Holy Week preparations

I almost feel like some medieval monk. I'm buried in books and "copying" texts. Yes, I've been busy translating things for Holy Week.

It's taking quite a while, but I have finally gotten up to translating the Easter Vigil. Unfortunately, after I finish translating, I still have the task of making up booklets with the Latin and a translation ... not just Latin to English booklets, but also Latin to Spanish ones. Thank God for word processing programs!

You can start to see why this is the busiest part of the year for me. Being Master of Ceremonies and helping to cantor keeps me pretty busy, but doing the Holy Week liturgies in Latin is just beautiful. I think this will be my 7th year doing it and thankfully it gets a little easier every year.

No, I don't translate everything again each year. I have translations that I made a few years ago, but I am going back through them and fixing some errors and tweaking the translation to make them more accurate. It is a great opportunity to intimately learn the liturgies. Thus, my goals are not only to be able to provide accurate translations of the Holy Week liturgies, but also to make the booklets so that people can really follow the liturgy and see what is going on.

So what are good resources for planning the liturgies in Holy Week (or really any time)?


These are the most important ones, especially if you want to have more Latin in the liturgy. Every priest and/or parish should have these books, and anyone who plans liturgies as well.
books from left to right:

The 2002 Missale Romanum. This is the current and official Missal of the "Novus Ordo" Rite. This is the book on which the new translations for the Mass are based. Although it may seem a bit pricey, this is a book that will probable not be updated for a few more decades, unless there is a huge reform of the Rite again, which I don't see happening for quite awhile. This is a must have for priests.

The Sacramentary. This is the current English Missal. Although the 2002 edition of the Missale Romanum replaces this, because the 2002 Missale Romanum has not been translated into English yet, the Sacramentary is still the official Missal for Masses in English.

The Graduale Romanum. This is the official book of the chants for the Mass. The chants in this book are what have priority over all other music in the Mass and should be the first choice.

Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite by Msgr. Peter Elliot. This is a great resource that gets down to some of the technical actions and parts of the Mass. This book is more general in scope than the next book.

Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year by Msgr. Peter Elliot. This is much like the previous book, but it has more detail in regards to elements of the Mass which are different according to the liturgical season or feast.

Graduale Simplex. This is much like the Graduale Romanum, but it provides some simpler options for smaller parishes or cantor/choirs with less experience in chant.

My goal is to post as much of the translations for Holy Week as possible, however, they will probably only be the Latin and Literal English rather than a full comparison of the Latin, old ICEL, and Literal English. Oh well. :)

RS