Sunday, November 1, 2009
Altar cards for the OF? They're here

Myriad Creative Concepts, a little group which specializes in altar cards, has just announced their newest product: an altar card for the Latin Ordinary Form Mass. Here's the link.

Obviously, there aren't matching framed cards for the Last Gospel and Lavabo like in the Extraordinary Form/Tridentine, though the site is selling a separate laminated card for the mixing of the wine and washing of fingers. I guess this could lay flat on the altar or be held by an acolyte. Though I wonder if it is possible for the priest to habitually pray the Last Gospel as a devotion immediately following the OF Mass, as it was so often done by priests in the era before it was officially codified by Pope Pius V in the Missal of 1570. In the culture of medieval piety, it was popular for the faithful to ask a priest to read the Last Gospel over them as a blessing. Eventually, priests apparently got the idea to knock a lot of birds down with one stone by just reading it over everyone at the conclusion of Mass. There is no reason, then, why priests saying the OF Mass couldn't resume this practice today. And by extension, you could, in fact, see three framed cards resting on the altar during an OF Mass. HMMMM.....

In any case, this is an interesting development, although I'm told that certain churches such as the Brompton Oratory in London have already used altar cards in the OF Mass for a long time. I've also heard that a few were made back when the Novus Ordo was first rolled out in 1970, when certain liturgists were naively under the impression that Latin and ad Orientem were still going to be the norm for the new Mass. LOLZ.
1 Comments:
Thank you for your nice write up about our new Ordinary Form Latin Altar Card, "Vintage Diamond." That was very kind of you. Best wishes.