Since 2008, when we first went to a Mass at Sacred Heart, I’ve been puzzled by the symbol on the cover of these hymnals.

The embossed cross, I can see. But the gilt-embossed circle and gumdrop-looking flower-ish design? And that one gumdrop thingy that’s not gold?

Well, it took me until today, but I finally figured out the meaning.

See, I had a little more time than usual to unfocus during this morning’s Mass.

I know that sounds bad, but we went to Spanish Mass today, and I am not a Spanish speaker.

Usually, I can follow pretty well with the translation bulletin; it has the Spanish and English side-by-side on each page.

But today was my first Spanish Mass with our new priest, Father Tony. Instead of reading the message on the front cover of the translation bulletin like our former priest, Father Charles, who wasn’t perfectly fluent in Spanish, Father Tony, who is, gave his own homily, no translation.

I could pick out some words here and there, but not enough to string together anything coherent, so my mind just wandered a bit…

And it hit me.

There’s one circle in the center of the cross that represents Jesus.

And there are 12 embossed gumdrop shapes around the circle that represent the 12 apostles that Jesus chose.

And there’s one gumdrop shape which is not gilt that represents Judas, the one apostle who turned away from Jesus completely.

I’m not sure if there’s any meaning in the shapes…