So I think it just hit me what you've been trying to say...you don't want the Load or Pin SS to be in parallel coming from the arduino to each of the MAX7219s right? You wanted each MAX7219 to have its own individual LOAD pinout coming from arduino right?
thats why I should do the assignment of the SS outs like this:
ss0 = 53 // MSB
ss1 = 49
ss2 = 48
ss3 = 47 // LSB
that just leaves the CLK or (SCK) from the arduino...that still needs to be parallel or (synchronous) right?
and you're saying you open the serial monitor and type in a message and it will display on the matrices?
(I just read your latest post) but I think I'm going to go along with what you have because you digitalWrite SS1-SS3 alot....