 Well, parents going to mass each Sunday often face the challenge of how to keep small children and even big children focused on the mystery in front of them and quiet and reverend as well. And if you attend a Latin mass parish, the pin drop quiet can often be another challenge to overcome. Well, parents have a new resource for the Sundays that they're taking their children to mass. And that is the Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus and introductory Latin missile for children. It's a brilliant and beautiful work by illustrator Adelie Hewd, and we're grateful for Adelie for joining us today. Welcome, Adelie. Thank you so much, Mary. I'm so blessed to be here. Oh, blessed to have you. Adelie, I'm sure you didn't start your career in art planning to do a religious missile for children to take to mass. I think you had a career in secular art before that. Tell us a little bit about what you did before you got to this project. I did. Yeah. I studied art in college, though I've been drawing since I could hold the crayon. And my emphasis was sculpture. I learned most of what I did from a mentor sculpting and casting ceramic courses. That was my thing for 15 years, and I was very passionate about it. Until just one day the fire went out, and I entered a painting contest for a sacred art image, and I enjoyed that so much. And after a few months, I started talking to my husband, hey, would you mind if I just scrapped the horse thing and started all over and just did sacred art? Because I feel like God was calling me to do art for him. And my husband was 100% supportive, and ever since then I've been doing sacred art and illustrating now, and I love it, and I'm so grateful. Wow. So Adelie, as you continued in this career of art and coming over to the religious side of doing artwork for the Lord, at what point in that did you begin attending a Latin mass parish? Fairly recently, actually. I was on fire Catholic since my adult reversion when I was about 24, 25, and very interested in the mass, learning all I could. I tended to think the Latin mass, I'd heard a little bit about it here and there, but I thought it was a particular charism for people. But about a little over a year and a half ago, my husband was reading up more and more on it, and he said, hey, you know, we should check this out. They have it, you know, a little ways from our house, but not too far, and we could drive there. And so finally he breathed the bullet and did it. We were very involved in our parish that was a mile away from here. So I was a little more resistant, and I think he was too, just because of that fact. But he went and he said, I cried, you need to go. So I went the next week because we had a very young son at that point. And, you know, it was amazing. I was confused, but it was amazing. And yeah, after that, we just began attending more and more often until it became our home. You hear those stories a lot with people that they are drawn to the Latin mass, but they're not necessarily comfortable in the Latin mass, but they want to be there. And there is an adjustment time to where it feels both right and comfortable to be sitting in that. Yes, definitely. Yeah, when you're holding a squirming little one, it might take a little bit longer, but... So how did this project of Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, how did that begin, and were you thinking about your son and about keeping him engaged in the mass as you were working on it? That was definitely a thought. It actually began oddly enough in 2006 when I read Scott Pahn's book, The Supper of the Lamb. Oh, the Lamb Supper. And I was introduced to the fact that heaven actually meets earth during the mass. I had no idea. And I thought more people need to know about this, and I thought an animated short would be a good way to do it. And so I wrote out a script for that that I worked on for a few years and shared with people. But after working on that for a while, that animation is a big project for one person. So I was inspired to do a children's book. So I did a children's book and it was based on the Nobu Sordo because that's what I knew. And after we fell in love with the Latin mass, I knew there was a conflict in my heart and my husband said, why don't you just do it on the Latin mass? So I scrapped everything I had done and started afresh. And Sanktus, Sanktus, Sanktus is what we have now. Amazing. And I think we can put up some of the illustrations from Sanktus. There's one that I particularly thought was so striking that is actually the view from the altar. There it is, looking back towards the choir loft, which I thought, why is this so striking? Well, it's because it's the opposite of what we see during mass, but it's also the view of our Lord from the tabernacle looking at us during mass. Was it, were you struck in your creative process for this about the different ways that you can see the mass, both from the Lord's perspective, the priests, the altar servers, and even those babies you've illustrated in the pews? Well, I guess because it started as an animated project, I was kind of looking at it in a 3D way from different angles. And so just trying to capture all of it, capture the essence of it was important to me. But you know, that's actually beautiful. I had not thought about it as being that from God's perspective, but it definitely is. I loved how many families you drew into the pews in those illustrations. That's great! Right? It is. The babies in arms, the kids of all sizes, were you thinking about them as you were doing this project about what it's like to be a child, especially for kids that maybe weren't raised necessarily with the Latin mass from the beginning, but are just coming to it? It can be very quiet. It can be very quiet. It's an odd mixture of silence and reverence and prayer and occasional wailing and fussing. But you know, the little ones, our pastor is always saying, you know, have them sit up close. They can see what's happening because little kids want to know what's happening. And I was thinking about them a lot, thinking about my son, thinking about my God's son and all our friends, kids, and really wanting to help them along, help introduce them to not only what is going on in front of them that they can see at the altar, but also that heavenly reality, what is going on behind the scenes. Adelie, since you are somewhat of a convert, you would say almost to the Latin mass. Yes. What are some of the misconceptions that you have faced either maybe with your family or friends or people that you used to attend mass with, that you have to answer the question of, well, this is where we go now to worship the Lord. What are some misconceptions that you think people have about attending the Latin mass that maybe this missile even would help dispel? Well, let's see. I have heard quite often that, oh, well, you know, it's good enough that you're receiving the Lord, the Lord's present in both masses, and so why take the time to go farther away and to attend a longer liturgy just because this isn't Latin. Sure, it's lovely, it's reverent, but what we have is good enough and it's got our community, so why would you want to leave our community? And the leaving the community is hard, but also there's still my friends. We still get together, we still do things together, and I still attend functions at the parish near my home, and so it's not really leaving the community, and occasionally I can pull one or two of them over with me to come see and say, hey, come experience this, bring your kids. And I did say, you know, bring a book, and now I can say, bring this book, it'll help. So it's wonderful. Adelie, you dedicate sanctu, sanctu, sanctus to all those who love and are learning to love the traditional Roman right, and I love that that was your dedication because it really is a relearning of people who are going to it. It's another opportunity to almost put yourself in like a catechism class every Sunday of learning. How long did it take you to really love the traditional right, not just want to be there, but to love the essence of it? Not very long actually, maybe a couple months. I think once I got over my own pride, because I was a canter at our old parish, so I knew the Nobu Sordo back and forth, and I kept getting lost in the traditional Latin mass. So I realized, this mass, it's less about me, and that's a good thing because it's all about worshipping God that's really brought to the forefront, I think. And so once I just let go of my own pride and my own expectations, I was really able to better enter into the flow of it and really appreciate the work that this particular mass was doing in my soul and bringing me closer to Jesus, because that's ultimately the goal of anything. Adelie, for the illustrations for Sanktus, you have a wonderful level of, I would say, both simplicity and detail. The colors are somewhat muted, there's not extravagant interpretations of what's happening, but lovely details on the vestments, on the altar piece. So were you drawing inspiration from your own parish, or what was in your mind as you were coming up with this church setting for this mass in Sanktus? Well, I love looking at church architecture, and I loved seeing all the different vestments and just the details that are used in the traditional Latin mass, and from other older churches. I've been to Europe a couple of times, so I had some beautiful reference photos from like the proto-cathedral in Ireland, and I did look at our own parish a little bit for inspiration and just tried to combine as much as that as I could, what I felt the Lord was calling me to draw and to use real models for people so I could get details right, and it all came together by the grace of God. I mean, it's stunning looking at those images, it's just stunning. I can't wait to get copies for my kids, for my God children, all of them that attend the Roman right. Lastly for you, Adelie, so we've talked about what inspires you about the Latin mass, but your faith in general, your Catholic faith, what do you draw from in your own faith or which feast days or devotions are most special to you in working on projects? Well, I have lots of different devotions. Our Blessed Lady, our Mother Mary, she has been a great influence in my life, and making a consecration to her a few years back has tremendously helped, and also learning about, I've learned so many new traditions, like the Brown Scapular and being dedicated to St. Michael and all these things, following the old calendar, they have been wonderful inspirations to me to help live that daily Catholic life. It's wonderful. Well, again, the book is Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus, an introductory Latin missile for children. You can find it online here at tanbooks.com. Also at tanbooks.com, you can see a sneak peek of many of the images that we've showed today of Adelie's beautiful work. It would make a wonderful gift for First Communions or a baptism gift for families, just simply a beautiful thing to have in your home. Available here, tanbooks.com or at your local Catholic bookstore. Adelie, thanks so much for being with us. You're very welcome. Thank you again for having me.