Missal Boot Camp · Print output

The Ribbon Cheat-Sheet

A 3.5×2 two-sided pocket card: the three ribbons to set on one face, the four-step drill for finding today’s Mass on the other. Tuck it inside the front cover of your missal until the motion lives in your hands.

What this card is

Training wheels you will outgrow — on purpose. Keep it in the missal for a few weeks. Set the ribbons before Mass, run the drill, and one Sunday you will realize you did not need to look. That is the day the missal became yours. Then pass the card to the next man learning.

How to use this page

Click Print this card. Set paper to business-card stock (3.5×2) if you can; otherwise print on letter and trim. Choose two-sided (flip on long edge).

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Preview — this is what prints

1765 Sanctum

Before Mass

Set three ribbons

Order of Mass. The unchanging part. Set once, leave it.
Today’s Proper. Proper of Seasons (Sunday/ferial) or Proper of Saints (a feast, by date).
Today’s readings. Sunday cycle Year A/B/C, or weekday cycle Year I/II.

Verbum Domini

1765 Sanctum

Find today’s Mass

The four-step drill

Name the day — season, and any saint that outranks it.
Go to the Proper (Seasons, or Saints by date). Set Ribbon 2.
Confirm the cycle; set the readings ribbon.
Order of Mass on Ribbon 1. Pray.

Rank wins: solemnity > feast > memorial > optional > ferial.

Altar · Arms · Allegiance

Sources on this card The structure of the missal (Ordinary and Propers): the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. The seasons, ranks, and precedence: the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar (1969). The Lectionary cycles: the Introduction to the Lectionary for Mass (1981). For the Ordinary Form and common U.S. hand missals.