New lectionary planned for Scotland

By Vatican News

Bishop Hugh Gilbert, OSB, of Aberdeen, Scotland, says the National Liturgy Commission hopes the publication of a new Lectionary “will keep the biblical word alive and active for the holy People of God and shape thought and culture in our changing world.”

Benefitting from new scholarship

The Scottish Bishops have approved a plan to prepare a new Lectionary for the Mass, based on the English Standard Version (ESV) translation. The Church in England and Wales has also made the ESV the basis of their Lectionary. “It makes practical and pastoral good sense for the same translation to be used in Scotland, England and Wales,” says Bishop Gilbert.

The previous English Lectionary for Scotland was based on the Jerusalem Bible translation, published in 1966. In a statement announcing the new Lectionary, the National Liturgy Commission explains, “Considerable progress has been made in biblical scholarship since the early 1960s when the Jerusalem Bible translation was produced. Re-publication of the Lectionary provides an opportunity to benefit from this new scholarship.”

Values embodied by a new Lectionary

The NLC statement also notes the approval of a new English translation of the Book of Psalms – “The Abbey Psalms” – for the Liturgy of the Hours. “To maintain consistency between the translation of Psalms for the Liturgy of the Hours and for the Lectionary a re-publication of the latter is required.”

The need for a new Lectionary and the choice of a translation for the base text was discussed by the Scottish Bishops over the course of the past year. “In reaching a decision for the Lectionary, the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland itself considered the values they would most expect a Lectionary to embody, for example, accuracy, dignity, facility of proclamation, and accessibility.”

The work of editing and publishing the new Lectionary is expected to take several years. When it is published, new Missals as well as other liturgical resources will also be available.