The Saint Joseph Missal

I meet with a men’s group early Wednesday mornings, studying our faith, supporting each other in our trials of life.  In recent months, after the meeting I gathered with a small group to say a rosary.  This morning, the prayer organizer told us his sister had died.  Perhaps that was a trigger for his question at the end of our prayers:  Does anyone know the Hail Mary or Our Father prayer in Latin?  He then recited them, and I had echoes flittering in my mind of the same words I once knew well.  He said saying prayers in Latin (once the official language of the Catholic Church) impacted his spirit.  We agreed, and will be gradually integrating the Latin version into our morning prayers.  And we will begin gathering, together, more than just physically.

When I got home, I picked up the Saint Joseph Daily Missal which lay atop the old Bible on the coffee table in my living room.  I opened the well-worn, cover-taped book and inside saw that I had written my name, with the address and phone number where I had grown up, and the date: Oct 19, 1960.  I also saw that the book was dedicated the prior year in 1959 --- I had gotten the latest copy!  It references the papal encyclical letter Mediator Dei, from 1947 --- the year I was born --- on the importance of participating with the priest in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the mass, which he said in Latin.  Inside, the book showed the Latin words of the mass, next to the English translations. This is the way, for hundreds of years, the mass was celebrated by priests and their flocks throughout the world, the same way, with the same language.  The mass, the praising of God, the participation with all the saints and angels and all the people around the world, in praising Him, never stopped, and we joined in it each at mass we attended.

In my prayer book, I looked through the many prayer cards from funerals I had long ago put there, grandparents, uncles and aunts, friends, and neighbors.  And in the few moments I reflected on each, we were all united again.

The Catholic Church has now heavily taken on the modernist movement mode.  The mass and prayers are in local languages, and often with local custom-based adjustments.  And, as the latest Council of Synods moves, it appears there will be even more local control.  What and why this is happening is much debated but, as they say, the proof is in the numbers, which are declining.  As more people get what they want in the way they want, they stop attending, or believing.

It reminds me of my own questions about things, and how I then researched and found out so that things became clearer to me, and then I said: “Okay, I understand that, let’s move on to something else.”  And people, once united in faith, are moving on.  Helping people mentally understand prayers lessened their spiritual understanding of them.

I’m happy that on Wednesday mornings one man is stepping out to lead us, in our prayer, from something understood to something with more spiritual tones, a quiet, peaceful, understanding in the heart and soul --- in God.  Maybe that’s why it is called a Catholic faith; we don’t have to understand everything to believe. If it were all facts we clearly understood, it would be in a history book.