Someone wrote to me the other day, asking:

“Why did the priest use different readings from the ones in Universalis?”

This was not a terribly helpful question because I wasn’t in the church to hear what the priest was reading, and I wasn’t looking at the person’s screen to see what Universalis was displaying. Nevertheless, the email was sent on Friday 1 May 2026, and as I was guessing my way through everything I hadn’t been told, trying to compose a meaningful answer, I thought it would be worth writing it all up for future reference. So here we go.

Example: 1 May 2026

The priest today has a choice. St Joseph the Worker is an optional memorial, which means he can choose the Mass for Friday of the 4th week in Eastertide, or he can choose the Mass for St Joseph the Worker.

Friday of the 4th week in Eastertide

First Reading: Acts 13:26-33.

Gospel: John 14:1-6.

In favour of choosing this is the fact that the readings on weekdays in Eastertide form a sequence: the First Readings are telling the stories of the first steps of the infant Church, while the Gospel is giving the great discourses at the core of St John’s Gospel.

Saint Joseph the Worker

In favour of choosing this is the fact that Saint Joseph the Worker is an important feast closely connected with the social teaching of the Church – which is too little known and too little listened to.

If he chooses St Joseph the Worker, the priest now has a further choice. The Lectionary offers a set of readings for St Joseph the Worker but also says that these should not be used unless pastoral considerations require it.

Deciding to use the readings for St Joseph:

First Reading: Genesis 1:26-2:3 or Colossians 3:14-15,​17,​23-24.

Gospel: Matthew 13:54-58.

Deciding not to use the readings for St Joseph:

First Reading: Acts 13:26-33.

Gospel: Matthew 13:54-58.

• You may find it strange that if the priest is celebrating St Joseph but doesn’t have a reason to use the special readings for St Joseph, he is still required to use the Gospel from St Matthew and not from St John. This is because on a very few exceptional days in the year, the Gospel is what is called “proper to the feast”, which means it must be used, no matter what. This happens when the saint being celebrated is actually mentioned in that reading: as St Joseph is (implicitly) today. (Very occasionally indeed, the “proper reading” is the First Reading rather than the Gospel.)

All in all, then, there are three conceivable First Readings on Friday 1 May 2026 and two conceivable Gospels.

How to do it in Universalis

First, choose the feast to celebrate

At the top of the Readings at Mass page, the heading will say one of two things:

Friday of the 4th week of Eastertide or Saint Joseph the Worker 

or

Saint Joseph the Worker or Friday of the 4th week of Eastertide

In the right-hand margin you will see a menu button. In the mobile apps, this is a stack of red lines; in the Mac and Windows programs, it is a blue arrow. Either way, you can use the menu button to choose between the Friday and the memorial of St Joseph.

Next, choose which readings to use

If you have chosen the Friday, you do not need to do anything.

If you have chosen St Joseph, there will be a heading just above the First Reading which says either “Readings for the memorial” or “Readings for the feria (Friday)”. In the right-hand margin you will see a menu button. You can use the button to choose the set of readings you want.