New Horizons in Desk Top Publishing

You don't remember me, but I sat next to you in English Class. Stay sweet and have a great Summer! Brother Godric

The Liturgy Committee of Parroquia San Cristóbal decided that we will have Morning Prayer with Holy Eucharist on Sundays during Advent. It is an interesting compromise. As you remember, last year Christmas Day was on Sunday. I came up with the idea to celebrate Morning Prayer every Sunday during Advent, with a Festive Choral Eucharist on Christmas Day. We would build up to the arrival of the Christ Child by sharing the Body and Blood of our Lord on the day of his Nativity. I figured that anticipation would build until that wonderful day arrived. No matter how many times I explained my reasons for this liturgical change, people would ask, “why can’t we have Communion?” It had been a long time since Morning Prayer had been the principle Sunday service at St. Christopher’s, and we had several liturgical train-wrecks that Advent, but we finally had Morning Prayer moving smoothly by Christmas. I try to learn from my mistakes, and I certainly wasn’t going to suggest Morning Prayer this year, but the Liturgical Committee wanted Morning Prayer with Eucharist, so that’s what we are doing! I wrote up the order of service for the English-language bulletin and started on the bulletin for the service en español when I remembered that we had two different versions of the LOC; one with Rite I in español and the other with out Rite I. This situation creates problems as the pagination in the books is different, kind of like the various editions of the BCP in the nineteenth century. I went to the room where we keep the prayer books and hymnals, and was shocked to discover that we only had twenty copies of el Libro de Oración Común. We have many of those red, bilingual booklets with Baptism, Confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist, and that’s what we use for la Misa en Domingo. Twenty LOC’s may have cut it six years ago, but the Misa en Español has been growing. So, I spent the majority of my day putting together a booklet with Oración Matutina con la Santa Eucaristía. I have a lot of trouble proof-reading text on the computer; every time I would print the booklet, I’d discover another mistake. These were not typographical errors, these were bizarre mistakes, such as part of the Venite appearing in the Confesión de Pecado. I finally got the job finished by 4:30, giving me half an hour to surf the web before my meeting with the nice folks who will be performing the Every Member Canvas. I see the folks at Titus 1:9 are in an uproar again (Yeah, what’s new?). Sunday should be interesting with this Morning Prayer thang.