There are many resources available for preparing children for Sunday Mass in the Ordinary Form. I’m thinking of Holy Heroes, Catholic Kids Bulletin and Kids Bulletin.
Children attending the Latin Mass could also use these resources, but they won’t always match up with the readings they hear read and preached on at Mass. The coloring calendars I posted about earlier were a wonderful exception and I hope to see more initiatives like that.
The task of preparing new people for the Latin Mass is a much older task. When you consider the hundreds of years of explaining the readings, it will come as no surprise to find a complete illustrated guide to the Life of Christ linked to the Sunday Gospel Readings.
Jerome Nadal was one of the first ten members of St Ignatius’ Society of Jesus. St Ignatius himself asked him to compile an illustrated book of meditations on the Gospels. He duly chose the scenes and commissioned the artist but died in 1580, some years before the work was published in 1593.
The images have been available in low resolution scans from a professor from Fairfield University for many years. Also more information from Catholic Resources. But only recently I found a group called Devoted Friends of God had tidied up some high resolution scans and released a printed copy complete with translations. They also uploaded their tidied scans to the Internet Archive, making them available for free.
It is possible to look up the relevant plate for each Sunday or feast day and print the page for children to examine and color. The illustrations are fascinatingly detailed. Decoding the Latin annotations is fun too.
Jerome Nadal’s book also includes plates on the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven and her Coronation, so would be suitable for learning the mysteries of the Rosary too!
Here are the plates for the next few Sundays:
- 5th Sunday after Pentecost – plate 19
- 6th Sunday after Pentecost – plates 42 & 43
- 7th Sunday after Pentecost – plate 25
- 8th Sunday after Pentecost – plate 64
- 9th Sunday after Pentecost – plates 86, 87 & 88
The PDF version is very large and is all in Latin with all the quirks of 16th century calligraphy. The printed copy is much more accessible with the literal translations and three different bindings: paperback, hardcover and linen wrap.
Please let me know if you know of any other resources helping kids appreciate the Sunday readings for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
