Hand Missal History Project Profile picture
Dec 19, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Good morning! We've got a bit of a doozy for #MissalMondays

The Saint Jerome Missal, published in 4 volumes in 1964.

It features the most .... unusual .... art we've ever seen in a hand missal (and that's saying something!)
Published by The Catholic Press of Chicago, it was clearly intended to be a new, major "flagship" missal property which was chock full of selling-point features.

They pulled together a large (and slightly unusual) cast of experts to contribute, including Father Andrew Greeley
(interesting note: it holds an imprimatur of January 1963 and a copyright date of 1964, and does not survive in many copies.

It's clear this was immediately overtaken and made irrelevant by the many sudden a d rapid changes to the mass which happened in 1964)
Now to the good stuff... The art!

It was lavishly illustrated by award-winning Dutch artist Jan Sleper in a startlingly modern homage to traditional woodcut & line art.

More about the artist here: rkd.nl/en/explore/art…
The missal typesetting was bland and workman-like, but they tried to make up for it with other gimmicky features.

The Ordinary of the Mass used blank boxes and a system of icons & numbered mass parts, to help you find the propers of the day
It also featured a 16-page "art gallery" insert of classic artistic works, which feels bizarre given the juxtaposition with the rest of the art throughout
And lastly, it retained the popular series of color photos of the different actions at Mass for which Catholic Press missals were known.

These were taken in 1954 at Our Lady of the Angels in Chicago, and the priest is Rev. Thomas Conley

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More from @HandMissals

Nov 19
I wanted to do a quick little thread on 'cry rooms' in churches, prompted by and in honor of @jdflynn being on the war path about the topic last night.

Have you ever wondered when (and why) Catholic churches start building cry rooms?

Read on! 🧵 Photo of a "cry room" in the sanctuary of an unnamed church, as shown in The Catholic Transcript, May 21, 1964.
@jdflynn This is something I wrote about at more length in an article last year

On the history of microphones, televised masses & cry rooms between 1922-1958.

handmissalhistory.com/feature-microp…
@jdflynn "Cry rooms" (in general, not limited to churches) are obviously a modern phenomenon

It seems they originated in America and first entered the mainstream around 1922 for the use in grand shopping centers

They were then quickly adopted as standard features by theatres and cinemas Discussion of the cry room of the new East Bay Market in Oakland, from the Alameda Times Star, July 24, 1922.
Discussion of the trend of cry rooms in movie theaters, something which had been occurring since at least 1924. From The Age, April 3, 1928.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 4
Some news: I wrote a book!

And ... it’s not about hand missals.

It was kind of by accident. I didn't set out to write it.

I just started researching the history of a unique Wisconsin parish, and things kind of snowballed from there. Photo of the book “Our Lady of the Green Scapular” by Nico Fassino  Available for purchase at:  https://bit.ly/GreenScapularBook
This is a story about the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

And while the world is awash with books about Marian devotion and Catholic history, this particular tale has never before appeared in print. A collage, by the author, of public-domain photos of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Green Scapular, the Daughters of Charity Mother House in Paris, and the Marian shrine at Lourdes.
This saga spans multiple decades and multiple continents.

It involves the Fatima children, Pope Pius XII, cigarettes, miracle healing, poison gas, tax lawsuits, the world’s largest catholic charity, and trips to Disneyland. A collage, by the author, of public-domain photos, newspapers, and archival material from the story told in the book “Our Lady of the Green Scapular” by Nico Fassino
Read 13 tweets
Jul 10, 2023
Good morning, we're back for more #MissalMondays!

Today we have the first official, national prayer-book for the United States:

📖 1889 - A Manual of Prayers for the use of the Catholic Laity

It's awesome, check it out! Quick🧵

At the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, the American bishops famously ordered the creation of a standard, national catechism (later known as the Baltimore Catechism).

They also directed that a standard, national prayer-book should be created for the laity!

The Manual of Prayers was an extraordinary achievement.

It was a normal hand-sized prayer book, but contained literally everything the laity could need for their private and public devotional & liturgical life.

Read 10 tweets
Jul 6, 2023
Did you know the first church on Antarctica was built in 1956? Did you know a Roman Catholic cardinal once celebrated Mass there?

Here's a little thread about the Chapel of Our Lady of the Snows, and some other interesting Antarctic Catholic history!

🧵👇
In 1955, the United States began building McMurdo Station on Ross Island in Antarctica.

The original plans for the station did not include a chapel - religious services would be held in the mess hall.
The US Seabees, building the station, decided to make a chapel on their own:

“As the construction of the buildings at McMurdo progressed a mysterious pile of lumber, planks, nails, Quonset hut sections, & assorted materials began to accumulate on a knoll overlooking the camp.”
Read 14 tweets
Jun 22, 2023
This is a very common conventional narrative:

"Until the mid-1900s, scripture was foreign territory to the laity & they had almost no engagement with the readings at Mass because they were only in Latin" etc.

This is simply not true.

Quick 🧵
I recently completed a project on this very topic:

"The Epistles & Gospels in English: a history of vernacular scripture from the pulpit"

A study of English epistle & gospel books and the recitation of English scripture at Mass between 971-1964

handmissalhistory.com/feature-epistl…
In Medieval England there were a variety of popular texts, designed to be read from the pulpit, which included English translations of the Sunday Gospel before the homily.

Examples include Aelfric's Catholic Homilies and the “Dominical gospels and of other certain great feasts”
Read 8 tweets
Jun 14, 2023
This take is insane.

Most medieval towns with a cathedral had a population of less than 5,000 people.

Salisbury had a population of just 3,226 in 1377 AD. The majority of it's famous cathedral was built in just 38 years between 1220-1258, and was finished entirely by 1320. Salisbury Cathedral
“ ‘The Cathedral of Paris,’ said the papal legate, Cardinal Eudes de Chateauroux, ‘was largely built with the farthings of old women.’ ”

From Henri Daniel-Rops's masterful 'Cathedral and Crusade' ⤵️

archive.org/details/cathed…

(h/t @SharonKabel) Henri Daniel-Rops, "Ca...Henri Daniel-Rops, "Ca...Henri Daniel-Rops, "Ca...
@SharonKabel Cathedral building was an enterprise of the entire community, the vast majority of which were the poor and lower classes.

Everyone willingly donated whatever they could: time, labor, materials, livestock, money, etc.

The records are unequivocal and extremely moving. Johannes Janssen, "His...Johannes Janssen, "His...Johannes Janssen, "His...
Read 5 tweets

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