I’ve now nearly finished writing a Mac version of the downloadable Universalis program. If you are a Mac user and want to try it out, please let me know, either by email or as a comment on this blog entry, and I’ll tell you how you can download and install it.

It works beautifully on my iMac running Leopard, but I’d like to know how it works on older versions of Mac OS X: on Tiger, for instance. And if you have a Mac that is PowerPC-based rather than Intel-based, I’d like to see if I can produce a Universal version that works for you.

If you have already bought a registration code then you can use it on the Mac version. If you haven’t, then you don’t need to buy one just yet: if you install the Mac version today then it’ll work as a trial version until the end of April.

LATER: Thank you all for your responses and your comments on the program! The download is now generally available. Click here for the download.

When Easter is early, the feasts of St Joseph and the Annunciation may fall in Holy Week or Easter Week. The rules say that in that case they should be celebrated on the next free day, which is the Monday after Easter week; or on the Monday and the Tuesday if both feasts have to be moved, as they do this year.

This “traffic jam” of feasts has been felt to be inconvenient and so the rules have been changed from 2008 onwards, so that St Joseph is moved backwards to the Saturday before Holy Week.

The calendar on the Universalis site now implements the new rules and the downloadable programs will do so soon.

There is a further complication in Ireland and other places where St Patrick is celebrated as a solemnity. In these places, when there is an earlier Easter, St Patrick is moved earlier to avoid Holy Week, and St Joseph is moved one day earlier still, to the Friday before Holy Week. If you have the appropriate local calendar selected, Universalis will do this also.

Universalis is responsible for distributing criminal content on an international scale. Apart from places such as China and Pakistan, Universalis also helps anti-social elements in Malaysia to subvert the law, as this testimonial shows.

People using AvantGo to read Universalis on the Pocket PC have been complaining that AvantGo makes the Universalis page slightly too wide for the screen, so that you have to keep on scrolling left and right as you read each line.

I’ve tried this out and I think I’ve found a way round it: at least, it works on my iPaq.

1. In AvantGo, view a Universalis content page: for example, the About Today page for any day (it doesn’t seem to matter which page, actually).
2. Tap on the word “Menu” at the bottom left-hand corner, and a menu will pop up.
3. From the pop-up menu, select “Options” and then “Page Options”.
4. An Option Manager window will open, giving options that will apply to the Universalis pages. This page has multiple pages but it usually opens on the “Browser” page, which is the one you want.
5. You’ll see that “Maximum font size” is set to “x-Large”. Set it to “Large” instead, and tap on “OK”.
6. The Universalis page will now appear narrow enough to fit on your screen, and the horizontal scroll bar (at the bottom of the screen) will have disappeared.

While you’re in the Option Manager window, you may find life more convenient if you change “Dragging pen” from “selects” to “scrolls”, since you’re more likely to be scrolling through Universalis than you are to be selecting text within it.

Readers of Universalis who know the work of Ronald Knox – and those who don’t – may enjoy this review of his “Essays in Satire”.

From time to time someone notices that a reading on Universalis is different from a reading in a book or on some other site. I thought I’d gather together the commonest reasons for this happening.

1. Mistakes

It’s possible that I have made a mistake or have typed something in wrongly. This becomes less likely as the years go on, because the readings are generated automatically from a permanent database: so if someone discovered an error back in 1999 and pointed it out, it will have been corrected in 1999 and will never occur again. But I am sure that there are still quite a few mistakes there that no-one has yet noticed or reported! If you think you have found a mistake then please let me know.

Other people can make mistakes too. For instance, this year one reader pointed out a difference between the Office of Readings psalms for the Friday after Ash Wednesday in Universalis (psalm 77(78)) and the printed “St Joseph’s Guide” (psalm 54(55)). In fact psalm 77(7 is used in Advent, Christmastide, Lent and Eastertide, and psalm 54(55) at all other times. The compiler of this year’s St Joseph’s Guide must have thought that Lent started only on the First Sunday of Lent: but both the Latin and the English breviaries agree that Lent starts on Ash Wednesday.

2. Allowable variations

On most saints’ days it is allowable either to use the readings of the saint or the readings of the day. The exceptions are (a) during high seasons such as Advent, when the readings of the day must be used, and (b) when the saint’s day has a high rank (feast or solemnity).

In most cases when there is a choice, Universalis uses the saint’s readings. Quite often parish priests take the opposite approach. This is one of the cases where you may find that Universalis and your priest disagree but both are right.

3. The third, fourth and fifth Mondays in Lent

On the third Sunday in Lent, the Gospel reading is of the Samaritan woman (the “living water” passage from John).

Because of the rule that all Sunday readings should change on a three-year cycle, this reading occurs only in Year A. Because it is such an important reading and should not be omitted even in Years B and C, the Missal contains “alternative readings” for the third week of Lent, which contain exactly this Gospel. It strongly recommends that the alternative readings should be used on one day in the third week in Years B and C, so that the “living water” passage is not forgotten.

Universalis follows this recommendation by using the alternative readings for Monday of the third week of Lent. Other authorities may do it on a different day in that week, or may not do it at all (since it is, after all, only a recommendation).

Exactly the same thing happens in the fourth week of Lent, when the Gospel for Year A is the story of the man born blind (the “I am the light of the world” passage from John), and in the fifth week, when it is the story of the woman caught in adultery.

This is another case where Universalis can disagree with other sources but both can still be right.

A user in Japan reported that random Japanese characters were appearing in the Gospel display when she was using the stand-alone Universalis on her Japanese-language iPaq.

This was because of a difference in the way that Microsoft’s operating system (Windows Mobile 5.0) works on international and Japanese-language palmtops. The stand-alone (downloadable) version of Universalis has been altered to work round this problem, and the version now available for download from the Universalis site will work identically on Windows Mobile computers anywhere in the world.

For technical readers, and for Google searchers who are looking for the reason for this strange behaviour: in the rest of the world, the CP_ACP option of MultiByteToWideChar uses a single-byte character set (usually Windows 1252). In Japan (and probably in other East Asian countries) it uses a double-byte character set. This behaviour is poorly documented. It needs to be worked round if you have characters such as quotation marks in the text you are trying to display, because the quotation mark will be taken as the first byte of a DBCS character.

There are two unbreakable rules that guide the layout of the liturgy in Advent:

1. Sundays are more important than anything else.
2. The days from 17 December onwards are more important than anything else.

What happens when 17 December falls on a Sunday? This posting is about what happens when the two unbreakable rules collide, as they did in 2006.

Let’s give names to the two possible outcomes:

3. Use all the prayers, psalms, antiphons and readings for the 3rd Sunday of Advent. If anything is missing, fill it up from what is given for 17 December.

17. Use all the prayers, psalms, antiphons and readings for 17 December. If anything is missing, fill it up from what is given for the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Universalis (based on the second edition of the Latin Breviary) uses 3 because that is what I think the Latin means: see the arguments below.

The English Breviary (published by Collins in 1974 and based on the first edition of the Latin Breviary) uses 3.

My correspondents tell me that the American Breviary published by the Catholic Publishing Company in 1975 and also based on the first edition of the Latin Breviary) uses 17.

It will be my contention that 17 is wrong and 3 is right.

What the breviary says - language

DOMINICA III ADVENTUS

Si haec dominica occurrit die 17 decembris,… dicendae sunt lectiones, necnon antiphonae ad Benedictus et Magnificat atque preces quae infra, 278-284, pro singulis diebus assignantur, omissis iis, quae hic pro dominica III ponuntur.

“If the 3rd Sunday of Advent occurs on the 17th of December, use the readings, Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons, and prayers given to each individual day on pages 278-284, having been omitted those that are here given for the 3rd Sunday”.

[Pages 278-284 give readings for 17 December].

Now there are two possible readings for that “having been omitted”.

3. TAKE the things from 17 December BUT THEN LEAVE OUT OF THE COLLECTION OF THINGS YOU’RE TAKING any of those things that are specified under the “3rd Sunday” heading.

17. TAKE the things from 17 December AND LEAVE OUT OF CONSIDERATION the things that are specified under the “3rd Sunday” heading.

Now the Latinists I have consulted agree that - as one of them put it - “you can’t omit something that you haven’t put in”. In other words, you have to have been told to take something first before you can be told to omit it. This happens with 3 (take the things from 17 December first and then drop some of them) but not with 17 (drop the 3rd Sunday without taking any of it at all).

A partisan of 17 might contend that different experts may have different views, and that Latin is a living language and modern Latin is different from the Latin of 2000 years ago. So let’s look for further evidence.

What the breviary says - rubrics

In Morning Prayer for the 3rd Sunday, you get a series of Benedictus antiphons (one each for years A, B, and C), and then the rubric

Si vero occurrat die 17 decembris, antiphona Scitote, p.281

“If this Sunday falls on 17 December, use the antiphon “Scitote” from the 17 December stuff on page 281.”

If 17 were correct, there would be no need for this rubric since we will already have been told to use everything from 17 December anyway – in fact we’d already have turned to those pages and wouldn’t be looking in the 3rd Sunday at all.

The same thing happens all over again in Evening Prayer, with the Magnificat antiphon.

As for the Office of Readings, the psalm antiphons are specified in the usual way and then, before the readings and responsory, we get this rubric:

Die 17 decembris, versus, lectiones et responsoria, p.278.
Ante diem 17 decembris, dicuntur ut sequitur:

“On 17 December, the versicles, readings and responsories from page 278 [ie. 17 December].
“Before 17 December, use the following: “

So if 17 is true, the rubricist has wasted his time by writing three rubrics which are completely redundant because 17 says it all already. So not only is 17 not favoured by Latin scholars, but it also makes the other rubrics for the 3rd Sunday pointless.

So 3, which gives the most natural meaning to the Latin and doesn’t make nonsense of the extra rubrics, is clearly the winner.

An example from Evening Prayer

All this was originally drawn to my attention by someone called Richard, who pointed out that the Vespers reading for Sunday 17 December 2007 seemed wrong: it was Philippians 4:4-5 (3rd Sunday) instead of the 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (17 December) that he’d been expecting. At the risk of making you explode with boredom if you already agree with me, here are all the relevant parts of Vespers for the 3rd Sunday of Advent:

Short reading - Philippians 4:4-5

Short responsory - the text is identical to the text for 17 December, so there isn’t any useful evidence here.

Magnificat antiphon:

Year A - “Tu es qui venturus es…”
Year B - “Ego baptizo in aqua…”
Year C - “Respondit Ioannes dicens…”

Si vero occurrat die 17 Decembris - “O Sapientia…” (p.284)
["But if this day happens to fall on 17 December"]

Prayers: “Redemptorem nostrum Iesum Christum…”

Concluding prayer: “Deus, qui conspicis populum tuum…”

Now under interpretation 3, this is a perfectly rational Hour. Various components are given and a specific exception is given to ensure that one of the great and famous “O…” antiphons is used if the Sunday happens to be 17 December. Under interpretation 17, on the other hand, the “Si vero occurrat die 17…” rubric is simply wrong. Either wrong because you shouldn’t be reading it at all (having turned to 17 December for everything), or wrong because it gives just one change (to the Magnificat antiphon), whereas interpretation 17 commands that we take everything from 17 December, not just the antiphon.

Conclusion

I rest my case. The American translator got it wrong, and on 17 December 2017 (the next time that the 17th falls on a Sunday) the American-speaking world will get it wrong as a result. Since the Americans are using the American translation and think that their translation is right, and the English are using the English translation and think that their translation is right, no-one has a motive to appeal to Rome for a definitive ruling, and the matter is likely to remain forever unresolved. As schisms go, this is not a very big one.

Postscript

A kind correspondent informs me that the American breviary’s translation of the relevant rubric is:

When this Sunday occurs on December 17th, the hymns are taken from those given on 132-136. The readings, antiphons for the canticles of Zechariah and Mary, and the intercessions, 318-325, assigned for each day, are used. Those for the Third Sunday are then omitted.

I have now spoken to the Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference for England and Wales, and they confirm that interpretation 3 is correct, interpretation 17 is wrong, and the American rubric is a mistranslation.

“The good man takes pity and lends”, says Psalm 111. So when a friend of mine asked me to lend him £50 because a cheque had arrived late, I knew what I had to do.

But how to do it? Lending money and borrowing money are good ways of losing friends. Here’s the solution that leapt into my mind at that moment. It worked then, and I’ve told other people about it, and it seems to work for them too.

The trouble with lending is that the money needs to be paid back. If he doesn’t pay, has he forgotten, or is he temporarily unable to pay, or is he cynically gambling that I won’t remember? If he has genuinely forgotten, and I tactfully don’t remind him, it will be awkward in a year’s time when neither of us can remember whether he’s paid me back or not. If he can’t pay, and I do remind him, I will cause trouble and embarrassment. And so it goes on…

I didn’t lend him the money. I told him: “Here is a gift of £50. I shall make up for that gift by giving £50 less to church collections over the next month or two. When you are ready to repay me, don’t pay me, but give £50 extra to a church collection”.

So I get paid back without any worries. My friend pays back to God whenever he is able to do so. I don’t need to worry about when he’ll do it or whether he’ll do it: that is between him and God and it’s none of my business.

My friend got his money and our friendship survived.