DESIGN & FORMAT PROPOSALSforECCLESIAL CONSIDERATIONfor theENGLISH EDITIONof theORDINARY FORMof theROMAN MISSAL

Shawn Tribewww.newliturgicalmovement.org

Disclaimer:

This is a draft, non-commercial, academicexercise intended to discuss and make proposals around the production and designof the Roman Missal of the Ordinary FormIt is not intended for liturgical use, and may not be put into liturgical useThe texts are Copyright 2010, International Commission for English in the Liturgy (ICEL)

Produced bywww.newliturgicalmovement.org

he following intends to look at two pages of two sections of Roman Missal,using as its basis the new revised English translation of the Roman Missal whichis being put into practice in the English speaking world as of Advent 2011, andfor which many printing efforts have been undertaken. The two sections whichwe shall look at for demonstrative purposes are from the

“

Roman Canon

”

(EucharisticPrayer I) and from the

Proprium de Tempore

(Proper of Time).The focus of this particular exercise is on the internal textual and artistic layout of theMissal. The design takes its inspiration from the traditional layout of our Latin riteMissals, applied now to the liturgical books of the Ordinary Form of the Roman rite. Inthat regard, one could say that "continuity" with that Missal tradition is a defining intentof the design, but so too is the pursuit of beauty more generally..This proposal also has the benefit of seeing a more economic use of the printed page,thereby also

requiring less printed pages (which thereby also makes it more “green”

environmentally), and, on a practical liturgical level, would additionally require less pageturning on the part of the priest during the course of the celebration of the Mass.What is shown and proposed here in terms of design and layout should be understood asbeing reflected throughout the entirety of the Missal.

A Word about the Art

The art used within this is simply demonstrative of the type of art that might work wellwithin this context. I am grateful to the artist Leonard Porter(www.segnatura.com)for permission to use his Crucifixion painting for demonstrative purposes. The other artwork shown is taken from historical editions of the Roman Missal.In addition to the demonstration pages shown, I believe it would also be desirable foreach major section (the

Order of Mass

, the

Proper of Saints, etc.

) and for major feastdays to also employ artwork as a way of both emphasizing these sections and alsobeautifying the missal. This could be manifest either through full page illustrations, or byillustrations similar to that used in the

Proper of Time

in this exercise.With regard to full page art plates particularly, but also artwork more generally, I believean important printing consideration is that these be printed in such a way that sees themconsistent and integrated with the rest of the Missal

–

rather than, for example, printed asglossy page inserts distinct from the other pages of the Missal. I would once again pointback to our Missal printing and design tradition in this regard noting as well that I haveseen this successfully done using both coloured and non-coloured artworks.