Therefore it comes as no surprise the parish has produced their own attractive little missal booklet to help aid the lay faithful in the pews, especially visitors who may be experiencing the EF for the first time. We all know from personal experience how helpful this is. For a parish to produce their own worship aid of this caliber of professional design work is most impressive. The beauty of the booklet lends itself to liturgical piety. The EF is unmistakably a preeminent work of art that takes some getting used to in order to understand. The liturgy is the school into which the Church leads her children and the trusty guide is the missal.
Images below will give you a taste of the layout and design, the superb photos, and the attractive arrangement of the prayers. In addition, there is bonus material -- an excellent Q & A section for first-time visitors found at the beginning before the Order of Mass.The Q & A section addresses in a gentle and succinct manner these relevant questions:
- Why is the Mass in Latin?
- Why does the priest not face the people during Mass?
- Why are there times of total silence, especially around the Consecration?
- How should I receive Communion at Mass?
The missal also includes the Leonine Prayers at the end as well as Marian Antiphons. Many thanks to our old friend Peter Henry for putting this together with excellent design and typesetting and for John Briody for contributing such fine professional photographs. Well done, friends, you have done a great service! The following images hopefully will help illustrate the high degree of professional design work and photography.
May we entertain the hope that other parishes will be inspired to do the same for their communities. It is the purpose of the missal to illumine essential aspects of the sacred liturgy. Thus the sublime mystery of the Mass can be greater understood by all, especially visitors who are searching and hungry for more. So rich is the liturgical fare of the EF it can only help to have a missal to digest it all.
