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Happy Feast of the Rosary!

One of the unexpected benefits of doing the podcast is that in the course of finding something to say about the feasts of the Church, I discover far more than I ever knew about them, and come to value them as they should be valued. Listen to this week’s podcast and you’ll see what I mean. Here is the audio directly and here is the whole Podcasts page. Or just go to the home page at universalis.com and you’ll find a Podcasts button at the top right.

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This is August, when no-one reads anything, especially newsletters. Still, do have a look at this one, even if it is only at the end of the month.

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Some of you have emailed us to say you had not received the June 2024 newsletter and ask if they had fallen off the mailing list. The answer has to be an apology. There was no June 2024 newsletter. It is always tricky when a big project is in progress but not yet complete. One holds off saying “We are nearly there” because perhaps tomorrow it will be possible to say “We have arrived”. And so it goes on, and the result is silence. Sorry about that.

The new English lectionary

The big project is the new English lectionary.

The Bishops of England, Wales and Scotland have decided that a new version of the readings at Mass shall be used, starting on Advent Sunday, 1 December 2024. This new Lectionary will use the English Standard Version (a derivative of the RSV) rather than the Jerusalem Bible. This means that everybody in Great Britain needs new Lectionaries and new Missals.

Many people are writing to ask us whether – and when – the new readings will appear in Universalis. The answer is: yes, we intend that they should appear, but we cannot yet exactly say when.

We have received the new texts from the Catholic Liturgy Office. We have processed them and they are in our database. Everyone owes a debt of gratitude to hard-worked volunteers of the Catholic Liturgy Office who not only edited two thousand readings and psalms but also provided them in a format which was so clear and consistent that even a machine could handle them.

It now remains to get permission and make arrangements for the licensing of these texts. The relevant people have been contacted and we are waiting to hear back from them.

As soon as there is more news, it will be announced in this newsletter.

The Universalis podcast

The Universalis podcast has just reached its 18th episode. It continues to be popular and many thousands of people listen to it every week. If you haven’t tried it, do.

Each episode covers the liturgical aspects of the week ahead, with reflections on the saints and on the coming week’s readings. The week starts on Sunday and each episode comes out two days in advance, first thing on Friday morning. The episodes are around 16 minutes long.

Here is how you can listen:

• The Universalis apps and programs remind you each time a new episode appears.
• Our Podcasts page gives access to the current episode and all earlier ones. You can bookmark it and remind yourself to revisit it regularly.
• If you use Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app to follow podcasts and listen to them, our Podcasts page will tell you how to set this up. Both Apple Podcasts and Spotify provide a transcript of each episode. This is generated by machine but is surprisingly accurate.
• NEW: The Universalis podcast is available on YouTube. Again, our Podcasts page has the details.
• The Universalis home page has a “Podcasts” button at the top right.

Mass tourism

Many of you are going to be away over the summer. This is a time when we forget all our normal routines, and Mass is often one of them. We have a hazy memory of hearing that the obligation to attend Mass is suspended “for travellers” and don’t ask ourselves whether someone within easy reach of every facility civilisation can offer, including churches, really counts as a traveller in that sense.

This is a pity because far from being the reluctant execution of an irksome obligation,“Mass tourism” is a rich and fulfilling activity. The Church is universal, which means that we are part of it wherever we go. To go to Mass means instant belonging. Instead of being in a (more or less) picturesque location ornamented with (more or less) picturesque personages, you are in a real place, doing, with real people, what real people do.

I strongly recommend that if you are going away, you make it part of your planning to establish where the churches are and what the times of Masses are. Don’t hold obstinately to Sundays either. There are enriching experiences to be had on any day of the week.

To get you going, the Universalis blog has a Mass Tourism category which has fascinating stories from various parts of the world. I suggest that you read it and get inspiration for your own adventures.

Thank you all for using Universalis. If you have trouble or questions, or suggestions, do write to us at universalis@universalis.com or use the Contact Us button in one of the apps.

Let us all keep one another in our prayers, as always.

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Happy Ascension!

Depending on where you are in the world, this greeting may be reaching you a few days early. This is because the Ascension, like Corpus Christi, is celebrated on Thursday in some countries and dioceses and on Sunday in others.

It is inconvenient having half the world celebrating a feast on the wrong day – “the wrong day” meaning “on a different day from me”. But it is a good opportunity to remind you that Universalis has a great many local calendars in it, so almost wherever you are, you can set Universalis to use your own local calendar. That way you will get the right feasts on the right dates. You may well also get some local feasts specially relevant to you: ones that no-one else celebrates.

We now have a web page explaining how to set your local calendar. It covers all the Universalis apps and programs, and our web site as well.

Pentecost and the “theological season”

Pentecost follows soon after the Ascension.

Pentecost turned the disciples from a rabble of trainees listening to their Master, and sometimes understanding him, into a group of Apostles fired from within by the Spirit who gives all understanding.

Pentecost is often called “the birthday of the Church”. It also marks the start of a short but intense season of what you might call “theological” feasts. Apart from Pentecost itself they include Jesus Christ the Universal High Priest (in some places), the Holy Trinity, and the Body and Blood of Christ. These feasts teach us that our religion is not only a matter of feeling but of understanding, not only of the heart but of the mind.

Characteristically, the Church concludes this mini-season with the feast of the Sacred Heart, reminding us of the opposite fact: that our religion is not only of the mind but of the heart as well.

It all makes sense. Every one of us has a tendency to simplify and become one-sided, and these feasts between them give us balance.

The Universalis podcast

The short theological season following on from Pentecost is well worth taking seriously. If you haven’t already tried the Universalis podcast, do, because it may help. It appears once a week and is about 15 minutes long. The podcast contains reflections on the week ahead, which many people have told us are valuable and stimulating (thank you for saying this!). It also talks about the Liturgy, the way it came about, the way it is structured and how best to use it.

This page has links to all the podcast episodes as they appear. If you are using a podcast app such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you can subscribe to the podcast in your app. That same page has instructions.

“The Creed in Slow Motion”

Talking about thinking about theology, don’t forget the book The Creed in Slow Motion. It continues to have an impact among the people who have bought it, and read it, and re-read it. The Creed in Slow Motion is not a textbook. It does not tell you what to think. It tells you to think, and offers ideas and inspiration to help you do so. This review of the book is impressive, and humbling.

Thank you all for using Universalis. If you have trouble or questions, or suggestions, do write to us at universalis@universalis.com or use the Contact Us button in one of the apps.

Let us all keep one another in our prayers, as always.

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Happy Easter! He is truly risen, alleluia.

If you look at the Lauds and Vespers pages this week, you will find that the psalms are the same every day. That is not a bug. The Church is drunk on the Resurrection and can’t stop celebrating it. Let’s let ourselves go, after the self-control of Lent, and do the same!

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We are just over half way through Lent, and Laetare Sunday has just celebrated the fact. The vestments at Mass were not a Lenten deep purple, but paler and whiter: the books call the colour “rose”. The opening antiphon at Mass didn’t tell us to repent or be sad: it said “be filled with joy”. Laetare Ierusalem, it said in Latin – which is how this Sunday got its name. Even the short reading at Lauds (from the prophet Nehemiah) hammered the point home:

This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not be mournful, do not weep. For this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.

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Welcome to Lent!!

The Gospel for Ash Wednesday neatly summarises the three pillars of Lent: fasting, prayer and almsgiving. When most people think of ‘giving things up for Lent’ they are thinking in terms of the disciplining of body and spirit, which comes under the broad category of ‘fasting’. So let’s leave fasting to one side and look at the other two: prayer and almsgiving.

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After last year’s leisurely four-week Advent the hurried nature of this year’s Advent comes as a bit of a shock. Only three weeks and a day! A lot of activity has to be compressed into a small space, so please accept this short newsletter as our “Happy Advent” and “Happy Christmas” message combined.

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November is traditionally the month of the dead, beginning as it does with All Saints and All Souls. Particular religious orders and particular regions often add to these: All Saints of Ireland, Deceased Clergy of Southern Arabia, Deceased Friends and Benefactors of the Order of Preachers, to give just three examples. November is the right month to assign to these commemorations because it comes at the end of the Church’s year when she contemplates the Last Things, the end of the world, and (at Advent) the Second Coming.

By the same token, November is the month of resurrection: of death as the moment of entry into eternal life. This can feel encouraging; or it can feel quite the opposite. If Judgement consists in God’s telling us, ‘Whatever you have become through your own actions, that is what you are’, then that makes immortality terrifying. We need all the help we can, from God especially, to become something that we can tolerate being: permanently, definitively, for ever.

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The liturgical calendar gives us what you might call spiritual weather. Ordinary weather sets the tone for the day. I am a different person on rainy days, on sunny days, on humid days or windy ones. Or rather, I am the same person but I build my life on a different foundation each time: and so does everybody I meet, because the weather is the same for all of us.

The spiritual weather is the same not just for the people we come across in the street but for almost everyone across the world. Like rain or sunshine, it is a foundation for life. The day is built differently when it is built upon a martyr or a teacher, upon a contemplative or a saint who went out and did things. It is different when the saint is someone like me, whom perhaps I ought to emulate, and different when I feel able to stand back and admire from a safe distance.

(This is why we have the About Today pages in Universalis: and in the apps and programs you will even see pictures to set the scene more clearly. If you are on Instagram, follow the handle universalispublishing.)

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