dear, Father. What HAVE you been saying, homophobic-wise?
You seem to be implying that families with babies need mummies and daddies. How about amending to "Daddy Missal, Daddy Missal and baby Missal"? No reply necessary.
*Sigh* How beautiful the CTS Missal is compared to what is on offer in Ireland!
http://www.veritasbooksonline.com/new-roman-missal-altar-edition.html
*Sigh 2* I certainly sympathise with your problem with deliveries, Fr., since there's no-one in my house from early morning to evening . Also our Post Office hasn't done Saturday deliveries for years now which means that the local sorting office isn't open on Saturday so we have to take time off during the working week to collect items that the Postman... ooops... person couldn't deliver.
Very frustrating!!
I keep looking at these on the CTS-Online website and wondering if I would benefit from having one. But then I discovered Catholic Blind Services in Birmingham UK who produce Mass Sheets in Large Print, and so for me, as my eyesight is not so good, that is what I am going to use. I see that the new versions of the Weekday and Sunday Missals are to be published soon as well. I also got the new text for the Mass in The Large Print Mass Book, also from CTS-Online £1.95.
Brian Winter
Catterick Garrison
Actually Father it should be
Parent 1 Missal,
Parent 2 Missal and
joint custody Missal
Buying a missal online (I live in the woods) in the USA is a matter of, so far, adventus indeed! The GREATBIG.COM bookstore lists the missal but then seems reluctant actually to sell it or deliver it.
One wonders why.
Fr Tim: Here are a couple of problems I have with the new translation: In the concluding doxology the text says "all glory and honour is yours". Shouldn't that be "are yours"? In the Agnus Dei (which has remained unchanged) it is "you take away the sins of the world". Isn't " who take away the sins of the world" a more faithful translation of "qui tollis peccata mundi"?
I agree with your point about the Agnus Dei: I think that ICEL wanted to avoid unnecessary changes to the people's parts of the Mass and might have judged that the existing translation was good enough.
On the doxology, both glory and honour are singular nouns so the grammar is correct, but "are" would also be correct in English usage, I think. One of those questions people could argue about after a good dinner.
Fr Tim: I take your point about the Agnus Dei but the as far as the doxology is concerned it's inconsistent with what we say after the Our Father - "the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours".
Yes, I suppose that could be seen as an inconsistency, or again, in an earnest discussion of English grammar, someone could say that the two constructions are distinct because of the "the" and the "all".
I don't think that this is an important matter. Incidentally I just realised that in both cases, the Latin has the singular "est."
Ah well. That's that then.
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