A new Lectionary will come into use in parishes in England, Wales and Scotland from Advent 2024 on 1st December.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments gave its seal of approval on a new Lectionary proposed by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in July of last year. 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 and the Grail Psalms.
Other changes 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. The latest process began with the Roman Missal in 2011 and has continued to work through all the other liturgical rites.The changes are intended to make the biblical translations more faithful to the original languages of Hebrew for the Ole Testament and Greek for the New Testament and using better and more up-to-date biblical scholarship and to use a text which is more suited to scriptural proclamation. The former Jerusalem Version used by the catholic church and the grail psalms was translated in the immediate work after Vatican II and was a translation from the Latin and so once removed from the original writings
Created by a team of over 100 leading scholars, this Anglicized Catholic edition of the ESV is an essentially literal translation of the Bible that seeks as far as possible to reproduce the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each biblical writer. Following a distinct word-for-word translation method, the ESV Bible captures the precise wording of the original texts by rendering each Hebrew or Greek word with an equivalent English word.
When the new Lectionary is introduced, we will notice slightly different wording and phrases from the previous translation with which we have become very familiar. This does not mean the past translations were wrong, but that the new ESV is now more accurate. We may notice this in particular in the responses to the psalms. Our parish readers will also need to ensure they read the new printed text and not rely on “embedded memory” of very familiar passages!
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. If you have any further questions please do speak to Father Emeka.
Alternatively, you may find the answer to your questions on this link from the Bishops’ Conference website. https://www.cbcew.org.uk/lectionary/
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