These are pew cards. The first is the one I discovered at St. Joseph Church in Macon when I became pastor there in 2004. This was a pew card from the late 1950's to facilitate lay participation in the Low Mass, known as the Dialogue Mass of 1958. I never thought I would use it again in 2007 but we resurrected it and printed it anew for Summorum Pontificum and the Low Mass at St. Joseph Church each Tuesday at 5 PM.
This card was a bi-fold. It was given to us at St. Joseph Church in Augusta the first weekend that the altar had another altar placed in front of it to allow the priest to face the nave. This is how the 1965 Roman Missal was presented to us on that historic First Sunday of Advent, 1964:
This is a 1958 laity's hand missal for daily Mass. It is in the original box, with original paper wrapping and plastic wrapping to keep the book closed. This missal has never been open! Is it a collector's item and how much do you think it is worth?
3 comments:
Oddly, the responses and parts of the Ordinary were in English, the easiest things to say or sing without being a latin scholar. Shows that those in charge of the “reforms” were clueless
The 'pew cards' are interesting. The first one dates from 1962 and is in fact the 'missa recitata', where the congregation not only responds with the server, as in the 'missa dialogata' but says the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei along with the priest. This was authorized as early as 1935, subject to episcopal approval.
It also has the congregation reciting the whole of the Pater Noster, including the Amen. This was authorized in 1958 for Low Mass only, but not widely adopted. There are some odd features, notably the large number of '+' symbols interrupting the text, and the capitalization of the second person singular pronoun when addressing the Deity (common then in English, but not as a rule replicated in Latin).
The 1964 card omits all the prayers at the foot of the altar. I understand that they were optional in the interim missal (why?) but I don't remember their ever being left out. I can still recite them in the erstwhile English version. 'I will go to the altar of God/The God of my gladness and joy' and so on. Talking of translation, in 1964 there was no standard English text; the version used in the US was very different from that used in England, which in turn wasn't the same as the one used in Ireland.
TJM's point is valid. The first things to be put into English were those parts of the Ordinary which the congregation were quite familiar with in Latin. There was a scramble to find vernacular musical settings, and in most places the sung Mass disappeared, being replaced by a 'hymn sandwich'.
In my opinion the changes of the 1960s (in particular those of 1964 and 1967) wreaked more havoc than did the introduction of the Novus Ordo in 1970, which at the time was heralded as ushering in a period of stability, including a partial return of Latin. Remember Paul VI's 'Jubilate Deo'?
John Nolan,
What also is so interesting about the initial changes, is that they seem to contradict the directive in Sacrosanctum Concilium that pastors take care to see that the congregation learn to chant, in Latin, the parts of the Mass proper to them. Oops!
I agree the Novus Ordo Missae was less jarring because by then we had been so desensitized to it all. Maybe there was a partial return to Latin in England when the Novus Ordo was introduced but that did not happen here. It really wasn't until the late 1980s that a return to Latin slowly began with churches like St. John Cantius in Chicago. Even under the Cupich regime, I believe there are at least a dozen parishes in Chicago which offer the EF or OF in Latin. Young people are the greatest source of growth in that regard. My pastor is only 32 and he celebrates Mass in Latin once a week.I suspect he will outlast Pope Francis and his ilk.
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