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Views from the Choir Loft

Review • Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, & Gradual

Guest Author · June 11, 2014

878 Isaac Jogues Missal FTER SPENDING some quality time with the Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, & Gradual there is so much more to recommend it past the initial perusal of the book itself. There are the considerations of quality and durability, but there can be no question about the fine quality of this book’s binding and publication.

However, the treasures, as in any good book, reside in its leaves. This Missal is a giant step forward in recovering a more universal language of Catholicism that transcends the mere printed or spoken word. The authors and editors have given the sense of the language of the Church back to the people. This goes beyond the inclusion of the Latin texts and the Propers, to the addition of small instructions or explanations of how these fit within the ancient practice of Catholic Worship. This structure of the Missal allows the user to become more familiar with the language of the Liturgy in its various parts by name and function within the Liturgy. This will go a long way for those who use this missal to give meaning to the terms used when speaking of the Mass.

882 Isaac Jogues Missal THE SEQUENCES FOR EASTER, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) are contained within the day’s readings and are set to music that can be sung by a congregation. However, they are also set in their original Latin, with a literal English translation contained in the back should one wish to more fully appreciate the authentic text (from which the singable texts are formed).

The center portion of the Missal contains the prayers of the Mass with beautifully photographed examples. But in addition, there are illustrations of ancient manuscripts supporting the understanding of the Mass and its texts. This is not just information, but a blending of art and text to help inform the imagination to see something not normally visible to the secular eye. This helps to establish that the Liturgy is not something that man does on his own, but rather he enters into the timeless connection of the Heavenly Liturgy that stands in eternity.

892 Isaac Jogues Missal I WOULD BE REMISS not to speak of the many black and white line drawings that are interspersed throughout the book. In spending time with these one notices their detail and balance, and the text, in both Latin and English. These meticulously rendered drawings are formative in their own capacity as only beautiful art is — capable of moving the imagination of the soul and informing it by word. It is a wonderful reintroduction to the lexicon of Catholic symbolism and iconography. The texts are not randomly chosen, but the artist has done his/her homework for when read carefully the text often brings the Old Testament to the fore and links it with the fulfillment in Christ and his coming. These beautiful prints provide rich material for meditation and contemplation, should one wish to prayerfully approach them. This is an ancient pedagogy to teach and learn the art of “active participation” from the interior, hidden soul and not just from external activism. The “reading” of Catholic art and symbolism is in danger of being lost with text-only resources and the St. Isaac Jogues Missal certainly provides a good primer in the language of symbols.

891 Isaac Jogues Missal As an example, when one looks at and studies the artwork depicting the Nativity (page 50) and does the same with the illustration that accompanies the Annunciation (p. 742) the artist quotes from Judges 6:36-37 referring to a fleece. This is a sign that is asked for regarding Gideon’s assurance of God’s presence and God’s purpose. The creation of man from Genesis is referenced both in iconography and supporting text. When studying the Annunciation, the fleece is again referenced, but this time it is the Protoevangelium from Genesis 3 that is paired with the verse from Judges. At the top and bottom of the illustration is the reference from the hymn, Ave Maris Stella as to the reversal of the name of Eve in Gabriel’s Ave. These illustrations bring to mind the things that went before in time to be fulfilled in time by Christ. It is like drawing out the beautiful threads of the economy of God throughout Salvation History, which is our history.

890 Isaac Jogues Missal THIS PUBLICATION IS SORELY NEEDED to help reignite a Catholic imagination. Anyone who was not familiar with the Mass, who happened to stop by, or even children, can peruse through this Missal and not fail to have some understanding that there is something beautiful, something beyond ourselves going on at Mass. You would never find this in the “pulp non-fiction” that resides in most pews today. This far outdistances any mere utilitarian presentation of the text.


We hope you enjoyed this guest article by Christine Sarti.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: St Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“There are no hymns, in this sense, till the fourth century; they were not admitted to the Roman office till the twelfth. No Eastern rite to this day knows this kind of hymn. Indeed, in our Roman rite we still have the archaic offices of the last days of Holy Week and of the Easter octave, which—just because they are archaic—have no hymns.”

— Adrian Fortescue (25 March 1916)

Recent Posts

  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)
  • “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)

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