UPDATE — October 2026: Digital and audio licensing opens in mid-2027
Many of you have asked us whether the Second Edition will ever come to DivineOffice.org. We have now received the answer we have been waiting for. The USCCB’s Office for the Biblical Apostolate has told us that digital and audio licensing for the Second Edition will open in mid-2027, well in advance of the mandatory-use date.
The Bishops’ Conference has also described how the new text will reach mobile applications. Publishers selected to carry the Second Edition in an app will receive access to a secure service provided by the USCCB. That service delivers the approved text in a structured form, so each publisher can present it clearly for its own readers while the words themselves remain exactly as the Church approved them. Royalties will be based on usage, and an outside reviewer will be part of the approval process.
This is excellent news for our community. There is now a defined path, with a date, for bringing the new translation to the website, the apps, the podcast and the accessible versions many of you depend on. We intend to apply as soon as licensing opens. Selection rests with the USCCB, and we will be ready to meet every requirement they set.
Why we are preparing now. When licensing opens, the work will need to move quickly. Every Hour of every day of the liturgical year will need to be recorded again in the new translation, reviewed, edited and published. That means a recording studio set up and ready, readers and cantors ready to record for several weeks without a break, and a post-production team ready to follow right behind them. It means our website and apps prepared to receive the new text on the day it becomes available to us.
We will not be starting from nothing or without references. Twenty years of praying with you have taught us what matters:
- Clear, impassioned but reverent reading — avoiding a dramatic, distracting delivery;
- Audio and text accessibility, created to reach those isolated by illness or age, while helping those with busy lives find the space and time to join the whole Church in prayer;
- Simple, beautiful, uncluttered page layouts that keep your attention on the prayer.
As we promised, your comments, emails and testimonies will shape every choice in this new recording.
Will DivineOffice.org switch to the new edition on Ash Wednesday 2027? The Second Edition may be used from Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2027, but digital and audio licensing opens only in mid-2027, so we cannot publish the new text on that day. We will not wait idle until then. As soon as the first printed volume reaches us, we will begin preparing the text and the recordings, and build the complete new version of DivineOffice.org, the apps and the podcast in private. When the license is granted, we intend to release it right away.
Will the text and the audio change at the same time? That is our goal: one switch, with the new text and the new recordings released together. If any part of the new edition reaches us later than the rest, we will tell you exactly what is changing and when.
Nothing changes in your daily prayer until then. The current translation stays on DivineOffice.org, maintained as it is today, with no gap. It remains fully valid for prayer until the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028.
In the coming weeks we will share more about this work and how you can take part in it.
The original post, updated where needed, follows below.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
For many years now, we have shared updates with you about the long-awaited Second Edition of the Liturgy of the Hours — the first major revision of the Church’s official daily prayer in the United States in more than fifty years. This year, that long journey has reached a major milestone and is now approaching its end.
Where Things Stand
In October 2025, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments confirmed the new English translation for liturgical use in the United States. Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, President of the USCCB, then signed a decree of promulgation establishing two important dates:
Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2027, will be the first-use date — the day the Second Edition becomes lawful for use. The First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028, will be the mandatory-use date — the day the current translation is retired.
Between these two dates lies a period of transition, sometimes called a vacatio legis, during which the faithful and clergy alike may continue praying with their current volumes while the new edition becomes available.
Can I Keep Praying With My Current Books?
This is a question we hear often, the answer is Yes, for most of you, nothing changes right away.
Between Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2027 (the first-use date) and the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028 (the mandatory-use date), your current four-volume set remains entirely valid for prayer. You are not required to buy the new edition the moment it becomes available.
The distinction that matters is between obligation and devotion:
If you are a priest, deacon, or religious bound by canon law to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the current translation continues to fulfill that obligation right up until the mandatory-use date. Starting December 3, 2028, the Second Edition will be required for you. If you are a layperson praying the Hours as an act of personal devotion, you are not bound by that same canonical obligation, so nothing forces you to purchase the new set on any particular date. You are free to continue praying with the volumes you already have.
That said, we do encourage everyone — clergy, religious, and laity alike — to plan on transitioning to the Second Edition by the mandatory-use date, the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2028. Praying the same texts as the rest of the Church, in the same words at the same hours, is part of what makes the Liturgy of the Hours a shared, public prayer of the whole Body of Christ rather than a private devotion. We are not in a position to encourage an earlier move: as of this writing, the USCCB has not yet established a licensing model for digital editions of the Second Edition, so we do not yet have the rights to publish the new text on DivineOffice.org. We are hopeful that a digital licensing path will be in place well before the 2028 deadline, at which point we intend to make the new text available and begin the work of recording new audio for the Second Edition.
Two Publishers, Four Volumes
The USCCB has selected Ascension Press and Word on Fire Publishing as the exclusive publishers of the new four-volume breviary. Both have opened pre-orders since July 1, 2026, beginning with Volume II, covering Lent and Easter — fittingly, the first volume needed for the Ash Wednesday first-use date. The remaining three volumes are expected to follow throughout the year, with the complete four-volume set anticipated by the end of 2027. Bundles for preordering the Full 4-Volume are also available.
Four additional publishers have also been selected to produce single-volume “major extracts” — editions containing Lauds, Vespers, and Compline — for those who do not need the full four-volume breviary for daily prayer.
What About Digital and Audio Formats?
This is a question many of you have asked us directly, since so much of what we do here at DivineOffice.org depends on digital text and recorded audio. The answer is that the USCCB has not yet announced a timeline for digital or alternative formats. The Bishops’ Conference has stated only that availability will be determined and shared at a later date. We hope and pray that these details will be resolved in a way that lets us continue the mission many of you have come to depend on and that we have carried for nearly twenty years now, bringing the Liturgy of the Hours to everyone in the United States and the world. Especially our visually, hearing impaired, homebound brothers and sisters who pray with us through our audio or the accessible versions.
A word about the Spanish version
Some of you have also asked whether this new translation affects our own Spanish Liturgy of the Hours project. It does not. The USCCB’s Second Edition is an English-language undertaking, and the USCCB has not confirmed a Spanish edition of its own. Existing Spanish translations approved by other bishops’ conferences remain entirely valid for prayer, and our work on recording the Liturgy of the Hours in Spanish continues on its own path, independent of this transition.
Continuing to Walk Together
We know many of you have waited a long time for this new edition, and we share your anticipation. As always, we will continue to follow the USCCB’s official announcements closely and share verified updates with you as they come. Many of you know the many obstacles this work has overcome in 20 years of existence. God willing, we will do so for many more. The current translation will be maintained and updated as until now through website, podcasts and apps and every effort will be made to sustain and expand our mission in the world.
Thank you for praying with us, today and always.
The Divine Office Team
