A new website is providing free audio recordings of every lectionary reading to help priests in livestreaming Mass.
LectionaryReadings.co.uk was started by Catholic writer David Crystal to provide a virtual reader for the liturgies of the Easter Triduum during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Priests were streaming Masses online and many were having to do the readings themselves, which during the Easter Triduum was a great strain on the voice,” Crystal writes.
“I was asked by local parishioners to record the readings for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil, and the recordings ended up being circulated in various dioceses.”
Crystal said that requests for Sunday readings and daily readings soon followed, and so began a project to record the entire Novus Ordo lectionary.
“I aim to include all the daily readings of the liturgical three-year cycle, and these will gradually be added over the next few months,” Crystal says. “In its initial launch (May 2020), the site includes the readings beginning with the Easter Triduum and continuing with Year A (for Sundays) and Cycle II (for weekdays), along with the main feastdays.”
Crystal also hopes the readings could be used by those organising “home liturgies” during the pandemic, as well as people running scriptural courses.
The website includes a search facility allowing users to find readings based on particular words, allowing them to “find a favourite reading, when we can’t remember the day but we do recall some words – or when searching for an appropriate text for an occasion, such as a wedding or funeral,” Crystal says.
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