Understanding Missals

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Greetings all. I am a catechumen, and I’m having an extremely difficult time understanding Catholic Missals.

I’m an American living in Germany, and so I purchased a German/Latin diglot titled Schott Roman Missal, only to discover that the readings do not at all correspond to what every app/website/service says the daily readings are. Why is this ? The latest date inside the cover is 2018. So where/when/how is this missal used, and by whom ??

Around the same time I ordered the German missal, I also ordered an English/Latin missal since English is my native language. Based upon a number of reviews and research I made, I ordered the updated 1993 edition of the Father Lasance Missal. And, again, none of the readings correspond to the services I’m attending or seeing online.

What gives ? What am I missing ?? Which missal should I use ? Why are these two I purchased giving different readings than what I’m encountering everywhere else ?? Shouldn’t all post-Vatican 2 missals be the same ? If not, why ??

This is extremely frustrating. I feel like I just wasted $150 on two books which are essentially useless.
 
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J_Dudycha said:
I’m an American living in Germany, and so I purchased a German/Latin diglot titled Schott Roman Missal , only to discover that the readings do not at all correspond to what every app/website/service says the daily readings are. Why is this ? The latest date inside the cover is 2018. So where/when/how is this missal used, and by whom ??
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Seems it should be up to date. What do your missals and the sites shpw for today?
 
For this past Sunday the 24th (Sunday Within the Octave of Ascension) the readings are 1 Peter 4:7-11 and John 16:26-27 & 16:1-4.
 
I’m not sure. There are a number of different missals that Schott publishes, I’m finding.

It would seem that I purchased an Extraordinary Form missal ??
 
Yes, maybe that’s what it is. I’m only familiar with the OF liturgy and readings, not the EF, but there are plenty of CAFers who know all about the EF.

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Here are today’s readings in the OF, which are the same all over the world: Acts 20:17-27 and John 17:1-11a.

 
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If you bought an EF Missal but you’re going to OF Mass, then the readings won’t be the same. If I remember right, the EF reading cycle is on a one-year calendar and the OF is on a three-year cycle. The liturgical calendars are also different.

If this is the case, that you have EF Missals but aren’t planning to go to EF Masses, then you can probably sell the EF Missals to someone who attends the EF Mass regularly, and find yourself an OF Missal, or better yet just use an app or a website to access the OF Readings.
 
J_Dudycha said:
It would seem that I purchased an Extraordinary Form missal ??
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In the OF the only octaves are Christmas and Easter so it seems likely. My first thought was that you may have been in the wrong year, or looking at Ordinary time instead of Easter season. My other was that the online translation was not for Germany.
 
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I’m sorry, I can’t help you there. Like you, I live in a non-English speaking country.
 
I personally just follow the readings off the USCCB website because they’re free and I don’t have to buy or carry a book or even download an app.
My second choice would be an app like iBreviary as I still wouldn’t have to carry around a book.

But if you really want a hand missal in book form, I’d probably go with the St. Joseph Missal. There are different prices for different types of it depending on whether you want just one year of Sundays in a little magazine (about 3 or 4 dollars but you’d have to buy three of them to cover the three-year cycle), or three years of Sundays all in one bound volume (about 25 dollars), or a multi-volume set covering the whole three-year cycle (about 100 dollars and probably more than most people need or want, especially when you can get readings online for free or through a cheaper app).
 
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Do the parishes use missalettes in the pews? Ask to buy one. Talk to your priest about finding something that coincides with the cycle of readings.
 
J_Dudycha said:
What English OF missal would you recommend ?
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It would depend on which Anglophone country you want your Missal to match. You say English is your mother tongue but not where you are from. Obviously, you don’t have to tell us that. However, perhaps you may one day leave Germany and return there. So, I wonder if the English language OF Missal for your home country would be the best one for you to have. I’m afraid my German is very poor and limited so I can’t help you to find an OF Missal in German. I would think the German bishops’ conference will have a website. It will probably have a liturgy section which will tell you what the current OF Missal is and who publishes it. I know my bishops’ conference’s website does this.
 
Thank you for the recommendation, but I’m looking for an English-language missal.
 
I really like the Daily Roman Missal from the Midwest Theological Forum. There have been a few days when I couldn’t find the readings for the day, so I called MTF and they were happy to help me find them.
 
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