Happy New Year - and plans for 2015!

A very Happy New Year to all! I pray that the Lord will bless you all in this coming year, and that your faith in Him will grow and deepen.

Plans are afoot for this blog, some quite ambitious - so we'll see how it goes this year! :-)

I started work towards the middle of December on Volume 2 of the Postcommunion comparisons of translations and sources. The second volume will comprise the Proper of Saints and the Commons. There's still a bit more work to do before that's finished, but hopefully by the end of the winter (i.e. end of February) it'll be done and then I can get started on Volume 3. Once all the volumes are finished, I'll wrap them up into one large PDF (which will probably be around 600 pages or so) for those of you who don't like fiddling around with multiple files. It's my aim to get the Postcommunions project finished by the end of this year. If I finish earlier, then I may get a similar project started on either the Collects or the Prayers over the Offerings.

Another project that I am aiming to make a good start on this year has come about rather fortuitously:

Volume 1, Part 1 of the Acta Synodalia

The Acta Synodalia occupying a significant space on my bookshelves!

Over Christmas, I managed to acquire (for a pretty good price) a complete set of the Acta Synodalia of the Second Vatican Council - the complete record of every speech made by the Council Fathers at all of the 168 General Congregations and the 10 Public Sessions held over the four sessions of the Council. Quite the interesting find!

As a beginning project, I thought it would be interesting to chart the progress of the Council's liturgy constitution, Sacrosanctum Concilium. I'm currently typing up the first draft/schema, which was first discussed at the 4th General Congregation (22 Oct 1962), and then I'll type the others out and arrange them with the final document ratified by the Pope and the Council. I may attempt to provide some sort of commentary and analysis on the changes made to SC during the 1st and 2nd session of Vatican II, but that will probably be a several-year long project because it crosses over with another more personal aim for 2015 - to learn ecclesiastical Latin properly!

I'd also love to get a few book reviews done, if there is time...

Finally, there are a few lectionary projects in the pipeline: well, this blog is called Lectionary Study Aids, after all! One thing I hope to be able to do is compile the relevant parts of the Council Fathers speeches that refer to the proposed lectionary reform, partly to see if any of them had particular things in mind when they signed off on SC.

Finishing off the Christmas port before work begins in earnest!

So, a busy 2015 is ahead for me, it seems! I hope everyone reading this blog has something they're especially looking forward to!

Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions for books or resources that I might be interested in (hint: I'm interested in pretty much everything liturgical and Catholic!), or if there's a resource that anyone would like to see on this blog, e-mail me at mrmphazell-AT-gmail-DOT-com or leave a comment, and I'll see what I can do.