Snippits from Finding the Right Missal
There is a pretty insightful article from the Latin Mass Magazine Vol.17 No.2 Spring 2008 by Michael P. Foley on the comparison of the most popular missals in the Extraordinary Form
The older the missal, the more it is at variance with the 1962 typical edition currently sanctioned for use. A Missal originally published before 1955, for instance, does not have the right Holy Week, and has the movable Solemnity of Saint Joseph the Worker on May1.
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Saint Joseph**
A fairly simple beginner’s missal, and one that was popular before the Council, is the Saint Joseph Daily Missal. The Ordinary of the Mass is presented on opposite pages in Latin and English while the Propers are in English only. Like most missals, it contains an explanation of Mass, vestment, etc., and a brief introduction to the meaning of the Sunday or feast; it also has a treasury of prayers and (somewhat sentimental) colour illustrations. Bonaventure Publications has reprinted the 1953 edition, which contains the new office of the Assumption but not the new Holy Week.
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New Marian**
Father Sylvester Juergen’s New Marian Missal for Daily Mass is from January 1960 and therefore has the new Holy Week; the Jews, however, are still perfidious and Saint Joseph is not in the canon. The Marian Missal has a little more Latin that the Saint Joseph: beside a bilingual Ordinary, the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia/Tract, Offertory, and Communion Verse are in Latin as well as English. The missal also includes several devotions and introductions to the Mass and calendar. Its
Bueronese graphics are an improvement over the Saint Joseph, though its full-page illustrations are also sentimental and not in colour as they were before. The new publisher, Mary Immaculate Queen Centre, offers the Missal in a handsome white or black leather cover, though the lettering bleeds somewhat through the pages.
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Angelus Press**
Father Juergens also edited a much more comprehensive Ideal Missal 1962, and this has become the basis for the Roman Catholic Daily Missal in 1962, and this has become the basis for the Roman Catholic Daily Missal, published by the SSPX-affiliated Angelus Press. The Angelus Missal is impressive: 1,980 gilded pages that contain just about everything: complete Latin and English for the Mass, a compendium of prayers and doctrines, numerous devotions and litanies, parts of the Divine Office (including Tenebrae), seasonal blessing (such as for Easter lamb), the Rites of Baptism, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction and a Kyriale of chant notation. The Angelus Missal is a also true 1962 missal, containing Saint Joseph’s name in the canon and the five beautiful prefaces borrowed from the eighth-century Gallican Rite.
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Baronius Press**
The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual, published by Baronius Press in conjunction with the FSSP, is the most recent. This, too, is a true 1962 missal: 2,222 gilded pages containing - because it is based on a similar source as Angelus’ - practically the same material. The differences between the two are difficult to evaluate. The Baronius Missal has
Summorum Pontificum while Angelus Missal has a nice exposition entitled “Your Mass and Your Life.” The Baronius includes an excerpt from Gueranger’s Liturgical Year and information from the latest Enchiridion of Indulgences, while the Angelus includes the Rite of other Sacraments. The Baronius has a Mass supplement for the U.S. and U.K. while the Angelus has proper feasts for the U.S. and Canada. The Baronius lacks the explanatory marginalia for the ordinary of the Mass that the Angelus has, but this renders the section more readable. The Baronius has a leather cover, and it comes in white, black, or burgundy; but the Angelus has finer, crisper paper, imported from France.
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Father Stedman Missal**
Of course, one could circumvent this conundrum entirely by thinking small. Neumann Press has republished My Sunday Missal, “explained by Father Stedman”. Measuring only 3 1/8 " x 5 1/8", the Father Stedman Missal was a popular pocket missal in the 1940s and 1950s, and it came in several editions, including all-English, large-print, and all-Lent. Every one of them contained a surprising amount of information, from explanations of the sacred vessels and vestments (as with larger missals) to pithy yet thoughtful explanations of the occasion. the Neuman Press edition has large print, a Latin-English Ordinary, all-English Propers for every Sunday and principal feast, and for the first time, a revised Holy Week. It is a worthy heir to the Father Stedman legacy.
Saint Andrew
Yet if only Baronius and Angelus had based their editions on the
Saint Andrew Daily Missal instead, we might have had the perfect Platonic Form of a lay missal.
Benefiting on every page from the scholarly heft of Dom Gaspar Lefebvre (no relation to Archbishop Marcel), the
Saint Andrew Missal remains the best compendium of liturgical knowledge in existence.
Maps of ancient Roman procession routes and of the Holy Land abound, along with devotions, and the
Office.
Every season is prefaced by outstanding historical, doctrinal, and liturgical “Notes,” and every Mass by a superb explanation.
http://extraordinaryfromsingapore.blogspot.com/2008/08/finding-right-missal.html
