"Universal" Missal?

[Rolltide]

I’ve spent the last few weeks on here investigating the merits of several different missals, including ones for the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine. There are many beautiful ones out there, and each have their merits. It got me thinking though. As far as I know, there doesn’t exist what I would call a “universal” missal. This would be a book (or a series of volumes, like the St. Joseph’s Missal set with the zipper cover) that would provide you with the order of the Mass or Divine Liturgy of each version currently in use in the Catholic Church. Maybe you’re a Latin Catholic who likes to visit different Eastern Catholic Churches. You could still find your basic Novus Ordo in it (and the Tridentine too), but perhaps you could flip to the Eastern section and find the equivilent of the Order of the Mass for the Holy Qorbono, or the Divine Liturgy of St. John Crysostom.

Who else thinks that there might be a market for something like this? Anyone from any branch of the Church would be able to use it. You could include a small section on the history of each rite and church. Perhaps you could include in a supplementary volume a section on the uncommon Latin rites (like the Ambrosian or the Mozarabic). Maybe you could even have a historical volume for extinct rites, like the Sarum or Galician, to show the development of the liturgy throughout time.

What would you put in it? Would you keep it brief to maintain its portability? (Some of the Novus Ordo and Tridentine missals reach 2000 page on their own!) Or, would you go for the ultimate complete set? Something that looks like the Daily Roman Missal, with extensive prayers, commentary, and extras for each rite? Maybe turn it into a gigantic, multi-volume, complete set? What are everybody’s thoughts?

 

[Kielbasi]

Frankly, I don’t think that there would be much of a market for this product.

People attend the same liturgy they are accustomed to all of the time, very few attend different ones each week. For those who are in attendance regularly at the same rite, a thick book including all of the rites would be unwieldy and a whole lot less user-friendly than the current books.

The only real market for this compendium of missals might be reference libraries where it might be convenient for scholars who are studying the liturgies.

 

[AJV]

I’ve spent the last few weeks on here investigating the merits of several different missals, including ones for the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine. There are many beautiful ones out there, and each have their merits. It got me thinking though. As far as I know, there doesn’t exist what I would call a “universal” missal. This would be a book (or a series of volumes, like the St. Joseph’s Missal set with the zipper cover) that would provide you with the order of the Mass or Divine Liturgy of each version currently in use in the Catholic Church. Maybe you’re a Latin Catholic who likes to visit different Eastern Catholic Churches. You could still find your basic Novus Ordo in it (and the Tridentine too), but perhaps you could flip to the Eastern section and find the equivilent of the Order of the Mass for the Holy Qorbono, or the Divine Liturgy of St. John Crysostom.

Who else thinks that there might be a market for something like this? Anyone from any branch of the Church would be able to use it. You could include a small section on the history of each rite and church. Perhaps you could include in a supplementary volume a section on the uncommon Latin rites (like the Ambrosian or the Mozarabic). Maybe you could even have a historical volume for extinct rites, like the Sarum or Galician, to show the development of the liturgy throughout time.

What would you put in it? Would you keep it brief to maintain its portability? (Some of the Novus Ordo and Tridentine missals reach 2000 page on their own!) Or, would you go for the ultimate complete set? Something that looks like the Daily Roman Missal, with extensive prayers, commentary, and extras for each rite? Maybe turn it into a gigantic, multi-volume, complete set? What are everybody’s thoughts?

It’s a great idea but as Kielbasi said, not many people might go for it becuase they attend the same liturgy every week. Also if you plan to include propers it would be a gigantic multivolume set- just taking Eucharistic Prayers alone you got 4 for the Roman, 4 for the Byzantine, 4 for the Coptic, 70 for the Syriac, 18-21 for the Ethiopians, etc., etc.

But I really wish there was a site with all this. Particularly for the Oriental liturgies- there’s lot of information about the customs and ritual and texts of the the Byzantine, Roman, etc. but not much about the Ethipoian, Armenian, Coptic, etc…

 

[Rolltide]

It’s a great idea but as Kielbasi said, not many people might go for it becuase they attend the same liturgy every week. Also if you plan to include propers it would be a gigantic multivolume set- just taking Eucharistic Prayers alone you got 4 for the Roman, 4 for the Byzantine, 4 for the Coptic, 70 for the Syriac, 18-21 for the Ethiopians, etc., etc.

But I really wish there was a site with all this. Particularly for the Oriental liturgies- there’s lot of information about the customs and ritual and texts of the the Byzantine, Roman, etc. but not much about the Ethipoian, Armenian, Coptic, etc…

Now… if you did go about making this in multiple volumes, it would then be possible to buy only the volume that contained the particular liturgies of your branch of the church. Alternatively, if you were really into it, you could buy the whole set for study. In either case, everything would be available in one form, packaged all nicely, in one place available to everyone.