October 22nd, 2026 – Second Edition Update: Digital Licensing Opens in 2027 – Divine Office: Liturgy of the Hours

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.

Code editor, select all, paste everything below this comment, then switch back to the Visual editor. -->

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 Dicas