On December 13, 2024, Pope Francis approved for publication the long-awaited Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours and the third edition of the Martyrology, the Church’s official listing of martyrs and other saints of the liturgical calendar. The news was announced by Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, as part of an interview with the Vatican News Service.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website, the Liturgy of the Hours—also known as the Divine Office—“is the daily prayer of the Church, marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer.” The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH) states that this “public and communal prayer of the people of God” can be traced to Apostolic times. “From the very beginning the baptized ‘remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers’ (Acts 2:42).”
After the Second Vatican Council, the Church revised the liturgical book for the Divine Office and published it in 1971 as the Liturgia Horarum, or “The Liturgy of the Hours.” Before these revisions, the official form was the Brevarium Romanum, the Roman Breviary, published in 1568 with revised editions through 1962.
According to the Vatican News Service interview, the approval for publication of the Supplement and the revised Martyrology “represent a further step towards completion of the liturgical reform desired by the Second Vatican Council.”
“On October 28, 2024, an Ordinary Assembly of the Dicastery unanimously expressed its approval at the publication of both liturgical books,” Cardinal Roche said in the December interview, adding that he was “pleased to announce that the Holy Father, in the audience granted to me last December 12, gave his approval. Therefore, as soon as possible we will be able to start the process of publication.”
Cardinal Roche said in the interview that the Supplement consists of three elements: a two-year cycle of biblical and patristic readings for the Office of Readings, Psalm and Canticle Prayers, and an optional lectionary with an additional selection of readings.
Historical Moment
Pope Francis’s approval of the Supplement, Cardinal Roche said, couldn’t have come at a better time, noting that “in this particular Year of Grace that is the Jubilee we can and must seize the opportunity to rediscover the richness of the Liturgy of the Hours and renew formation on the prayer of the Church.”
Father Neil Xavier O’Donoghue writes in his blog at Pray Tell that Pope Francis’s approval of the Supplement is an historical moment for the Church.
“I think that this is an important landmark for the Roman Rite,” he writes in a January 30 blog post, “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….”
According to Father Andrew Menke, executive director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), Pope Francis’s approval of the Supplement represents an important step in fulfilling the original plan for the Liturgy of the Hours.
“These texts were mentioned in the GILH,” he told Adoremus, “when it was first published in the early 1970’s, but for various reasons they were not actually finalized until now.”
The three elements of the Supplement mentioned by Cardinal Roche, the expanded biblical readings, Psalm and Canticle Prayers, and optional lectionary readings, said Father Menke, means that the Liturgy of the Hours will offer even greater breadth and depth for the faithful who pray or wish to pray these official prayers of the Church.
Father Menke told Adoremus that “this supplementary material, especially the new options for readings from the Fathers and from ecclesiastical writers, will be a great gift. Those who make use of it will find new insights into the interpretation of Scripture and into the spiritual life. I think it could also be very helpful for priests and deacons in the preparation of homilies.”
Three Elements
As for the Psalm and Canticle Prayers, Father Menke said that “the Vatican prepared a first draft of these prayers back in the 1970’s but did not formally promulgate it. However, ICEL obtained a copy of that text and translated it into English. These prayers were included in ICEL’s 1975 translation of the Liturgy of the Hours, which is familiar to those who pray the breviary in the United States and certain other countries. The new collection of Psalm and Canticle Prayers soon to be published in Latin appears to have some similarities with the draft text from the 1970’s, but it seems to have been significantly revised and now also includes prayers to accompany the Canticles.”
The scripture readings provided by the Supplement, according to Father Menke, offer a two-year cycle that expands upon the one-year cycle in the current form of the Liturgy of the Hours.
“This two-year cycle overlaps to some extent with the one-year cycle of readings provided in the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours,” he said, “but obviously provides a more comprehensive collection of Biblical texts. As is the case with the cycle in the current book, each of the Scripture readings in the supplement is followed by a reading from the Fathers or from ecclesiastical authors.”
Father Menke also offered further detail regarding the optional Lectionary, noting that “there are readings that correspond to the Gospels that are read on Sunday in the three-year Lectionary for Mass. There are also readings corresponding to the various seasons of the liturgical year and readings drawn from different periods of the Church’s history. Interestingly, the modern readings include several selections from the writings of St. John Henry Newman.”
The preparation of an English version of the Supplement will soon get underway. “As Cardinal Roche mentioned, the Vatican is still working out the publication of the Latin texts,” Father Menke said. “But the Dicastery has shared electronic files with ICEL and with similar organizations and with bishops’ conferences around the world. So translation work will begin soon, but it’s too early to predict how long it will take. By my count there are over 2,000 pages of material, although the Biblical readings can be drawn from existing translations. ICEL will certainly make this project a high priority.”
Currently, the US bishops plan to publish a new translation of the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours in the coming years, and, according to Father Menke, publication of the Supplement should not hinder this effort.
“It will be interesting,” he added, “to see how this supplementary material will eventually be published. For example, generally speaking, the new two-year cycle of texts does not include the hymns, versicles, and psalmody that are needed to pray the Office of Readings. So perhaps bishops’ conferences might choose to include that material so that the Supplement could be used as a standalone book to pray the Office, although that might require dividing the material into two or more volumes.”
As another option, Father Menke told Adoremus, “perhaps for the sake of trying to keep the book shorter, bishops’ conferences might publish only the readings, although that would require the user to juggle the Supplement with the four-volume breviary. Presumably the picture will get clearer once the translation is developed and the bishops have the opportunity to analyze the material.”
Christopher Carstens contributed to the writing of this story.
