A MISSAL for Sundays and some Holy Days
Readings and Femilies for Services that Equalize Gender
from the First Sunday of Advent through The Solemnity of Christ the King
with Gospel Readings from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
and Secondary Readings from the Old and New Testaments
A compilation of Missal Readings for my Children, Grandchildren, and Other Interested Parties
For now we see through a glass darkly, but then we shall know, even as we are known. – I Corinthians 13:12
Some of this material was taken from my other blog, Missed Mass.
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Opinions expressed in this book are not necessarily the views of the publisher.
Explanations
What is a missal? It is a prayer book to be used at Sunday church services. This missal includes some special days calledholy days. Sunday is Yahweh’s special day, but every day is Yahweh’s day and thus, every day is holy.
To use this Missal: We know that our regular calendar year starts on January 1 with New Year’s Day. The church yearfollows a similar routine, but it starts near the end of November with the First Sunday of Advent. The Immaculate Conception is December 8. From the four Sundays of Advent, the church year proceeds to Christmas (Vigil, Dawn, and Day Masses available). Then comes the Solemnity of Mary (which is the regular New Year’s Day). Holy Family is between Christmas and the New Year. Then comes Epiphany; next, a variable number of Sundays in Ordinary Time; and then, six Sundays of Lent. Easter is a movable feast and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Solstice, which is usually March 21. There are 5 Sundays following Easter (called Second Sunday of Easter to Sixth Sunday of Easter). Then comes the feast of the Ascension (40 days after Easter); next comes the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, and then back to Sundays in Ordinary Time depending on how many Ordinary Sundays were used in the Easter period. The Feast of Mary Magdalene is on July 22. The Assumption is on August 15. After possibly using the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, the service to be used is the last Sunday in the Church year which is the Feast of Christ the King in the end of November.
Readings for ‘ABCD’ years of the Christian Mass If you missed Mass because of snow or rain and wished you knew what the readings were or felt in need of hearing a homily, then I can help you. However, I do not pretend to take the place of a community gathering that shares the message and life of Jesus Christ. The Internet gives you a chance to participate and pray with others, and to tell other participants how you feel about the readings and femilies.
Most prayer books will give three years of readings called A, B, and C, but I have chosen to set up four years to include more of the Gospel of John. I like the Gospel of John because it introduces us more to the Holy Spirit. I do not know why some Christian prayer calendars are three years long, featuring the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and do not include a year dedicated primarily to the Gospel of John. Thus I have added a year of John’s Gospel whose writings help us to think more on the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. Is there no gospel quote but John 7:37-39, that echoes Trinity? Trinity may be another name for Holy Spirit or Wisdom of God. Trinity may remind us of ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ from an earthly viewpoint; from another starside view of the Universe, we might seeTrinity as Multiplicity, as God’s Spirit of Wisdom appearing on multiple planets and encouraging varying life forms to love one another. There are whispers of the Spirit of Wisdom in all four gospels.
Homilies I Never Gave: A homily is a brief talk given in a church. Likewise a femily is a brief talk as produced by a woman rather than a man. Included in these homilies (or femilies) are old myths that have contributed to the wisdom in the Bible. We go to war and kill thousands of people because we interpret ancient words erroneously. There are the presentday myths such as celibacy, abortion, priestesses, or the location of the village of Nazareth. We invent new myths based on the misunderstanding of old myths. We often take literally what we should take symbolically.
I never gave voice to these femilies, because certain patriarchs stated that they had no authority to ordain women. Perhaps those patriarchs do not have the right to ordain men, either. Perhaps only God has the right to ordain, as only God has the right to say who shall die (or be executed). Sometimes we say the state has this power of God’s to perform the death penalty. We must be careful when we say that the state or the church leaders have God’s power. We do not know the mind of God. We do not even know if God exists. When we assume we have the knowledge of God’s will, we do not realize what horrors we may be perpetrating in the name of Divinity.
However, assuming that I was made by a Great Spirit that I believe in, I always felt that I was ordained by that Spirit for some purpose, so I should have a homily or a poem or a song ready in case there was an appropriate moment. Could now be the appropriate moment? Instead of being given permission by authoritative men, I have found a compliant medium in the Internet. Of course, I do not know all the answers, but I do have a viewpoint. We all try to see why the world was made and what marvelous creator designed it, but no one of us really knows. We see the great picture through a glass in a very cloudy manner. So come, join with me, all you discarded voices, who would like to tell your stories! God has given us the Internet as a way to communicate among human beings. Perhaps all our good thoughts and kind words to each other in and about the world, will cancel out the horrors, great or small, that those addicted to violence and control have inflicted upon us.
On Biblical Translations: With an older Bible we may get closer to its original thought. When we compare several Bibles, we may gain insights into the intended meanings. Bibles used here are King James, Jerusalem, and the most recent Poverty and Justice Bible. The King James is the oldest and most popular of the Bibles in English. I like it because it is in stately old-fashioned English; therefore one may get a different viewpoint of what the Bible is saying, than one would get from a translation in modern English. When I couldn’t understand an interpretation, I would go to the Jerusalem or the Poverty and Justice to see what sense they had made of the passage. The Jerusalem Bible was first translated into French and then translated into English (Doubleday, Garden City, 1966). Of course, I do not claim infallibility for any of my interpretations. The books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are not seen by some Jewish and Protestant sects as Holy Books, but Jesus may have been raised as a child using such instruction. Thus I feel justified as including them with the more accepted readings.
Gender in Scripture Translations: The Bible was less patriarchal in its original languages. Earliest known scriptures of the New Testament were written in Hebrew and Greek, but Jesus spoke Aramaic. Latin and Greek expressed gender by different word endings, but English is full of pronouns that exclude the female gender. English Bibles are quite heavy with the words he, him, his, Lord, etc. when referring to God. God is not a man (as pictured on the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel in Rome), or a woman either. God is a Spirit. Jesus said that Godis Love. Of course, that was not in English, but in Aramaic. Love is not masculine or feminine. Jesus spoke of Abba which may mean an ancestor of either sex.
If one says he, him, his or Lord often enough, as in creeds and readings, all those who hear those readings and creeds become convinced that God is male. I have tried to make the readings in this missal, gender-equal, so that people can visualize God as beyond male and female.
There is no pronoun in English to designate a gender that can be either he or she. We can invent new pronouns, or use old plurals, so that English speakers will have a chance to think about how their language has contributed to the debasement of women. Instead of he/she, or s/he, we could use that one. Instead of the possessive her/his, we could use their. Instead of the direct object her/him, we could use them.
Speakers of English assume that kings are more important than queens, that God prefers to be referred to as he and him, and that women are less important than men. There is a need for someone to revise more recent biblical translations so that they continue to display gender-equality while using the English language. Some languages have one word that means both hisand her. Surely, English should be versatile enough to have some word that is usable to express gender-equality. Could we use the word being to refer to either sex? Such a system would take up a lot more space and require more paper and ink, but it might give all beings or human beings a longer space of time to think about gender equality and the non-gender or all-inclusive gender of God.
There is the added problem of finding an adjective to use when talking about God. When we speak about the Earth and say it ishis footstool, could we say that it is Great Being’s footstool? You might think that we could use the word Great Person, but others might not agree that the word person could be applied toGod. Some searching to name God, decide to call God byInfinite Being’s attributes. Instead of writing Lord which is not gender-equal, could we write Compassion? Could we writeGenerous? Different people would like to emphasize different qualities. To emphasize gender and use male and female words, as in the English language, is confusing and gives those who are reading, the wrong idea about Infinite Divinity. Psalm 100 uses the name of God as YAHWEH, which many interpret to mean I AM WHO AM. Furthermore, religious Jews are so respectful of this name, they write it as Y—-H, which helps to make the reader remember WHO is being spoken about. Using pronouns for God limits God who is unlimited. For instance, change (knowing God as He is in Himself through pure faith) into (knowing God as God is in Godself through pure faith), may change how you think about God.
When translating ancient documents, we are set off course by changes in style, punctuation, and phrases out of place. Biblical writers necessarily reflect the styles of their times. The Apostle Paul uses partial sentences that are difficult to follow. What is needed is a book of prayers, readings, and brief instructions from encyclicals that encourages women to believe that they are a necessary part of an humanity that can think creatively, theologically, and intelligently in a church community.
Encyclicals and Documents: Encyclicals are writings approved by Popes for their ethical content. Pope Pius XII issued 41 Papal Encyclicals, during his reign as Pope for over 19 years, from his election of March 2, 1939 until his death on October 9, 1958. The forty-one encyclicals of Pope Pius XII exceed the thirty-two encyclicals written by all his successors, Pope John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI during the fifty years that followed (1958-2008). One of the more relevant encyclicals is War and Peace by John XXIII promulgated in 1961.
The Catholic Church occasionally produces an Encyclical on moral issues. The Bishops write pastoral letters on important topics. Some of the publications that are worthy of note are:
Sensus Fidelium, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas: “The common consent of all peoples is an infallible index of truth.”
Church in the Modern World, #29, John XXIII, 1971, Discrimination based on sex is “contrary to God’s intent.”
Bishops Pastoral Letter, 1983, on War and Peace. “The initiation of nuclear war would be unjustified.”
A Consistent Ethic of Life by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Fordham, 1983.
Bishops Pastoral Letter, 1984: Social Teachings & US Economy, Biblical & Theological Foundations, 1st draft.
Bishops Pastoral Letter, 1986: Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy.
Respect for Human Life in its Origin; by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987
Mother of the Redeemer, (Redemptoris Mater), John Paul II, 1987, Mary has a precise place in salvation.
Mission of the Redeemer (Redemptoris Missio) John Paul II, 1991; the Church is compelled to spread the faith.
(1) Jesus Christ, Savior (2) The Realm of God (3) The Holy Spirit, Principal Agent of Mission (4) The Mission to All People
(5) The Paths of Mission (6) Workers in the Missionary Apostolate (7) Cooperation in Mission (8) Missionary Spirituality
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Pope John Paul II,1988, The Social Concerns of the Church.
Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II addresses the Bishops onThe Splendor of Truth, 1993.
The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II, 1995, on abortion and euthanasia.
On Sirach: The early church made use of this book in presenting moral teaching to catechumens and to the faithful. The writer of the prologue (named Jesus) was a descendant of a person named Sirach. The book is not accepted by Protestants or Jews as part of their scriptures, although the book has always been recognized by the Catholic Church as divinely inspired and canonical. The author was a sage who lived in Jerusalem long before Jesus Christ, and the book contains numerous maxims dealing with a variety of subjects such as the individual, the family, and the community in their relations with one another and with God. It treats of friendship, education, poverty and wealth, the law, religious worship, and many other matters which reflect the religious and social customs of the time. Sirach chapters 1-43 deal largely with moral instruction; Sirach 44:1-50:24 contains a eulogy of Israel’s heroes, patriarchs, and prophets. Written in Hebrew between 200 and 175 B.C., the text was translated into Greek sometime after 132 B.C. by the author’s grandson. (information from usccb link and Sirach link)
Words of Truth: Just because I wrote something at one moment of my life that I felt to be true, that does not mean that it is true for every moment of my life, or true for your life, or true for all future and past generations. Likewise with Moses and other honored prophets,– they spoke the truth for their time under the inspiration of God’s Great Spirit. Would the God of all the earth and the universe withhold Holy Spirit from anyone who sincerely asked for it? Will not the Great Spirit let me speak good words if I open my inner being to Holy Spirit’s influence? And you, will you not contribute your own thought to find out what is truth?
