Books of My Life: Magnifikat

This is not really a favourite book of mine, but it's one that has accompanied me for most of my childhood in Germany. As I've told before I grew up in a very strict Catholic family, and Church-going on Sundays and EVERY holiday was an annoying duty. Above that my German grandmother forced us to go to daily rosary prayings while my pals were out playing and having fun.



The Magnifikat is basically a prayer book or a missal. It contains for the most part the songs that you sing in mass, but it also the full Catholic liturgy in Latin and German plus explanations. It's a small black book (not good to scan) with gilt edging and 2 ribbon bookmarks. You carried it with you to mass, and during mass a board would tell you which song numbers you'd need for that particular mass.



The name of the book means praise of God derived from "Magnificat anima mea Dominum", "my soul praises the Lord." Sometime in the mid 70s the book was abrogated and replaced by the "Gotteslob" which was a de-Latinized version. Gotteslob would be the German expression for Magnfikat.

The Magnifikat also contained instructions for confession including a preparatory questionairre with some very obvious questions and funning wording...After the Confessional we'd get a leaflet, usually with a picture and a prayer inside as proof that we've been there. On occasion the priest or your parenets would ask to present that proof. My edition is full of these leaflets:



It also still holds all those pics from funerals I have attended, this one is my German grandmother's 'death picture':



Looking through my old edition I also found this document, proof of my confirmation:



So this book isn't really dear to me, but I keep it (plus other prayer books) as a remembrance from my childhood.