Take a Flyer

Since Mass at Holy Ghost was a Latin Mass, the nearest SSPX group (which isn’t really close by) decided to leaflet the cars in the parking lot. (An announcement was made warning us about it and about the schismatic nature of the group.) The leaflet is worth some attention – if I had handy access to a scanner, I’d give some thought to scanning and posting it. It was a letter-sized page printed in full color on both sides. It’s an attractive flyer that would certainly catch your attention.

The first side I saw was arranged in three columns.
Column 1: a vividly colorful late medieval depiction of the crucifixion under the title “Parish Mission on the Passion of Our Lord at St. Isidore the Farmer Mission”;
Column 2: a brief exhortation about the “parish mission”, a map to find the location and a dress code;
Column 3: a photo of a stained-glass depiction of the Archangel Michael, a blurb of text that requires separate attention, and a small photo of a priest in a pulpit.

The second side was also arranged in three columns.
Column 1: an artist’s rendering of the building’s exterior, a captioned illustration that deserves separate attention and a longer exhortation about attending the mission;
Column 2: the schedule of the first five days of the mission;
Column 3: the schedules for Good Friday and Holy Saturday, a dress code (again!), a peculiar little illustration and a photo of the interior of the building captioned “the Mission of St. Isidore”.

Seems to me that the things of the greatest importance to the writer would be made most prominent and perhaps even be repeated. The dress code was mentioned twice. As a former boss would say, “That makes its own quiet statement”.

The artist’s rendering of the exterior is captioned: “St. Isidore Catholic Church, Watkins, Colorado SSPX”. By the way, that’s the only place on the entire flyer that mentions SSPX – where most people would expect to see a zip code. The location’s far enough out in the country that they might even use alphabetical characters in zip codes too. Apparently they didn’t find it important to tell the recipients of the flyer that they’re in schism. Certainly that’s not as important as either version of the dress code.

The image of the interior is remarkable mainly in that the altar rail has a very high degree of contrast to its surroundings, making it unusually conspicuous in comparison with the altar rails I’ve seen in many churches. The interior is quite nicely done.

The next illustration is one I’ve seen on integrist sites, it’s an old depiction of a priest in an old-style red chausible, with an altar boy kneeling at his side, at the major elevation ad orientam presenting the Host to Jesus who appears to be hanging from an invisible cross just inches away from the priest. The caption: “The True Mass at which is found the True Cross of salvation.” No explanation is given for this caption, although I wouldn’t be surprised if such would be made during the course of the week.

The third illustration is a tiny image of St. Maximilian Kolbe. I wasn’t aware that the SSPX even recognized his canonization. Seems disingenuous to me for them to use his image. Why not an image of, say, St. Pius X?

I find it interesting that on one piece of paper there are three distinct names used for this group. Can’t they settle on one? And why call it a “parish mission”, when it isn’t really a parish at all? OK, a “mission mission” might sound funny, but I’m sure there’s an appropriate Latin phrase that could be applied.

The blurb gives a brief insight into something that would be useful for SSPXers. “Redemptorists and other great preaching orders from the past used to travel from parish to parish . . . “ Now if orders from the past could travel into the future to preach, wouldn’t it be great if SSPXers from the present could travel back in time? Perhaps that could disabuse them of their exalted opinions of the state of the Church in the past. (Then again, I would certainly like to hear a sermon by St. Anthony of Padua when he next travels into our time!)