I hope that near-blasphemy will be acceptable as well as the real McCoy.
Before Rome set its adamantine
face against the old Tridentine
Catholics took the Bread of Heaven
complete with proper Latin leaven
in Missals fat as half a brick,
two thousand pages Rizla-thick
in which it took this boy an age
to ascertain the proper page
for prayers whose arcane rigmarole
they’d said would save his sinful soul.
This Mass which stood tradition’s test
is finished. Ite, Missa est.
Redemption now is near at hand
in language we can understand;
and threading camels far less hard
with Mass pre-printed on one card.
Yet boyhood fear of What Comes Next
seems missing from the English text;
and makes this ersatz Mass, for me,
seem precious close to blasphemy.
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