A new edition of the Divine Office

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced that a new edition of the Liturgy of the Hours will come into use on Ash Wednesday 2027. The new edition will match more accurately the latest official Latin edition, and features new English translations of many of the texts.

We have been told that we will be allowed to provide this new edition through Universalis. Along with other electronic publishers, we are waiting for the USCCB to finalise the details of this – both technical and commercial. As you can imagine, they are run off their feet at present, preparing all the texts for the printed books.

Corpus Christi is today (or on Sunday if your bishop has decided that’s better). It’s one of a cluster of theological feasts which began with Pentecost ten days ago and will end with the Immaculate Heart of Mary in just over a week’s time. You can think of this “mini theological season” as us having finished commemorating all the events of salvation history, and now sitting down and thinking through what it all means. Because it all means something.

We will all be celebrating the Ascension in a few days’ time. The event is a joyful feast for us, who know what it led to, but it must have been grim for the disciples, who knew that they they would never again see Jesus on earth. Who was this mysterious promised Advocate?

God preserves our freedom by not telling us exactly what he has in store for us, and God can always be trusted. Nevertheless, it is hard for people who find themselves in a situation where, like the disciples after Ascension and before Pentecost, they can do nothing but pray and wait. Let us remember them in our own prayers.

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Lent has been going for two weeks now, so we really ought to have settled into it. By a pleasing coincidence, March this year ends on the Tuesday of Holy Week, which makes it easier to get an idea of how far through Lent we are.

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The Christmas season definitely, finally finished yesterday with the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, and by now all the cribs will have been taken down and put away. It’s a pity that we don’t have installations like the crib to mark other seasons of the year, but in just two weeks’ time it will be Ash Wednesday and the churches will be a dark and sombre purple: so we will once more see at a glance what season it is.

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Welcome back to Advent! Glory is on the way. The liturgy is full of the prophecies of Isaiah, which were first given for consolation to the Jews 2,700 years ago (the same sort of time as the legendary foundation of the city of Rome). They were fulfilled once over in the first century BC when the Son of God became man as the baby Jesus – and still those prophecies speak to us of the Second Coming of Christ.

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November is the month of the dead: a month of celebration rather than mourning. Unreliable statistics suggest that out of all the Christians there have ever been, 1 in 3 are living now. This means that for every one of us on Earth, there are two team members who have passed through death; and we are united into one single community by prayer.

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After Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis, Pope Leo is canonising Blessed Peter To Rot this coming Sunday, the 19th. You can read about him in the Universalis pages for his feast day, 7 July. Here is a link to the About Today page for that day.

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Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis were canonised by Pope Leo on 7 September, and the podcast of that date tells you more about these new saints (you can find a link to it below). They will be a ‘saint for me’ for some people who, looking at the calendar of saints, can’t see anyone who could be their ‘friend in heaven’. But even for the rest of us, their lives have a lot in them to teach us and inspire us. I wish I had been able to be like Frassati in my early twenties, but I didn’t even know it was possible. Is it too late now? No, with God nothing is too late.

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