Maybe this news item didn’t receive the attention it deserved as it appeared so close to Christmas, but Cardinal Roche, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine worship, announced in an interview with the Vatican News Service that the famous Volume V (or Supplementum) of the Liturgy of the Hours will be published during the present Jubilee Year. An Ordinary Assembly of the Dicastery gave the book its placet on October 28 and it was approved by Pope Francis on December 13 last (along with the third edition of the Martyrology). Now the Dicastery is working on the actual publication of the book.
I think that this is an important landmark for the Roman Rite as it is, to my knowledge, the last of the renewed liturgical books that remains to be published following the general renewal of all the rites in the wake of the Council. Many books have been published in second editions (editio typica altera) and a third typical edition of the Roman Missal has been published (along with further minor revisions to this in a later printing), but this is a book that has not been published before. The last such book was the new edition of the Rite of Exorcisms and Related Supplications (published in Latin in 1998 and in a private English translation for the use of bishops by the USCCB in 2017).
To my knowledge this is the last of the liturgical books to be published in the renewal of the Roman Missal, Ritual, Pontifical and Liturgy of the Hours. I stand to be corrected, but I am not aware of any other book that remains to be published in the Latin typical edition (we are still waiting for an English translation of the renewed Martyrology).
I have written before about the Biennial Office of Readings (here, here and here). Now it seems that they will finally be available, at least in a Latin typical edition. Cardinal Roche commented that it is a “substantial project.” When the Liturgy of the Hours was originally published shortly after the Council the biennial office was rumored to have been removed from the published edition due to its large size. Now we will be able to have access to it. Various countries have incorporated elements of the Biennial Office of Readings into their editions of the liturgy of the Hours, including the recently published Argentine version that includes a full biennial cycle of Readings for both the first and second readings.
The Supplementum will also contain the Psalm Prayers (Orationes super psalmos et cantica), which those familiar with the US edition of the Liturgy of the Hours already know. These were not included in the Latin editio typica of the volumes, but a version found its way into the US edition. It will be interesting to see how alike the US version is to the officially published version.
Finally the Supplementum will also include the Lectionarium ad libitum for the Office of the Readings of the Liturgy of Hours. This is described in numbers 161-of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hourswhich says that:
Besides the readings assigned to each day in the Liturgy of the Hours there is an optional lectionary with a larger selection of readings, in order that the treasures of the Church’s tradition may be more widely available to those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Everyone has permission to take the second reading either from the Liturgy of the Hours or from the optional lectionary.
Besides the readings assigned to each day in the Liturgy of the Hours there is an optional lectionary with a larger selection of readings, in order that the treasures of the Church’s tradition may be more widely available to those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Everyone has permission to take the second reading either from the Liturgy of the Hours or from the optional lectionary.
This can be supplemented with suitable readings by the bishops’ conference reflecting the spiritual traditions of a particular territory. Cardianl Roche explains that this
In the Lectionarium ad libitum that we now propose, while always reserving the priority given to the texts of the holy Fathers, ancient and medieval texts of saints (especially Doctors of the Church) and of blessed, as well as texts of authors who are closer to us, whose healthy doctrine and exemplarity of life are recognized. This optional Lectionary is composed, for each liturgical time (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time), it also includes readings commenting on the passages of the Sunday Gospel and specific sections according to the most appropriate and appropriate themes. I can say without fear of contradiction that this Lectionarium – even it is as its name says optional – is an authentic treasure of precious texts that will be able to enrich and promote the spiritual growth of the people of God.
I, for one, look forward to this text and can only pray that its translation into English will take less that fifty years. It is understandable that the translation will be a vast project. But, hopefully Catholics will rally around the new opportunity for renewal in prayer and liturgy and provide the expertise to translate it and enough people will commit to buying it to make its publication possible.
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