Irish Liturgical Resources

This week we are celebrating St Patrick’s Day and in many English-speaking areas everything Irish is given special attention.  Needless to say, I am in favor of this attention that is being given to my native place. But I think it would be good to look at some Irish liturgical resources to complement the other less-liturgical aspect of various celebrations of Irishness and what sometimes passes for it. 

Veritas Publications, the main Irish Catholic publisher, ceased business a few months ago and the Secretariat for Liturgy of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, decided to make some of their more recent resources available for free in pdf format on the Conference website.

PrayTell readers may be interested in the National Proper for Ireland. These Mass propers are beautiful prayers that were published in 2007 and then incorporated into the 2011 edition of the Roman Missal that was published in Ireland (with some very minor medications to match the assembly’s responses to the new responses). The texts are only approved for Ireland, but readers might like to look at the proper for St Patrick’s Day for inspiration as they prepare for the liturgy that day. There are many other saints days as well that may also be of interest to those who bear the names of Irish saints. 

Another document that is also of wide interest is a directory for Weekdays gatherings when the Eucharist is not celebrated (It is Good for Us to Be Here). This is a comprehensive pastoral resource, and the essays therein are almost as relevant outside Ireland as inside (and even on Sundays when there is no Eucharist)  

A third document that is of wide application is the National Center for Liturgy’s guide to Liturgical Music (Singing the Mystery of Faith). Here readers will find a comprehensive guide to liturgical music that can be of value in the formation of parish liturgical ministers in a wide variety of contexts. 

Fr. Neil Xavier O'Donoghue

Neil Xavier O’Donoghue is originally from Cork, Ireland. He is a presbyter of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ who has ministered in parishes on both sides of the Atlantic. He has spent many years as an academic mentor to seminarians. Neil currently serves as Programme Director for Liturgical Programmes at the Pontifical University and as Acting Director of the National Centre for Liturgy. Since 2020 he has also served as the Executive Secretary for Liturgy to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. He has studied at Seton Hall University (BA, MDiv), the University of Notre Dame (MA), and St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (MTh). He holds a Doctorate in Theology (Ph.D.) from St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and is in the process of completing a second doctorate (D.D) in the Pontifical Facultad de Teología Redemptoris Mater in Callao, Peru. Neil has published a translation of the Confessio of St. Patrick: St. Patrick: His Confession and Other Works (Totowa, NJ, 2009), as well editing the third edition of Fredrick Edward Warren’s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Piscataway, NJ, 2010). In 2011 the University of Notre Dame Press published The Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland an adaptation of his doctoral thesis and in 2017 the Alcuin Club published his Liturgical Orientation: The Position of the President at the Eucharist. His articles have appeared in The Irish Theological Quarterly, New Blackfriars, The Furrow and Antiphon. He writes a monthly article on some aspect of the theology of Pope Francis in the Messenger of St. Anthony and blogs regularly at PrayTell.

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One response to “Irish Liturgical Resources”

  1. Felix Alabi

    Thanks for sharing.
    I studied in Maynooth.

    Reply

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