Nicest Pew Cards with Mass Ordo?
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    We use worship aids at St. Augustine Cathedral, however they are 11x17 and it's all I can do to fit in the music. Recently I've even had a few weeks where the recessional or offertory hymns are text only because the music wouldn't fit. There is no room for readings or even to make annotations of when they occur, unless I significantly curtail the size of the font which I do not want to do. (For the curious, here's an example: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6080596f62a0455c6b40e46b/t/6707fe1d915b5e20eab48dd2/1728577053673/28th+in+OT+(B+•+2024)+•+Final.pdf ) To my mind, PiPs should well-nigh be able to recite the Mass ordo backwards if they are practicing, since it's the same every. single. Sunday. But I digress. For visitors and converts, it's not the worst thing ever to have a detailed ordo they can follow until they get the lay of the land.

    After receiving a cantankerous email from a parishioner bemoaning the fact that the worship aids only contain the music and don't contain the creed! (the horror, lol) the rector and I began discussing the possibility of acquiring laminated pew cards with the general outline of Mass and all the principal prayers, so that we can curtail any further complaints of this sort. People could use the pew card if they (still) cannot remember the creed (even though they've been a parishioner "for over 30 years") and pick up the worship aid for the music. Easy.

    So my question is, to those of you who have pew cards (or perhaps who have designed bespoke cards) can you point me to any that are particularly nice?

    The Magnificat Bookstore had some that I've come across before which are nice, but they are marked as sold out and I'm not sure I like the fact that they are two pages. https://bookstore.magnificat.net/the-magnificat-pew-cards-pew-size.html

    OSV has some absolutely gross ones that look like they were designed for some early 1990's life-teen masses, and those are a no-go. (for the sadistic: https://www.orderosv.com/product/pew-card-revised-order-of-mass)

    Here's another that presents well, but is a bifold again, and they are rather pricey for a whole church's worth: https://www.leafletonline.com/the-order-of-mass-new-english-translation

    The more I look at these, the more I'm tempted to design my own, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if there's a really good one I'm overlooking. We also aren't interested in going to weekly booklets, because production cost and paper use would skyrocket to re-print things like the creed every week. Anyone who really wants to follow along with the readings can get a hand missal or pull up an app on their phone.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    FWIW, there were several companies that did this (two-sided laminated pew cards) for the 2011 Missal roll-out, and they stayed in pews for several years. And I do agree it's basic hospitality for visitors, youth, and converts, especially for ritual Masses (weddings and funerals) where many of the pew sitters are visitors.
  • emac3183
    Posts: 59
    We had those Magnificat Bookstore cards, but they did not last long at all (most were torn up by the time I got here from use). Laminated is definitely the way to go, and the smaller the better. We have some cards in the pews which I think our knights of Columbus designed...I'll get a scan of it if it's worth using.
  • Anna_BendiksenAnna_Bendiksen
    Posts: 248
    We did something similar when I was a member of ahem, another church. On one side, the Creed and other prayers. We invited the children of the congregation to write and illustrate the word "WELCOME" on the other side. When the laminated cards were then placed in the pew racks, a sea of colorful "WELCOME"s could be seen.
  • DL
    Posts: 80
    The fewer books/sheets/cards people have to juggle between, there is less possibility of error or confusion. (Plus, if they’ve been a parishioner for over 30 years, then the creed now isn’t the same as the one they said for the first 20 years, unless you always use Latin, obviously).
    The third of your examples (from leafletonline) are the ones I have most commonly seen in the UK, where I think CTS did them. They’re great, but they have all the options, where you’ll only be using one of them at a time.
    What is the cost of this vs spreading your worship aids over a second piece of paper?
  • btodorovich87
    Posts: 101
    We have these, but unfortunately they're bigger than the standard 8.5x11" and can't be easily laminated. https://dohertyco.com/product/mass-pew-cards/
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    DL’s question is my own. The Ordinariate parish in Louisville does half-legal sheets for each page, which then is printed as a booklet onto full legal sheets, and pretty much the whole Mass is included in that (except maybe the silent parts and most of the priest’s parts that are invariable, I can’t remember). So if you exclude the eucharistic prayer, the offertory, etc. you cut it down significantly. I dislike a trifold anyway but that’s just me.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,478
    I find the US expectation of printed music in worship aids and hymn books a puzzle, how many of your PiPs can read music? I can, but when in the pew I don't want multiple sheets of paper, or weighty tomes.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    US Catholics don't come from a culture *of memory* as deeply rooted in hymnody as the UK. (All the more so when the largest and longest impress on US Catholic culture came from Irish-American prelates and clergy hostile to any Anglican influence - going so far as, for example, to tend to build Romanesque Revival parish churches if local Protestant churches were in the Gothic Revival style).) In that context, printing words without music - other than than for short memorable antiphons and dialogical plainsong - essentially tells people not to bother to join singing.
    Thanked by 2LauraKaz ServiamScores
  • DL
    Posts: 80
    Eh… on the rare occasions I am somewhere else, I much prefer to have a fighting chance at singing something I’m invited to join in with, and having the dots increases that chance greatly. If you don’t want me to join in, that’s fine, but if at least notionally you do, it’ll be half way into your bespoke gloria or Mass V or weird 5/4 hymn before I can muster more than a low rumble of discontent.

    I grew up with bad, home-made, dogeared seasonal booklets (blue-purple for advent, red-purple for lent) or a BCP depending on which rite it was (most of these were 1928 Deposited Books but if they ran out you got a 1662 from the bottom row); plus one of two hymnbooks, depending on which contained the majority of the hymns for that day (some copies had treble only, some four parts, some no music at all); plus a sheet with the readings, which may or may not have corresponded with the rite (see above) but which, if it didn’t, was inexplicably handed out anyway; plus a “see sheet” for something that wasn’t in the red hymnbook or the green one; plus a parish newsletter… exhausting.
    Thanked by 1LauraKaz
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    What is the cost of this vs spreading your worship aids over a second piece of paper?

    Laminated pew cards are a single, one-time expense. Then they are there, as a stable constant forever and ever, amen.

    Changing worship aid formats would introduce greater complexity, more than double our annual paper costs, and significantly increase production labor. Right now, all I do is print 11x17 and put it through a paper folding machine. Creating legal-sized booklets and having to fold and staple would be a genuine burden, which I'm trying to avoid. It seems very wasteful to me to print the creed every week for people who are too lazy to memorize our profession of faith. (And let's be real: the translation changed over a decade ago; it's high-time people adapted to the new one.)

    (And FWIW, I do the legal booklets for special events like Ordinations and Holy Week. I just really don't want to make it a weekly thing.)
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    US Catholics don't come from a culture *of memory* as deeply rooted in hymnody as the UK. (All the more so when the largest and longest impress on US Catholic culture came from Irish-American prelates and clergy hostile to any Anglican influence - going so far as, for example, to tend to build Romanesque Revival parish churches if local Protestant churches were in the Gothic Revival style).) In that context, printing words without music - other than than for short memorable antiphons and dialogical plainsong - essentially tells people not to bother to join singing.


    Well on the flip side they memorize one thing and one only. I had instant success printing the simple preface dialogue tone for Requiem Masses because apparently people can’t hear the difference, and then they clued into the “Amen” of the final versicles being recto tono and not ending with a minor third.

    Music and even pointed psalms help at Vespers. It’s remarkable, actually, that untrained amateurs might not grasp the finer nuances but can get through Vespers without falling off and indeed while sounding quite beautiful to me (someone who would point-blank refuse to attend a fully-professional Vespers; that is hardly prayer to me).

    Changing worship aid formats would introduce greater complexity, more than double our annual paper costs, and significantly increase production labor. Right now, all I do is print 11x17 and put it through a paper folding machine. Creating legal-sized booklets and having to fold and staple would be a genuine burden, which I'm trying to avoid. It seems very wasteful to me to print the creed every week for people who are too lazy to memorize our profession of faith


    I agree although I’m sort of bemused that you have a paper-folding machine in addition to the printer… ceteris paribus, I’d prefer a printer that can fold and staple. Or at least fold. But obviously things are not always equal.

    I struggle with your complaints not because it’s wrong but because we do the Latin Credo (and don’t have a choice, not that I want to do differently). Participation is OK after several years of doing IV seasonally, twice a year (15 Sundays normally). But it’s not nearly as good as with I or III. I agree, don’t print it weekly. That’s silly. And honestly I barely acknowledge in my own context the silent parts of the TLM; the people should focus on the propers at those points.
  • emac3183
    Posts: 59
    Here is what we have in the pews...in addition to the more complete version in the front of our missal.
    CONGREGATIONAL RESPONSES FOR MASS.pdf
    859K
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    I agree although I’m sort of bemused that you have a paper-folding machine in addition to the printer… ceteris paribus, I’d prefer a printer that can fold and staple. Or at least fold. But obviously things are not always equal.
    Sometimes we have no control over the equipment available in our workplaces, and sometimes terrible printer rental companies do not give you the machine that you were contracted to receive, and therefore you are short-shrifted in terms of functionality, and months of negotiations with the secretary get you nowhere and one day everyone gives up. Also, you have a mac, and the mac drivers do not correctly work via the network (thank you, Kyocera), so to use the other functionalities on special occasions, you have to use an 8 y.o. windows laptop, printing from thumb drives, and it's a reeeeeal pain. And it takes the machine more than double the amount of time to print the booklets and the exit tray has to be regularly tended to, and people in the office don't appreciate not being able to print for over an hour. So 4 minutes with a paper folder is a real breeze.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    I'm not bitter bout it.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    Right. As I said, things are not equal. That stinks!!
  • davido
    Posts: 958
    Wow, your parish manager should be fired
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,167
    Serviam,

    If this is for an OF parish, OSV (Our Sunday Visitor) has some 2-sided pew cards that are about the same size as a hymnal.
  • OrganistRob320OrganistRob320
    Posts: 164
    This is a small letter size half fold booklet I've used before. I currently have an extended version with the various Mass music setting we use included at the rear.
    Order of Mass (English).pdf
    148K
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    I took heavy inspiration from a pew card that was designed by the diocese of FW / SB (they really did the heavy lifting, and I just refined it to better match our house style). Here's our draft. Feedback welcome.
    Order of the Mass (Pew Card) • Semi Final Draft.pdf
    199K
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen kenny
  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 277
    Looks nicely done. Too bad they don't just all have their own daily missals.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,478
    Serviam - I would suggest that the Gloria have a blank line between 'Father. ' and 'Lord Jesus Christ, '. Unlike the other two full-stops this one clearly changes focus. I think that can be accommodated without disruption.
    [Presumably the composition in the third century predates controversies about the nature of the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity.]
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    my gut would be to not use bold. And if your font has it, the slashed-V is what liturgical books use. Otherwise, that's pretty nice. I would not add a line. There's no need.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 156
    Honestly, looking at that, I would be elated to have something like that in my pews!
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    Matthew—I wondered about the V.

    My gut instinct was that people would associate the priest with the cross symbol at a glance much more easily than distinguishing between R’s and V’s with slashes.

    AFH— I could add subtle spacing breaks to the Gloria. Not full line breaks, but a little padding, certainly.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    OMagnum— that was my comment to the priest… that if this person was *that* concerned about both the readings and not knowing the creed, they certainly could’ve gotten themselves a hand missal long ago…
    Thanked by 1OMagnumMysterium
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    I know, but they also associate it with making the Sign of the Cross…and the cross pattée (which is not the unicode name, but anyway) or otherwise a Greek cross in books is the symbol for that. And yes, I know, I know, TLM context and all…but I've never had problems.

    And to piggyback on what people could do…I wind up overloading them, perhaps, but they're not children. Well, maybe some of them are, but that doesn't make them clueless or unable to fend for themselves.
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