All Souls, the New Missal and a Funeral.

This is such an important feast and, as I get older, one that really reminds me of those I know who have died.

We have two Masses today and I will go the Sung Mass this evening.  We work on a Pious List where you write down the names of those who have died on a form which is then placed in an envelope and goes into a "box" of some sort before the altar.  They are all prayed for at every Mass during November and the "box" is also incensed with the altar during Sung Masses.  Unfortunately I haven't a clue what the music will be but as the Schola Cantorum are singing Solemn Vespers before hand the Mass setting will probably be Latin plainsong.

We seem to have the balance right between things everyone can sing in English, Latin or an African language and settings to listen to and that is a no mean achievement!

New Missal
It has arrived and, unlike the colourful CTS version for England & Wales we have the monochrome Pauline version.  Our parish priest, Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, doesn't like it and has written an interesting article about it's implementation on his Blog.   The comments are interesting......   I was even encouraged to comment myself.

"Well, we belong to an authoritarian and hierarchical Church that seldom, if ever consults! In this instance it ignored the consultation in much the same way as it did with Humanae Vitae! We can grumble but we will be ignored. Unfortunately the Catholic Church is the Catholic Church and there is no-where else to go so we put up with it and like Fr Russell voice our “loyal dissent”. Unfortunately ultramontanists believe that any dissent is disloyal.

The 1966 Missal was rushed through and certainly resulted in a lot of unsatisfactory English but we are used to using it. I have always hated “And also with you” but I became used to it.

I think that the major problem with the new Missal is that the layout makes it very difficult to read fluently and I am sure we are going to listen to some horrendous stumblings over the next few weeks. The Mass is always the Mass, thank goodness and I don’t have to read it! Most of us won’t really listen anyway."

Funeral
I'm going to a funeral this afternoon, appropriate for All Souls Day, of a past District Governour of Rotary, Billy Hills.  He was a kind, compassionate outstanding personality who's high position in Rotary International never went to his head.  Pray for the repose of his soul.  It's at the Anglican Cathedral in Benoni, a church I have never visited.