In November 2025, the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship announced that the Holy See had confirmed the forthcoming English translation of the Liturgy of the Hours, Second Edition. The four-volume edition will be published by Ascension Press and Word on Fire Press beginning in early 2027. Volume II may be used beginning on Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2027. The remaining volumes will be published gradually through the end of next year. Use of the complete second edition will become mandatory on the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028.
Why Is a Second Edition Needed?
The present English Liturgy of the Hours, published in 1975 and 1976, is based on the first Latin typical edition promulgated in 1971. In 1985, the Holy See issued a second typical edition, which replaced the earlier Latin text and incorporated new material, including additional antiphons, calendar changes, and other revisions. The forthcoming edition translates this newer Latin book.
In November 2012, the bishops of the United States voted to begin preparing the revised English edition. After more than a decade of translating and approving its many parts, the completed manuscript was submitted to the Holy See in May 2025 and received confirmation later that year.
The second edition also reflects a revised approach to liturgical translation. The current books were prepared according to principles that emphasized communicating the general sense of the Latin in natural, contemporary English. The new edition reflects the greater attention to the Latin text called for by the 2001 instruction Liturgiam authenticam and Pope Francis in Magnum principium. This approach allows for the development of a “sacral vernacular,” a form of English recognizably suited more to worship rather than ordinary conversation. The texts, written in a slightly higher register, are intended to be suitable for proclamation, memorization, and song, as the public and common prayer of the Church. In this respect, the revised Hours will correspond closely to the language in the current Roman Missal, Third Edition.
A Revised Psalter
The most noticeable change in the new volumes will be the replacement of the 1963 Grail Psalms with the Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the monks of Conception Abbey. The revised Psalter retains the Grail tradition of “sprung rhythm,” a flexible pattern based on stressed syllables that remains especially suited to proclamation and song. At the same time, the new psalm translation follows the Hebrew more closely and renders recurring biblical terms with greater consistency.
Psalm 63 provides an example. The current text begins, “O God, you are my God, for you I long,” while the revised text will read, “O God, you are my God; at dawn I seek you.” This new wording restores the biblical image of seeking God at first light and corresponds more naturally to the psalm’s use at Morning Prayer on Sunday of Week I. The adjustment is characteristic of the revision: the cadence remains recognizably suited to prayer, while an image latent within the text becomes more clearly expressed.
Greater Consistency in Daily Prayer
Beyond the revised Psalter, the new edition will bring the language of Scripture, the Roman Missal, and the other elements of the Office into closer harmony.
- The short readings, longer biblical readings in the Office of Readings, and Gospel canticles will use the new Catholic American Bible. This will allow the Scripture prayed in the breviary, read in personal Bibles, and eventually proclaimed in the Lectionary to speak with greater consistency.
- The new edition will include Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons for Sundays corresponding to the three-year cycle of Gospel readings. Morning Prayer will now anticipate the Gospel proclaimed at Sunday Mass, while Evening Prayer will call it to mind again as the day closes.
- Much like the psalms, the intercessions seek to express biblical imagery with greater accuracy, while the concluding orations will correspond to the prayers of the Roman Missal, Third Edition.
- The Gloria Patri will also use the traditional form familiar to most Catholics: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
- The second edition will contain official English translations of nearly 300 Latin hymns drawn from the history of the Church. They follow the meter of the Latin so that they may be sung either to traditional chant melodies or familiar metrical tunes. The hymns have already appeared in the Divine Office Hymnal and will now be placed directly in each volume.
What Will Remain Familiar?
The patristic and other non-scriptural readings are not being retranslated as a whole, and the Office of Readings will retain its present one-year cycle. The three psalms and certain imprecatory, or “cursing,” verses omitted from the present Psalter will not be restored, since their omission belongs to the Latin edition. The optional psalm-prayers in the current American books, however, will no longer appear because they were never included in the Latin typical edition.
Publication Timeline
Preorders opened on July 1, 2026, for all four volumes, although the books will be shipped in stages. Each volume is expected to arrive approximately one month before its permitted first-use date.
Preparing for Implementation
The staggered publication schedule will allow the new books to be received in a gradual and pastorally sensitive manner. Each volume may be used on its approved date, while the present edition may continue to be used until Advent 2028. Clergy, musicians, religious communities, and lay faithful can therefore become familiar with the revised Psalter, hymns, antiphons, and Ordinary without attempting to absorb every change at once.
To assist in this preparation, the archdiocesan Office of Liturgy is organizing a conference on “Receiving and Celebrating the New Liturgy of the Hours” on Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers. Fr. Matthew Ernest, Christopher Ferraro, Dr. Connor McCain, Fr. Alessandro da Luz, and Diana Pizarro will address the new translation and hymns, the introduction of the Hours into parish life, Tenebrae, and the Hours as a pattern of daily prayer for the lay faithful. The cost is $40 plus fees and includes a hot buffet lunch. Registration is available at tinyurl.com/NewLiturgyOfTheHours. Questions may be directed to liturgy@archny.org or 914-367-8145.
Whether one is new to the Hours or has prayed them for many years, this period of preparation offers an occasion to hear familiar prayer with renewed attention and to receive the revised edition as an invitation to enter more deeply into the daily prayer of the Church.