A new Lectionary will come into use in parishes in England, Wales and Scotland from Advent 2024.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments gave its <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.cbcew.org.uk/new-lectionary-to-be-launched-in-england-and-wales-for-advent-2024/">seal of approval</a> </mark>on a new Lectionary proposed by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in July of last year. <br><br>Published by the <a href="https://www.ctsbooks.org/highlights/lectionary/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Catholic Truth Society</mark></a> (CTS), changes to the new lectionary, which includes the scripture readings for Mass and the sacraments, will see the English Standard Version: Catholic Edition (ESV-CE) of the Bible and the Abbey Psalter replacing the Jerusalem Bible with the Grail Psalms.
Other changes, <a href="https://liturgyoffice.org/News/the-new-lectionary-for-england-and-wales/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">according</mark></a> to <em>Liturgy Office</em>, will include the provision for Saints who have been inserted into the Universal Calendar since the last Lectionary was published in 1981. There will also be the readings for the National Calendars. In addition, some of the revised liturgical rites, such as Marriage, have additional readings.
The Lectionary is changing as part of the continuing process of revising liturgical translations, <a href="https://www.ctsbooks.org/highlights/lectionary/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">notes</mark></a> CTS. The process began with the Roman Missal in 2011 and has continued to work through all the other liturgical rites. <br><br>The changes are intended to make the biblical translations more faithful to the original languages, using better and more up-to-date biblical scholarship and to use a text which is "more proclaimable", CTS says.
The new Lectionary will come into force on the first Sunday of Advent 2024. Parishes will not be able to keep using the old Lectionary and will need to change over to the new one by 1 December 2024.
The Lectionary will have a fully up-to-date Proper of Saints, including the new universal and national feasts that have been instituted since the publication of the last Lectionary, and is currently set to consist of 4 volumes:
There will be three different sizes of the Lectionary: a full-size Ambo edition (the same size as the Altar Missal), a smaller chapel edition (the same size as the Chapel Missal), and a study edition for liturgy preparation (the same size as the Study Missal).
The new Lectionary will soon be available in the next few weeks for pre-ordering (on the CTS website it is possible to <a href="https://www.ctsbooks.org/highlights/lectionary/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">sign up to be notified</mark></a> when the Lectionary is available to pre-order) and is due to be in stock in October 2024. A full set is likely to cost several hundred pounds, notes CTS. <br><br>To accompany the roll out of the new Lectionary, CTS and other publishers will be producing people’s Missals in due course including Sunday, Weekday and Daily Missals. <br><br><em>Photo: A Roman Missal on an altar.</em>
