06 May 2014

The Little Old Book

Once when Claudia visited from Morocco, she brought me a book. It is a Latin Mass missal in French and Latin, for the Masses of Holy Week. It also has an anthology of prayers. This book is very old; it was published in 1911. It has very thin pages, discolored with age, and some of the things it says are no longer the case.
I told my French teacher about the book, because she had said she was having trouble finding prayers for us to memorize. I lent it to her, and she happily took lots of French prayers from it and used them in class. I actually think she scanned every page before giving it back to me.
From my book we have learned the prayers before and after meals, the angelus, the act of contrition, the prayer for a good confession, the ten commandments, the prayer before a crucifix, and more that I can't remember.  It has been so fun learning prayers in French! And it amuses me that there are so many from that one little book my sister found in a market in Morocco.
The cover says "Quinzaine de Paques."


Beautiful old binding. 
This is the very artistic inside cover.



The only illustration--the most beautiful Annunciation I've ever seen!


The Archbishop of Tours granted the imprimatur. If you look closely, it says December 2, 1911. 

The built-in liturgical calendar. It only goes to 1951.






5 comments:

  1. Why is this labeled as a "weird thing"?

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  2. Because it is weird! When does a random book your sister gets at a market in Morocco become the primary source of your French prayer homework? ;)

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  3. It could be "Heavenly Coincidence" or "A Treasure"...

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  4. I would like to see a good photo of that Annunciation... by the way what a wonderful post!!

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  5. Well I guess I was right when I told Othman it'd be a perfect gift for you!! =] I actually found it at a "vide grenier"-- now your homework is to figure out what that is!! ;D xoxo

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