We started projecting readings on the walls on June 13, 2018, the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua. For the first time since Sunday, November 11, 2018, our parish will have missalettes in our pews. We will no longer project the readings on the walls.

As has been explained a few times by Fr. Steve and myself, this is a proactive move by our parish’s liturgical team to avoid any potential future legal issues. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is the copyright owner for the only approved translation of Scripture that we use in the Mass. As such, the USCCB no longer licenses or allows projecting readings.

In your pew rack this week, you will notice two books: (1) the hardcover Gather III we purchased in 2018, and (2) the new softcover Source & Summit Missal. If you want to follow along with the readings, use the Source & Summit Missal. In addition, our parish has a new app that contains the readings, or you can access them directly from www.USCCB.org.

When you open the Source & Summit Missal, which, for brevity’s sake, will be referred to as SSM, you will first see a table of contents. Here, you will find where to locate the readings. For this weekend, you will need to visit page 89. The second page has the obligatory civil and canonical legalese. SSM has an imprimatur, unlike our existing Gather III book and most other options on the market. This means everything, including the lyrics to the hymns, is free of doctrinal, theological, and moral error.

On the following pages, where it actually starts with the number “1,” is the Order of Mass. This is particularly helpful for those unfamiliar with the Mass. Maybe it’s been years since you last came to Mass. Maybe you’re “shopping around” and aren’t yet Catholic, but feel a call. Or, as is likely the case for most of us, you were never actually entirely taught way back when – I know I fell squarely into this camp until my college years when I started researching things on my own. Whatever your story, I encourage you to thumb through these pages. There’s a treasure trove of valuable information.

In the back of the missalette, starting on page 845, you will find Devotional Prayers to help you prepare for Mass and prayers on Thanksgiving after Mass. The prayers in preparation for Mass come from the 1st Doctor of the Church, St. Ambrose, and St. Thomas Aquinas, another Doctor of the Church. Consider visiting page 845 after we pray the Rosary but before Mass starts.

On page 849, you will find the Formulas of Catholic Doctrine. If you aren’t sure what these are, these formulas include the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Three Theological Virtues, the Four Cardinal Virtues, and many other things that you learned about back in your faith formation programs as a youth.

I’m really excited to see where the Holy Spirit guides us in our spiritual journey together using this new resource. To be honest, there is so much in here that I either (A) didn’t know about or (B) forgot about that I’m still drinking from the firehose myself.