Parishes are sometimes cautious about switching from a disposable subscription missal program to a permanent one because they are confronted with an up-front price that is higher than what has been budgeted for in the current year. Additionally, pastors are sometimes concerned about saddling a parish with something for years, fearing that once the permanent resource has been purchased, it must be used for a decade or more to be worth the investment.
The truth, though, is that the Lumen Christi Missal – a complete, permanent replacement for your disposable missal program – will pay for itself in under three years!
Let’s take a look at the numbers and compare:
If a parish keeps the LCM in their pews for 2.5 years, it will have broken completely even. If, for whatever reason, the parish had a desire to move back to a subscription missal after this time, they could do so without having lost a cent.
However, when a parish keeps the LCM in their pews for 10 years (or longer!), they will save upwards of $34,000, if not more!
In a time of constant economic insecurity, the Lumen Christi Missal is a way be a good steward of your parish’s limited resources.
Our own Jeffrey Tucker reviewed the LCM here. You can place an order here.
Or if you’d like to contact us directly about bringing the Lumen Christi Missal to your parish, you can reach us by email at info@illuminarepublications.com, or by phone at 602-910-4180.
Adam,
As one who drools over and covets the Lumen Christi Missal, and hopes to buy it sooner rather than later, I still question which Missalette you are referring to as the "leading" one. I assume you mean OCP's Today's Missal, and I believe those numbers match. I feel obliged to point out, though, as the argument will come up when people try to convince their parish to buy the LCM, that GIA's Sunday's Word only costs $2 per copy (and only has to be shipped once per year). So in the above example, it would be more like $1300/year for 500 copies, and push the payback window out to 9-10 years. Although I think SW is a step in the right direction, away from disposable newsprint resources, it is harder to argue the next step from something like SW to LCM.
I think the principal of permanence still stands, and saves money over time. However, the argument has to be bolstered by an appeal to quality, not throwing away the word of God, saved time and effort not re-stocking the pews constantly, saved resources, etc.
Yes Jared you are right that the comparison is with what OCP describes on its website as "the most widely used missal program in the United States". Despite the cost, parishes continue to renew this subscription year after year after year. I agree that we also need to argue for resources based upon beauty, dignity, respect for the word of God, not to mention liturgical propriety, and so on. But this argument above is the nuts and bolts of the economic reality for the countless parishes in the US who, according to OCP, pay these amounts annually. I should also say that I recently learned from a colleague that his parish spends $20,000 each year in disposables. It's remarkable how this can go on from year to year in parishes in this way!
Any plans for a Canadian version? (Please rescue us from the CBWIII, etc.!)
Well, not quite yet. Out of curiosity, are such additions even welcomed by the Canadian Bishop's Conference? My suspicion was that the conference published the Canadian hymnal and that was that. Are there other products on the market?
Let's be honest… it's not worth his time or patience to have to deal with the CCCB.
Are there hymns in this Missal? It's my understanding that it doesn't. If there are no hymns, I can't imagine that flying in most parishes – I certainly know it wouldn't fly in my parish.
Padre, you are correct in that this is a Missal and not a Hymnal. This was intentional, in fact, since hymn repertoires so often can be extremely diverse from parish to parish. Leaving hymns out of this book is a feature in that it allows parishes to answer the hymn question in whatever way that they wish.
We are working on a companion hymnal, though, which will focus on the core of traditional Catholic hymnody. This book will be extremely economical and inexpensive and we are looking to offer package offerings of Missal and Hymnal combined.
Some might try to argue that these core traditional hymns should have been included in the Missal, but I would like to point out that there are many parishes that use LCM alongside repertoires of contemporary song of all varieties. The traditional hymns might even be a deterrent to these people. For this reason it does in fact fly in many parishes, the hymn question is handled in a different capacity, however.
I should also say that if I tried to meet the current needs of the US hymnody market this book would have easily become 2000 pages – welcome to Liber Usualis 2.0. Probably wouldn't fit in your hymnal racks to say the least!
We once had the misfortune of being in a parish that cancelled missalettes in order to facilitate readings in Politically correct jargon that distorted the Word of God. Beware!