Changing for Good

One of our IT technicians told me that when people ask him where he works, he tells them tongue in cheek that he’s at a facility that “produces missals.” He never spells it for them, so he leaves them thinking we manufacture the kind that go “boom.” Since they know he used to be employed at Lockheed Martin, they’re usually unfazed.


Click here to see inside.

Anybody who knows a little about our publishing history also knows that we’ve always printed a missal, or “Mass book for the people in the pew.” Even when liturgists thumbed their noses at the notion, we kept at it, and not because the books were among our best sellers. (OK, so don’t believe me.) Growing awareness about various learning styles vindicated the use of an aid for visual learners, and society’s increased willingness to accommodate the hearing impaired made more people sensitive to their needs when shopping for a gift. Sure, the Sunday missalettes met that need, but they were never intended to be a permanent fixture at Eucharistic celebrations. Plus, without commenting on the usual condition of what most churches had available, we saw a real benefit in turning out an edition, at least for weekdays, that was worthy of what people went to church for. Besides, we knew from our contact with those we met in our book and media centers, or at parish displays, or on days of door-to-door evangelization that we weren’t the only ones who used the readings of the day to meditate with, or at least to prepare for Mass ahead of time.


Click here to see inside.
Both missals come in
black or burgundy.

The on-again, off-again pace in liturgical revisions over the past ten years kept our Mass book publishing in a holding pattern. We still met people’s needs with the Millennium Edition of our Vatican II Sunday and weekday missals, knowing that permanent changes were in the offing. Catholic Book Publishing in New Jersey did the same with its St. Joseph’s Missals, and Scepter Press came out with a pricey, but beautiful Daily Roman Missal. Suddenly two years ago, “air traffic control” at the Church’s liturgical offices approved the revised texts which would be implemented by Advent 2011, and three weeks ago Pauline Books & Media (PBM) came in for a landing with our new St. Paul Sunday Missal and St. Paul Daily Missal, which contains both Sundays and weekdays.

That’s good news. So is the reception they’re getting: they’re being distributed even faster than we anticipated. With their handy size, their imitation leather binding, and burnished gold edging, all at an affordable price, they’re irresistible! Our PBM centers and the other book stores we supply watch them roll in the back door, then roll out the front, sometimes in a matter of days. Three days after receiving its missals, PBM San Diego sold out of the “Dailies”—50 copies—and manager Josie Stanley had to reorder. “It’s worth waiting for,” she says. “[People] really like the look of the missal, especially the daily one. But the majority are just happy that they’re here.”

Josie Stanley


Chicago’s PBM sales associate Juan Villegas echoes Josie’s observations: “People were really anxious to get it since Advent. But they were very patient and they were really excited when we got them in.” Despite a few larger orders, Chicago still has “a pretty good stock.” A community of sisters ordered fifteen copies. Church groups have been requesting twelve or fifteen copies at a time—mostly Dailies. As in San Diego, those Daily missals are a favorite here too. Several people, though, apparently accustomed to the previous Sunday and weekday missal combo, are still buying both, even though they realize that now the Daily also contains Sundays. Juan explains, “They keep the Daily at home and take the Sunday to church because it’s lighter.” One person noticed that the calendar goes only to 2017, but was reassured that the missal would be just as serviceable even afterward. If history repeats itself, PBM will no doubt print a calendar insert for subsequent years.

In New Orleans (Metairie), Sr. Laura Rhoderica says that “people are extremely pleased. When the missals came in, Linda shipped them out to those who had them on back order. They were so pleased when they received them, that they called in a second order. They like how beautiful and lightweight they are. A lot of people go to daily Mass here, so the Daily has been a better seller than the Sunday. It’s economical too.”

As you can imagine, Boston has all it can do to keep these places supplied. We’ve already moved 84% of the Sundays and 96% of the Dailies out of our Boston warehouse. We’ve now begun the process to get in our second printing of 10,000 daily missals, hopefully due in late spring.

A man called Order Entry the day after receiving his Sunday missal. “It’s just beautiful! My wife saw it and now she wants one.” The PBM Web store was literally inundated with new orders, in addition to the scores of back orders it had already processed.

Three weeks ago in Hopkinton, famed as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, I assisted at a parish display, four days after the missals had arrived from the printer. Seventy-five copies flew off the tables. Of course it didn’t hurt that the pastor gave it a ringing endorsement. So did the permanent deacon. Not at all timid, he positioned himself with us behind our U-shaped table arrangement, held up his own copy of the Sunday Missal, and called out to parishioners, “Secret words and secret handshakes right here, people! Secret words and secret handshakes!” That’s it—Your Guide to the Catholic Underground. Papal Rites for the Uninitiated.... Good thing parishioners know him.


Sr. Margaret Tapang, PDDM

Underpinning all the activity, though, runs a deeply held conviction among us that this liturgical focus is connected to who we are as Paulines. As you may have read in last week’s Pauline Faithways post, “Meet St. Paul’s Family, Sr. Margaret Tapang, a Pious Disciple of the Divine Master (the second women’s branch of the Pauline Family), gave a presentation on Bl. James Alberione and the liturgy. Basing herself on the Gospel of the day about the Jesus cleansing the Temple, she made the following points:

“The new temple is the risen Body of Christ, and we are the ‘living stones’ built into that temple. Blessed James Alberione is a beautiful piece of ‘living stone’ in the Church-temple. He is what he is, because he had experienced the abundant riches of divine grace. The peak experiences of his life were before the Eucharist. We think right away of how the Pauline Family was born from his prayer before the Eucharist.


“Bl. Alberione is also an apostle of the liturgy. He wrote that the liturgy should be lived in its threefold reality: dogma, morals, and worship. The liturgy is the ‘book of truth, morals, and prayer.’ For example, in the liturgy, the Church lays out, in the course of the year, the basic truths of faith. It is a ‘book of morals’ because it reminds us of Christ’s holy commands, his virtues, and the means of salvation. Finally, it’s a ‘book of prayer,’ the most powerful prayer, because it is the prayer of the Church—the prayer of everyone. So, in the liturgy we have the total Christ, Way, Truth, and Life. In addition, the liturgy of the Church wants to bring the entire person to God: mind, will, and heart. There is to be no false and fragmented liturgy—praying with the Church, then living contrary to what we have just prayed. 

Pope examines new African FSP altar missal, Benin.

“Bl. Alberione believed that the continuous ‘de-Christianization’ of life, art, thinking, etc. comes from a lack of liturgical-biblical oxygen. Moreover, the separation of the Bible and liturgy gave way to painful consequences. He insisted on the necessity of the Bible for people. The people of today hunger for the Word of God. Without the Bible, the liturgy would not mean anything to people; much less could they give glory or make a conscious prayer. The Pauline Family’s tremendous response has come from the Society of St. Paul with its publications, the Daughters of St. Paul through its biblical-liturgical apostolate (Here I think of their edition of Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours—a masterpiece), the lectio divina of the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master on the Internet, Fr. Tom Fogarty’s Holy Family Institute Concord, and the Pauline Cooperators’ Sambuhay, or life in worship! 

“This lectio divina on the Internet is a pastoral tool. Aware that the Internet is a new forum for proclaiming the Gospel, the Pious Disciples inaugurated on their Web site the pastoral tool 'Breaking the Bread of the Word: A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday and Weekday Liturgy’ . The Pious Disciples also carry out a ministry of reparation and intercession for the mass media. Deeply aware of how radically the mass media shape the culture and mentality of the people today and how the correct use of the media can lead to a genuine inculturation of the Gospel, the Pious Disciples live more intensely their ministry of reparation, oblation, and intercession concerning this means.”

However and wherever we accept the invitation to celebrate the sacraments, we see in that action of ours and of the whole Church the font of our own life and the life of those we serve. Father Alberione used to tell us that our mission would not be complete until it brought people to the sacraments. More than anything else, that makes our missal news good.

Advent Light

Each year, with all the Christmas hype in stores and in the media, Advent, quiet and unobtrusive, seems to just sneak in the back door. For the most part, only the liturgically attuned notice its presence. Of course, the back door is often where friends come in, and Advent, the coming, never arrives empty-handed.

This year, its gift is sure to shine. For those of us who attend Mass regularly, the changes we’ve revved up for are finally taking off, precisely on the First Sunday of Advent, Nov. 27. Included are the Order of the Mass—the parts that don’t change—as well as all the prayers that do from Sunday to Sunday. In community we've been learning the chant to match. I have neither the desire nor the competence to expound in this blog on the pros or cons of the changes (aren’t you blessed!) but I will say that, in spite of my only average enthusiasm for yet another change, I like a lot of what I’m seeing and hearing. More importantly, I’m seizing this opportunity to renew my insight into, and love for, the Eucharist celebrated, received and adored.

I’m finding some great helps along the way. Even before the changes were announced over a year ago, Sister Anne Flanagan,* one of our sisters in Chicago, was making an in-depth, personal study of the Liturgy. So it was natural that she would then layer on a detailed study of the texts, once it became clear what exactly was coming down the pike. Sister Leonora Wilson, our provincial superior, welcomed her to Boston to give us an overview of her findings. Much of what she shared with us is now available on our Web site at Liturgy Essentials/Explain It to Me at www.pauline.org. This free content explores the changes, including the history behind them, and connects us all with resources for adults and children, especially the new St. Paul Missals.

There, I also discovered From the Pews, a blog by Jamie Stuart Wolfe, assistant children’s editor at Pauline Books & Media. It features “Mass Minutes,” one-minute forays into the liturgy, like “Chant Anxiety,” “Translating ‘And with your spirit,’” and more. In addition, Pews offers suggestions on how to make the Mass parts intelligible for kids.

Lastly, It’s a Part of Life summarizes each prayer and part of the Eucharistic Celebration in a few sentences each, often connecting it with daily life. Memorized, they make good sound bite answers to spontaneous questions that don’t require intricate theological reasoning.

The jewel, though, is the iMassExplained app for the iPhone or iPad, just released on Monday. It’s much more than a workshop on the changes. Besides putting the new words at our fingertips, with a click, it offers explanations of those highlighted words. Additional information deepens understanding of what we do at Mass and why. Finally, we hear from the Popes as they reflect on the importance of the Mass and what it can mean for everyday life.

At the princely sum of 99¢, I would download it—if I had an iPhone. Some people already have done just that. Maggie Palmer from Marble Falls, TX, writes, “It is so easy to follow. The explanations that are available when you click on the highlighted text are very helpful.” How many places can you get so much for so little?

Besides the St. Paul Missals, the runaway title has been The Mass Explained for Kids. It was published just six weeks ago and with 20,000 copies sold, it’s already in its fourth printing. A fax blast advertising the book to parishes will go out soon. I helped out at a parish PBM book and media exhibit last weekend at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Quincy, MA—home of John and Abigail Adams. Interest was lively, to say the least, as it has been in the other venues where we’ve held similar displays over the past few weeks. Juan Villegas, sales associate at our Chicago PBM Center, reports that, especially after a review of the title appeared in the Catholic New World, response also from schools has been phenomenal. His comment—“It’s for kids, but it’s really good for adults, too”—is echoed across the country.

And we’re not done. We’re privileged to offer another Web series, that will have a longer shelf life than those made for the moment, invaluable as they are. And this is where we’re going to need a little help from you. Msgr. Steven Lopes, an American teaching at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and working at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has prepared with us five webinars of five minutes each on the Trinitarian dimension of the Eucharist in several parts of the revised liturgy. As esoteric as that sounds, his pastoral approach is made both for the non-theologians among us and the more seasoned. He wants to reach people in the pews who come to Mass on Sunday and want a good reason to come back next week.

His presentations will be interwoven with liturgical footage and photos, then followed by a three- or four-minute PowerPoint meditation, to make the experience both instructive and prayerful. As you can imagine, this will take extensive editing, so we foresee being able to release one per month until March 2012. Freely accessible at www.pauline.org, it will be able to continue being used indefinitely by RCIA leaders, pastors, catechists, and anyone who wants to grow.

Since it will be free content on our site, there will be no source of income for us to recoup expenses. So if you would like to contribute securely online toward the $1,789.00 production cost, click on the red Donate Now button at top right, and in the comment section on the donation page, type “webinar.”

As we gather around the “table of the Word and of Christ’s body” in these weeks and months of transition, you will be very much a part of our community. We know you take us there, too, and we’re grateful.
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*Sr. Anne is the techie behind FSP-Chicago’s Theology of the Body online study group, a guest blogger for the Chicago Tribune and a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Photo credits: Phivan Ngoc Nguyen, Margaret J. Obrovac, FSP