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Little red prayer book finds its way back to Subiaco Abbey

Four copies of popular 1930s children’s book which was missing from archive donated

Published: February 11, 2022      

By Aprille Hanson Spivey
Associate Editor

Father Elijah Owens

Father Jerome Kodell looks over a 1930s copy of the “School Children’s Prayerbook and Missal” Feb. 2 in the Subiaco Abbey archive room. The prayer book, created by the late Benedictine Father Lawrence Hoyt, had been missing from the archives.

Father Elijah Owens

Father Jerome Kodell looks over a 1930s copy of the “School Children’s Prayerbook and Missal” Feb. 2 in the Subiaco Abbey archive room. The prayer book, created by the late Benedictine Father Lawrence Hoyt, had been missing from the archives.

About 100 years ago, Benedictine Father Lawrence Hoyt compiled a 132-page “School Children’s Prayerbook and Missal” in English so children could fully participate in Mass. 

In a Feb. 5, 1951, letter to Sister Pierre Vorster, OSB, in response to letters he received from her class at St. Edward School in Little Rock who appreciated the prayer book, he reflected on why he created the book in the first place — it was “an obsession” for him, he admitted, to make sure children heard the daily school Mass. 

“I have made it my life’s study, all the years of my ministry, to plan how children can best pray the daily school Mass,” Father Hoyt wrote. 

But up until recently, the tiny 3-by-4 ½ inch dark red book, which gained national attention, spreading across the country with several editions and about 100,000 copies, was absent from Subiaco Abbey’s archives. 

Thanks to Lilly Hess, who retired from Little Rock Scripture Study in June 2020, and another reader who saw the plea for copies in the fall edition of The Abbey Message newsletter, the archive obtained four copies of the prayer book. 

“Father Hugh Assenmacher, our archivist before me, for years he was looking for one in our archives,” said archivist and former abbot, Father Jerome Kodell. “There was a hardback and a paperback (printed). We have one hardback copy and three paperback copies.” 

According to a March 28, 1936, front-page article in The Guardian, now Arkansas Catholic, the book was in its third revised edition and printed by the local Porbeck Printing Co. The plan was to introduce the book to all Catholic schools in Arkansas. The article stated the book made the “Mass more attractive to children” and was a good aid in “removing some of the ennui and restlessness, often experienced by them while attending Mass” in Latin. 

In 1947, another edition was published and available to religious, schools and churches for $3 a dozen. They were sold for 30 cents each. The prayer book was dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. 

Father Hoyt, who professed his vows Oct. 16, 1900, at Subiaco Abbey, had a long vocation in pastoral ministry before his death in December 1952, The Abbey Message stated.  

“He had been pastor in the church in Clarksville where I came from,” Father Kodell said, though he didn’t know Father Lawrence personally. “He was the pastor for both my parents when they were teenagers, and they both spoke highly of him.” 

Sister Pierre, approaching her 100th  birthday in March, taught at St. Edward School in Little Rock while Father Hoyt was pastor. 

“Father Lawrence was very exacting about what he wanted done and the way it was done,” she told Arkansas Catholic. “The altar prayers, they had to be perfect. He was a very holy man.” 

It’s unclear when the first edition of the children’s prayer book was published, but Father Kodell said the four copies given to the abbey were fourth, fifth and sixth editions, all from 1936, pointing to its popularity. The earliest reference to the prayer book in The Guardian archives is March 5, 1921. 

The schoolchildren at Father Hoyt’s parish and around the state used the book at Mass and in classroom instruction. It includes five forms of Mass prayers, one for each school day. It also includes Stations of the Cross, instructional information like “how to assist at Mass” and prayers including the Act of Contrition and Prayer for the Souls of Children. 

In correspondence with Father Kodell from November, Sister Pierre wrote, “I remember sitting in the pew, fourth row, St. Edward’s Church behind the fifth- and sixth-grade class. Every day we used the little red missal-Mass book. Father Lawrence often had messages that he called out from the altar. His book had to be used and had to be perfect as each word was said. If not, Father would call out from the altar any message he wanted to be said, ‘You are praying too fast or to slow or’” or any other instructions. 

Hess, 82, who attended St. Edward School from kindergarten through eighth grade, remembers receiving the book around third or fourth grade. Unlike her fancy white Communion prayer book, her copy of Father Hoyt’s was well worn from years of use. 

“It was for me personally, and I could use it whenever I wanted to, I didn't have to share it with anyone,” she said as one of seven children. 

She was surprised to read the abbey didn’t have one, so she donated hers and copies her late sister Rose Marie Nabholz had. 

“I had a treasure and didn’t know it,” Hess said.

Thanks to Hess’ generosity, Father Kodell said a copy was sent to the Hoyt family, as well as photo copies. There are no plans to reprint the prayer book. 

Sister Pierre said there were not many prayer books around like that at the time geared toward children. It was a void he wanted to fill, Father Hoyt explained in his 1951 letter. 

“The Mass is prayed by different people in different ways. The way for children to pray the Mass is in a simple child-like manner, in the simplest words found in the English language,” he wrote. “‘Let the children come to me.’ When the children sing and pray their own songs and prayers, that are in no way connected or dependent on what the priest says at the altar, there is a minimum of distraction for the priest, but if priests are so easily distracted, they must remember the common good and the good of the children. Therefore, ‘Let the children pray the Mass from the little red prayer book.’”

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