More audio in Universalis

Adding Sung Latin Compline to Universalis has been a great success, even though it is so far only available on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. (We do plan to produce an Android version later this year).

Now we have started to add speech as well as music.

Malayalam in Universalis

The project to provide Malayalam translations of the Mass texts – the Order of Mass, the readings and psalms, and the prayers and antiphons – is almost complete.

Because we have been given these texts free of charge, we do not intend to charge for them. Here is how this works:

Android

Catholic Calendar normally has a one-month period during which it shows you the full text that the paid-for Universalis app would show. But if, in the app settings, you set the “Order of Mass” language to “Malayalam”, then for the Mass pages only this time limit is removed and you will be able to view the Mass without ever having to pay.

This is available now.

Windows and Mac

The Universalis program normally has a one-month period during which it shows you everything; after that, you need to buy and enter a registration code if you want to carry on seeing anything other than the “About Today” page. But if, in the “Translations” screen, you set the “Order of Mass” language to “Malayalam”, then the Mass pages will always be visible and will not require a registration code.

This is available now.

iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

Free access to Malayalam text will be available in the next release.

Music in Universalis

We have long wanted to be able to add music to Universalis, and now at last we have been able to take the first step. Users of the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch can now hear:

• The Marian anthem at the end of Compline (Night Prayer), free of charge.
• The whole of sung Latin Compline for Sundays, as an in-app purchase.

A useful liturgical fact is that Sunday Compline is allowed to be used on any day of the week, not just Sunday. A useful technical fact is that we have been able to get Universalis to show the sung Latin in parallel with the English and to highlight each line as it is being sung. This means that as you listen, you know where you are and what the sung words mean.

This music has been recorded specially for us by the Schola Cantorum of The London Oratory School, is one of the leading liturgical choirs in Britain. We are grateful to Charles Cole, the Director of the Schola Cantorum, and the choristers for recording sung Compline. We would also like to express our gratitude to Father George Bowen of the London Oratory for his enthusiasm and support, and to the Fathers of the London Oratory for allowing the recording to be made in St Wilfrid’s Chapel, Brompton Oratory, London.

We intend to provide more music (and audio generally) throughout Universalis, so look out for updates! As soon as more music is available, we will also work on adding it to the Android app and possibly to the Windows and Mac programs.

The two-year cycle of the Office of Readings

Update: Here is how to get the two-year cycle in your Universalis program or app.

When the liturgy was extensively revised in 1970, one of the themes was the inclusion of a far wider range of biblical readings. At Mass, this meant a three-year cycle of Sunday readings and a two-year cycle of weekday readings. In the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours this meant a two-year cycle, both of Scripture readings and of the patristic Second Readings which accompany them.

The two-year cycle covers the whole of salvation history and uses practically every book of the Bible – not avoiding tricky passages which need thorough reading and meditation and aren’t suitable for the “listen fast or it’s gone” nature of the readings at Mass. It is also carefully designed to be out of step with the Mass readings, so that if you hear a passage read at Mass then it won’t appear in the Office of Readings for a year (or at worst, for a few months).

This masterpiece is lovingly described in §§147 to 152 of the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours. But if you look in the actual printed books – it isn’t there. In its place is a one-year cycle of readings, covering half the material.

An English Christmas bug

Since at various times it has been necessary to point out errors in the American version of the Liturgy, particularly around Christmas, it seems only fair to say that the English translator has his moments as well.

At First Vespers for the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Magnificat antiphon is taken from the Magnificat antiphons for the days between 18 and 24 December.

At Vespers for the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Magnificat antiphon is taken from the Magnificat antiphons for the days between 18 and 24 December.

So far, so good.

But at Lauds (Morning Prayer) for the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Benedictus has antiphons of its own, a different one for each year of the three-year cycle. The English version ignores this fact. It says that the Benedictus antiphon should be ‘as provided among the antiphons for 17 to 23 December’.

This is wrong.

 

Psalms of the day in the daytime Hours

 

A question has been asked on Stack Exchange about why Universalis sometimes gives a choice of psalms for the daytime Hours and sometimes not. I don’t live on Stack Exchange, but Andrew Leach, who does, pointed the question out to me and I thought that it might be worth putting the answer on the Universalis blog.

The Breviary gives a set of psalms to be used at a daytime Hour – at the daytime Hour, if you only recite one, or at a daytime Hour if you recite two or three of them in the day. The remaining daytime Hours then use what are called “complementary psalms”, one for Terce, one for Sext, one for None. So the simple rule is: pick one Hour for the psalms of the day, and use the complementary psalms at the other Hours.

Now and then, however, the Breviary sets limits on when you use the psalms of the day. For instance, on Monday of the third week of Advent, if you recite Sext, then you must use the psalms of the day at Sext and not at another hour. Only a few days are affected, and the restriction looks rather arbitrary. The Stack Exchange question asks for a reason for it, because no reason is given in the Breviary.

When I was programming Universalis I had to include the restriction, and I was also curious about the reasons. It turned out to be simple once I’d worked it out. Looking at my example of Monday of the third week of Advent, Vespers includes Psalm 70(71), and so do the complementary psalms for Sext. Thus, in the interest of not having the same psalm twice on the same day, one shouldn’t use the complementary psalms at Sext – which, turned round, becomes “If you are celebrating Sext, you must use the psalms of the day then”.

Liturgia Horarum as an e-book

Universalis has had Latin available as an option for some time, but only as the Latin half of Latin-English parallel texts.

Now we have created a Universalis e-book in Latin only. it contains the Liturgy of the Hours for every hour of every day of the year 2013. We will publish an e-book for 2014 before the beginning of 2014. UPDATE: this e-book has now been published.

The e-book is available in both Kindle format (for the Amazon Kindle) and ePub format (for all other e-readers).

The e-book is available as a free download from our web site. This is because (bizarrely) Amazon and the other distributors refuse to distribute anything that is written in Latin.

Each hour is complete in itself. For example, if you want to see (for example) Vespers for Monday 18 November, you look in the Index dierum, click on Dies 18 novembris, and then click on Ad Vesperas. Everything will be there. There is no need to jump backwards and forwards as you would with a printed breviary.

If an optional memorial falls on a particular day, you can view both the Office of the memorial and the Office of the feria. If a local calendar has a different celebration from the General Calendar, you have access to them both. Here is a list of the calendars that Universalis knows about.

Do download the e-book and try it out, and do recommend it to anyone you know who might find it useful. As well as actual e-readers, practically all mobile phones and tablets have software available that will read either the ePub or the Kindle format.

Parallel texts: a reminder

You can view the Liturgy of the Hours in a parallel Latin-English version on the Universalis web site: here is an example.

All the Universalis apps can optionally display Latin and English together, as can any Universalis e-books you create for your own use.

How the selection switches work for Mass

In Universalis you will see selection switches at the top of the Mass readings for certain days. What these switches look like depend on where you are looking at Universalis: typically, on the downloaded versions, there will be a pale blue arrow at the top right of the page, which pops up a menu if you touch it or click on it.

These selection switches have subtly different meanings at different times.

The American Christmas bug

The last post, The Christmas Calendars, described how the transition is made between the season of Christmas, which reckons time in days after Christmas, and Ordinary Time, which reckons it in weeks starting on a Sunday.

There are two options at this time: the religious and the commercial. The religious calendar celebrates the Epiphany on 6 January, so the transition from Christmas to weeks happens after the Epiphany season. The commercial calendar celebrates the Epiphany on the Sunday between 2 and 8 January, so the transition from Christmas to weeks happens before the Epiphany season. The last post had a couple of elegant tables to show how it all works.

With adjustments to calendars come adjustments to liturgies. 6 January (when not the Epiphany) and 7 January (before the Epiphany) are days that are not part of the religious calendar, and yet they need to have a liturgy. The last post described how these liturgies were put together.

That is how things work in the whole world, both in the original Latin and in English translation. However, the American translation is different, and wrong.

The Christmas calendars

At some point the Christmas season has to end and we have to get back to normal life. Liturgically this means that we have to finish the twelve days of Christmas, celebrate the Epiphany, and get back to normal life. Since “normal life” means starting the week on a Sunday, and since Christmas Day is on different days of the week in different years, this inevitably means an awkward splice.

This post describes how it all works in the context of the Liturgy of the Hours.