The Catholic Truth Society (CTS), which has been commissioned by the bishops’ conferences of England & Wales and Scotland to produce the new lectionary due to come into use on the first Sunday of Advent this year, has announced what the new liturgical books will look like and cost. The lectionary will be in four volumes and available in an Ambo edition (£695), Chapel edition (£395) and Study edition (£250). Already from the advance publicity, it is evident these will be very beautiful books – the Ambo edition bound in padded leather with gilt blocking, designed to lie flat, with cloth bound slipcase. The text is to be set out in “sense lines” to make proclaiming the word easier. As we already know, the text will be modified from the English Standard Version Catholic Edition (ESV-CE) together with the already published Abbey Psalms (a reworking of the 1963 Grail psalms which have been in use since the liturgical reforms in English). There will also be a Gospel Book (basic hardback edition £275) and accompanying people’s missals for Sundays (standard edition £19.95; leather bound edition £29.95) and, in April 2025, a reissue of the people’s Daily Missal. CTS is encouraging pre-ordering of the lectionary ahead of its scheduled release in October this year and offering a 15% discount to those who do so before 30 June 2024. More at newlectionary.org
The Ambo version of these are only available as a full set of four at a cost of £690. We have three churches in the parish and simply can’t afford these overly lavish volumes, three of which will be gathering dust at two of our churches which only have a Sunday Mass.
The CTS will publish the Abbey Psalms and Canticles in September 2024: https://www.ctsbooks.org/product/the-book-of-psalms-and-canticles/
Abbey Psalms and Canticles has been reissued in the USA by Magnificat Publications and is available here: https://bookstore.magnificat.net/the-abbey-psalms-and-canticles.html
It is also available in a Kindle edition from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbey-Psalms-Canticles-USCCB-ebook/dp/B0CNM6HV4Q
When can we expect be able to have a publication of all the Psalms in numerical order – in the new Abbey translation?
Saddened that these are bound in leather. Queen Camilla has vowed not to buy any new fur. The Church could have set a good example here.