Price of New Missal

This does make one think:

I am a 70-year-old pensioner and a staunch Catholic. I have a week-day missal and a Sunday missal which I have been using for years.

“I can’t afford the new missals!”

Now it was decided to change the wording in the Mass to suit whoever, I must buy new missals at such a high price for a pensioner. I cannot afford the missals.

How many other Catholics can afford new missals? What are we doing to our faith?

On the other hand, our BCP’s are out of print and date. Date? Yes, well just think of present and future Saints for one. And you also only ever find them lying around under dust in second-hand book shops.

 

No iPads in New Zealand Liturgies

On The Deacon’s Bench:

Details:

The New Zealand Bishops have told their priests that only the official printed copy of the Roman Missal may be used at Mass and at the Church’s other liturgies. They say that the Roman Missal apps for iPad and the use of other tablets, mobile phones and e-readers are excellent for study purposes, but their use in the Church’s litugry is inappropriate.

A letter sent to priests and signed by all the Bishops of New Zealand says that that all religions have books which are reserved which are reserved for the rituals and activities at the heart of the faith, and the Roman Missal is one such book.

“The Missal is reserved for use during the Church’s liturgy. iPads and other electronic devices have a variety of uses, e.g. for the playing of games, using the internet, watching videos and checking mail. This alone makes their use in the liturgy inappropriate,” they say.

Read more.

And read the complete statement on the iPad missal here.

We mentioned a New Zealand priest who suggested the use of an iPad in the Mass as a Missal here.

 

Using an iPad as a Missal

Via The Deacon’s Bench:

This comes from New Zealand, where one priest writes that the biggest problem with the new missal isn’t the language, but the physical ordering of the missal itself.

Then, inspiration struck:

What the people who translated the new Missal didn’t do was decide how the new English translation should look. They didn’t decide the layout of the New Zealand edition of the Missal.

Given the first effort was rejected, I can only but imagine what it might have looked like.

I’d suggest this edition still has layout issues. Among them

• page turns in awkward places
• the capitalisation of the words of consecration, making them almost impossible to read, and
• some of the text is so closely aligned to the gutter of the book, that standing in a normal upright position makes it also almost impossible to read e.g. the Prayer of the Gifts on the 4th Sunday of Lent.

Negotiating the new text is one thing, negotiating poor formatting is another.

If this were a normal book, I’d be tempted to return it.

After my Sunday experience, I chatted with other priests who like me have tried-out the new New Zealand Missal.

Alas, they reinforced my view; one going as far as saying his experience was “dreadful”, and another, “forget the words, the layout is all over the place.”

I’m fortunate enough to have an iPad, and for some time have had the Universalis App.

This week, Universalis released a new free upgrade and with it came a feature “Mass Today”.

My initial reaction, it’s fantastic.

Some of its features include the ability to:

• select the New Zealand liturgical calendar
• make the font size either smaller or larger
• select “Mass Today” and you get the whole Mass from the Sign of the Cross through to the Dismissal, including readings and your choice of Preface and ten Eucharistic Prayers.
• take it with you in portable form.

Universalis on the iPad is not without its issues:

• some of the pagination still interrupts the flow a little, (but because you don’t have to turn the page as often, this inconvenience is minimised)
• it’s only in English; there’s no Maori translation
• unlike a book which you just open and use, it’s important to make sure the iPad has enough battery-life to get you through Mass. A full-charge lasts for 10 hours. Hint: Turn the screen off during your sermon
• managing the iPad itself, navigation, updates and the like, may be a challenge for some
• it probably requires a cover to make it look more like a book
• it costs NZ$26

Using the iPad as a replacement missal may not be everyone’s “cup of tea”, but I’d pose it’s at least worthy of consideration.

Read more.

Now, if only I could afford an iPad…