where are the images? were there new updates on release?

Veni et noli tardare!!!! They look beautiful. I am especially ready to say goodbye to the 70s pink images forever.

I'm not aware of any plans to release a "singing edition". Something like the current Mundelein Psalter will become obsolete. And with all the translations copyrighted, there will be no legal way of pointing the psalms to sing vespers according to the new edition.

I'd be happy to work on such a project, but I don't know who to even speak with at the USCCB or if they are even interested in such a thing. Which is why those who wish to sing the office will have to use the traditional Latin texts.

Yes, but in a seminary or parish where vespers is only sung on occasion (Sundays, Feasts, etc.) a resource like the Mundelein Psalter was a great help.

Creating and printing a custom worship aid wouldn't be such a big deal if the texts were made available electronically, but it would also require permission to do it legally. One can subscribe to eBreviary and print the office legally, but one can't edit the PDF directly to point it for singing.

I know a vast majority of priests and religious will only ever read the breviary, but the Church should encourage the sung office by providing practical resources to make it happen.

Something like Source and Summit would be great for the Office with the ability to instantly render the text pointed for a variety of psalm tones.

I guess my main issue with Mundelein is that they dont use the Gregorian tones.

My understanding is that the Psalms and Canticles will have at least asterisks and daggers, so that will make them a bit easier to chant. I've also heard that there is discussion about having the final stressed syllable in each line marked, which would help with chanting. I think there might also be a set of tones included in an appendix, but I don't know what tones those might be.

The psalm divisions are still too long to use with Gregorian tones, or they’re way too short because English. The former is a choice!

Sure but the division in the vernacular psalters is sort of bizarre for singing and maybe even recitation. This means that the tones can’t be applied consistently.

I'm just pretty sure the new Psalter has dropped some of the sibilants from "So my soul sings psalms unceasingly." It is perhaps not a great thing when a psalm makes you chuckle, though "It is good to give thanks to the Lord" is only ever heard in John Paul II's accent in my home.

Oh I had the opposite reaction, I was praying that CBP would NOT be chosen. I always find that their products fall apart and look cheasy to my eye.

Yeah, but a lot of priests go with CBP because the books are reliable and familiar, even if ugly. One wonders if the companies themselves had a bad go of it, including financially, and didn't jump in.

But "media organizations" publishing the breviary…that's the semi-official framing, and good riddance. The mock-ups so far of the spine look terrible.

Also, if the typical edition itself only gives page numbers but not the incipit of a hymn, good riddance.

And this goes back to the destruction of Mame, Benziger, Desclée, Dessain, Pustet, etc.

As it is, they will have a hard time competing with the digital offerings. I'm surprised the USCCB hasn't jumped on that bandwagon faster. The vast majority of clergy I know use some kind of app for praying the Liturgy of the Hours - some even for the communal Office.

Two problems: the clergy need to stop being so unedifying and lazy. Evergreen, but it's true, and while it's one thing to pray on one's phone in a dental waiting room when one wasn't expecting to wait forever, doing so in church or habitually is another matter.

There is for some reason, with the first edition, a problem of "page numbers" wherein people need to be told page numbers, not the parts from which something is taken: proper of the season, of the saints, common, the day of the week. But if you have different editions, or only Christian Prayer versus the four-volume set, you're going to be lost. And it's not just me, a layman, annoyed; there was a good discussion where an older priest (solidly middle-aged, been a priest a while) was complaining about how he hoped that "the page numbers would be the same, otherwise priest gatherings would be a problem" and a younger priest was like "no, you are not first-year seminarians in orientation week. Learn to set your breviary, in advance."

and the laity who prefer the new office, such as various third-order members, also have this problem. There's a whole ordo that refers to page numbers! What are we doing here?! (I understand that the layout is not friendly, and this goes back to "why did we reinvent the wheel" but still.)

What about the spines look so horrendous?

While "horrendous" seems a bit extreme, I'm not real keen on the Ascension logo. WoF, in the other hand, looks pretty good to me.

I too was a bit disappointed that Magnificat was not chosen. They are my go-to for ritual books.

FWIW, twenty year ago I sprang for the leather bound CPBC volumes and two decades later they're still in excellent shape, other than the printing being worn off the spine (for which my sweaty hands take full responsibility).

fcb --

What a coincidence- exactly twenty years ago I did the same thing and the condition of my set is just as you describe yours!

:-)

Gaudete in Domino Semper!

@Earl_Grey speaking from a monastery having to choose where to make a 3 liner and where to make a 2 liner in a community that chants is a constant source of contention. I was over joyed to see in one of the pictures that they are finally marking the flex +.

The font selections are terrible for the Ascension spine. Sans serif fonts belong nowhere near a breviary, and it's not 1940, we can drop slab serifs. Paper's not cheap, but it's not a rationed commodity. Classic humanist/roman serifs only.

Adding stuff is also just not necessary. You need the volume number or season name or something, that's it.

It is not that hard to make a breviary, insofar as it is trivial to make a pastiche of an older edition. And the spine already departs radically. They aren't in control of everything on the inside, sure, but the spine is apparently fair game…

as to the division 1) the original idea is dumb, dumb, dumb 2) the breviary and antiphonal did not always align historically, but at least you had 1 verse neatly divided, so the office could always be sung recto tono without too much trouble.

The reason you (a general you as much as a personal one) should care is that we should have beautiful things that are easy to read.

I think that there is a place for artistic innovation or creativity. (Without endorsing the publisher) Alcuin Reid’s bunch are publishing the monastic breviary. These typefaces to me are legible and have a lot of character. They’re trying to approach the aesthetic of a particular earlier edition of that breviary.

Slab serif fonts for body text are just too tiny and hard to make out with respect to letters and therefore words. It’s my one criticism of the Saint Andrews missal. They got easier to read and more typographically pleasing as the amount of content was reduced. The late 50s editions are my favorites. But I prefer the 1945 content.

Sans serifs are divorced from the print tradition and that of manuscripts and Roman stone carving such that they really have no place in the liturgical books whatsoever. It’s decisively modern, in a bad way. But you can do modern and interesting with legible serifs.