Mass and magnitude

by Paul Matthew St. Pierre

THE WEIGHT OF A MASS: A TALE OF FAITH, by Josephine Nobisso, illustrated by Katalin Szegedi. Gingerbread House, cloth $26.95, paper $14.95. Also available in Spanish. Orders: fax 631-288-5179, e-mail ghbooks@optonline.net , Web site www.GingerbreadBooks.com.

The other day I was filing through some boxes of books at my office, on the pretext of giving some away, when I came across a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that I have had almost all my life, so long, in fact, that the first time I read it I couldn’t even read, and someone had to read the stories to me.

Of course, when my own scholarly book is published and it sells a million copies, I plan never to read another word on my own. I’ll be wealthy enough to hire a staff to read to me.

However in the meantime I’ll have lots of unmediated reading with which to occupy myself. Take Josephine Nobisso’s new book, The Weight of a Mass: A Tale of Faith, a story of the order of the brothers Grimm: wonderful, miraculous, fun, and educational. Although there are no fairies in Nobisso’s story, it is marked by the supernatural: the Spirit of Grace.

The story concerns a kingdom where the king, betrothed to a queen, sets a date for their wedding at the cathedral, even though he fears the only people in attendance at the ceremony will be the few old ladies who attend daily Mass. The problem is not that his subjects dislike the king or queen but that, having lost their faith, they no longer attend the Holy Mass.

The faith crisis is solved when an old woman begs for a sliver of bread at a bakery, promising to offer her Mass for the baker. In refusing her alms, the baker also sets up a demonstration to ridicule the woman and the Mass. He writes the words “the Mass” on a scrap of paper and places it in a scales. Then he puts a crust in the other tray of the scales, promising to give it to the woman if “the Mass” outweighs it.

Nobisso’s literary licence prevents me from revealing the result of the trial, but suffice it to say it defies the laws of physics, restores the faith of the kingdom, and ensures the groom and bride have a lovely wedding party at the cathedral.

Nobisso tells the story in intelligent prose, with strong diction and adventurous syntax that children will respect. Katalin Szegedi has illustrated the large format book with sweeping water-colour drawings with odd perspectives, showing people and things leaning from every angle, bending around the words. Their heady mix of words and drawings is delightful.

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WORLD YOUTH DAY 2002: THE OFFICIAL SOUVENIR ALBUM, edited by Michael O’Hearn and others. Novalis, paper $29.95. Orders: tel 1-800-387-7164, fax 1-800-204-4140, e-mail cservice@novalis.ca . Distributed in the U.S.A. by Twenty-Third Publications, paper USD 24.95. Orders: 1-800-321-0411, e-mail ttpubs@aol.com .

Whether you attended World Youth Day in Toronto last summer or not, this book would make an excellent souvenir of a major event in Catholic history in Canada. The 160-page panorama of colour pictures is a vivid tribute to the Church.