UPDATED: Pre-Orders Ready Again for North America’s Ordinariate Daily Office Book

May 19, 2021

by Peter Jesserer Smith

(Originally published March 9, 2021. Updated with new information on May 19, 2021)
Newman House Press is once again taking pre-orders for the second printing of Divine Worship: Daily Office, the form of the divine office for North America’s Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, as the ACS can now confirm.

Those interested in pre-ordering a copy of Divine Worship: Daily Office should use this official form from Newman House Press. The orders are emailed to and handled by NHP’s John Davis. Shipments have gone out to fulfill both pre-orders from the first printing that ran out at 500 copies, and for the second printing.

Each copy of Divine Worship: Daily Office (North American edition) is $30, not including shipping and handling. Ordinariate parishes, communities, and groups in the U.S. and Canada would do well to leverage the discount rates to provide for their own liturgical use as well as cover the needs of their people: 25% discount for orders of 10-49 copies, and 40% discount for orders over 50.

St. Alban’s Catholic Church, the Ordinariate parish community in Rochester, N.Y. has executed a five-step strategy with great success of inviting and educating people in praying the Daily Office at home and in church. Father Nathan Davis has held in-person and Zoom classes, including teaching people around the Ordinariate, and a weekly Sunday Evensong has now taken off.

ACS readers will note that Jackson Perry and myself provided an update and overview of the errata in the North American edition of Divine Worship: Daily Office. Since then, the second printing fixes some errata from the first printing, while leaving others untouched. The second printing cleans up some confusing directions in Morning and Evening Prayer, and added missing collects for December, but left out the Collect for St. Sylvester (Dec. 31st) and the Common for a Holy Pope. However the second printing's attempt to fix the hour of None introduced a new error with the chapter readings missing from Wednesday through Sunday. A fix for the chapter readings is available here and the text of the missing collect and common is listed at the end of this article.

A fuller analysis of the second printing will be forthcoming. In the meantime, those making corrections can use the online list of errata from the first printing maintained at John Covert’s prayer.covert.org website to pencil in corrections as they go through either the first or second printings of the book.

Widespread adoption of Divine Worship: Daily Office by the laity – not simply obligated clergy – is key for the Ordinariate’s mission. As Fr. Christopher Lindlar pointed out to the ACS in an interview on the forthcoming Commonwealth edition of Divine Worship: Daily Office, “discipleship and evangelisation flow from prayer.” The Daily Office is foundational for Anglican spirituality in the Catholic Church, and this mainstay of prayer and immersion into scripture has powerfully formed evangelizing disciples of Jesus Christ for centuries.

The best gift the Ordinariate clergy and lay leaders can give their parishes, communities, and groups is the gift of praying the Daily Office at home and at church, and transforming their people into missionary disciples in a world that desperately needs them.

Peter Jesserer Smith is the ACS Vice President and a staff writer for the National Catholic Register.

Editor’s note: You can download a copy of the pre-publication form for Divine Worship: Daily Office (North American edition) here.
You can download this fix for the missing chapter readings of the hour of None here.

Here is the missing Collect of St. Sylvester I, Pope (Dec. 31st): BE merciful to the people of thy flock, O Lord, eternal Shepherd of our souls: and keep us in thy continual protection at the intercession of Saint Sylvester, whom thou didst raise up to be shepherd of the whole Church; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Here is the missing Common of a Holy Pope: O EVERLASTING Shepherd, mercifully look upon thy flock: and through the intercession of blessed N. thy Supreme Pontiff, whom thou didst appoint to be shepherd of the whole Church, keep her with thy perpetual protection; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.