Pre-Orders for Liturgy of the Hours Second Edition open July 1st

55 thoughts on “Pre-Orders for Liturgy of the Hours Second Edition open July 1st”

1. From a business perspective, this is fascinating. Ascension is pushing the envelope of what you can charge for books. You Bible lovers might be able to justify buying one of their volumes, but for the LOTH you’re talking about 4X the price. Protestants don’t buy many religious objects, so a single Bible might be the most expensive thing they buy. Catholics must spread their funds around (rosaries, medals, missals) but might still be willing to buy one expensive Bible too. But 4 volumes at super-premium prices? This is uncharted territory. Are your wallets ready?

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   1. Have you ever seen the premium bible collections of many Protestants?
      One thing I notice on a lot of discussion boards – the same people will 1) simultaneously decry the price of the Ascension Premium Full Grain Goatskin addition or ask how the price difference for that edition compared to the mid-tier Ascension edition can be justified and 2) express concern (justified) about books printed in China. Well – the highest tier Ascension is printed in the Netherlands – and that no doubt accounts for a large part of the price increase for the highest tier Ascensionn.

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      1. Word on Fire is offering their Italy-printed set for $359 ($90 each) as an early bird (28% off) offer. That’s well below even Ascension’s 2nd tier offering that is also printed in China. I really was not expecting WoF to undercut Ascension here. (WoF’s Questions chat box now provides pricing).

         Because they print in China, Ascension has greater potential to bring down the low end. If they were smart, they’d introduce a truly low budget set in 2028 to compete with the 1 or 2-vol sets coming out from the other 4 publishers. Why must everybody use leather binding?

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         1. My ‘leather like’ LOTH fell apart after 10+ years of use. I’m opting for leather solely for durability……especially for something that is used several times daily.

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2. I’m so excited for this, and I will happily be giving Ascension my money! It’ll be nice to have a breviary that will last until Vatican III.

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   1. I just hope the price will come down, as they are charging $300 for standard large print, I am looking forward to getting the new 4 volume set. God Bless.

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3. I just bought the 4 volume 1950 Benziger Roman Breviary in English for over $1,600.00. Three volumes are genuine leather with gilding,while the 4th volume, brand new, still has its paper dust jacket and box. It is that much of an important set and I have seen them go for over $3,200.00. So, the $900.00 for a top shelf price for the ultra premium is reasonable.

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   1. I’m genuinely curious how you handle these things. Breviaries are used several times a day. I approach them like a bike enthusiast might use a beater bike for a daily commute into town: the good stuff is too nice for real life use. I’ve spilt tea on every Bible I own. It’ll probably get crushed in my knapsack. I’d be nervous to use anything >$100 as my daily driver. I wish they wouldn’t use soft leather binding. But maybe you’re a better handler than I.

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      1. I would think the bike enthusiast would spend the money on the nice bike that will withstand thousands of miles instead of the Huffy. I have one nice Bible (the Premium GACB), and I use it daily. It’s the only Bible I’ve had since becoming Catholic in 2004 that has held up to daily extended use without use of a cover, case, etc. I think of the Breviary in the same way. I I tend to buy the new edition once, use it 7 times daily for the rest of my life (or until the rite is revised…), and then never spend a dine on it again unless it gets stolen.

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         1. In my own thinking, the question is: is it worth upgrading from the premium goatskin to the premium natural grain goatskin? That’s a big jump in price. Is it really worth it? I see the justification for shelling out the extra money for the lower-end goatskin edition instead of the bonded leather (even though the low-end goatskin is already quite expensive at almost $500). Goatskin will probably last longer than bonded leather. But the premium natural grain? I’d like to see more detail on exactly what justifies spending over $900.

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            1. Upon further reflection, I’m questioning my original logic on whether the goatskin is worth the cost at all. Sure, it would be more durable than bonded leather, but would I really want to bring a beautiful goatskin breviary in my backpack without any protective cover? I’ve been using a single OreMoose leather cover on my LOTH 4-volume set (transferring the cover to whichever volume I’m currently using) for about a year and a half now. I like the protection it provides with extra “yapp” and a snap closure. For my own practical usage, I can imagine it being a better use of funds to buy the bonded leather set and a new leather cover from OreMoose.

            2. I would go with the bonded leather and an OreMoose cover (which is what I’ve done for many years, basically since OreMoose was founded), but the thing that has me inching towards the goatskin (the 2nd tier, not the top) is that it isn’t a paste-down liner. I’ve had to repair my four-volume several times over the past 15 years, and it would be nice to never worry about the cover separating. It’s less about the goatskin and more about the durability. My GACB has survived backpacks, suitcases, being dropped, and (most importantly) daily use, and it’s held up amazingly. It doesn’t feel as fragile and delicate as a Schuyler, but it’s an obvious step up from every Bible I’ve ever owned. I might be in the minority, but I actually love the typesetting of the hardbound Liturgia Horarum set from MTF – just slap an OreMoose cover on it and buy some extra Bible-ribbons for it.

               Like running shoes, I only buy “nice” stuff if “nice” means it will hold up better for regular use.

            3. Good point! I haven’t personally had issues with the paste-down liner in my 4-volume set yet, but I know it can be an issue. I’m curious to know if the WOF LOTH volumes will be edge-lined or not. The WOF Bible is not edge-lined, and one commenter here on the blog mentioned that the leather cover was beginning to separate from one of his volumes of the WOF Bible. Hopefully WOF will release further information when they open pre-orders.

         2. The bike enthusiast would not bring his nicest bike into work where it can get stolen (no lock is effective) or damaged by road hazards. Sorry, failed analogy.

            Clearly, you take better care of your books than I am capable of. That’s my takeaway. You deserve your Benziger then.

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            1. I haven’t decided which edition I’m getting yet, but the “2nd tier” leather is the same quality as the GACB, per their website. So, the heirloom edition isn’t the only quality option. I have a limited yearly “professional stipend” for these sorts of things anyway, so I’m less worried about the cost since it could be my “professional purchase” for the year. But, point taken about the beater bike. There’s something to be said for just a good, cheap, durable hardback book/Bible with no guilding and a solid binding. Please pardon any unintentional offense!

   2. If I spent that much money on a book, I’m not going to try to read it; I am going to put it in a safe deposit box so that it can increase in value, and I’ll be able to retire on the money I earn when I sell it. It’s like rich people who pay $30,000 for a single bottle of wine, which they then neither drink nor sell for a profit, in which case, what is the point?

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4. As exciting as the release of the new LOTH is, I’m not personally in a rush. I’m not going to feel any FOMO pressure that will push me to pre-order either set, because these books will be available for a very long time. The new printing of the Divine Worship: Daily Office: North American Edition by Catholic University of America Press will be released next month, so I might grab that to pray with on the daily and wait for the reviews of and inevitable comparisons between both WOF and Ascension’s LOTH sets. However, I will admit that Ascension is winning the online PR game by a significant margin over WOF in terms of transparency and directly incorporating their would-be customers’ suggestions into their final product.

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   1. I was thinking about doing something similar. I was thinking about buying the Divine Office: Commonwealth Edition (because it is RSV-CE and scripture are included, mainly) and then waiting to see what to do with the new breviaries. I’ve also thought about going to one of the newer one-volume editions when they come out, which I’ve heard might be better and have more depth than the current Christian Prayer, and maybe supplementing it with the Pluscarden Readings because I’m not willing to lose the Office of the Hours patriotic readings.

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      1. I use it, fantastic book.

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5. Ascension’s pricing for the premium editions is insane – especially considering you can order the 1961 Roman Breviary in 3 volumes brand new from Baronius for $399. I know it’s the old calendar, but still. If the WoF edition really ends up with all that blank space around the text, that will be a head scratcher for sure. Very unappealing. Who is making margin notes in their breviary?

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   1. When the divineoffice subreddit “leaked” various semi-hidden details from their site, WoF stripped out a lot of explanatory text. One of the details was their reasoning behind their unorthodox layout. The Psalm/canticle content requires lots of lines, but not so much horizontal text (hence the unusual book dimensions). But the books are also too small for a 2-column layout. So you’d inevitably have extra horizontal space. WoF decided to move the red-text instructions and headings over to the left column, maximizing the main section’s lines for the real content. So it might actually be the better layout. I’m skeptical of the leaked layout images from both publishers, since they’re unofficial and look suboptimal.

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6. I don’t want to read too much into the sample pages, especially because I didn’t see any oages from the 4 week psalter, but does this mean no more psalm prayers? The translation of the Te Deum seems considerably tightened up.

   The Ascension art looks ok, but it reminds me of the dead end Catholic visual art has ended up in. It seems that the easiest way to be pleased with what the market has to give you is either to want to live in eternal 1910 or eternal 1970.

   I have been praying the hours for more than a decade now, but have been quite happy the past year praying out of Benedictine Daily Prayer, and I will be continuing to do so, if only to save 250 dollars!!! I am a layman and a Benedictine Oblate, so this is a choice that makes sense for me, but might not for you.

   I feel a little bad for Catholic Book Publishing. They have been doing yeoman’s work for decades and they have been basically supplanted by two youtube channels that happen have a publishing arm. Those CBP volumes are durable. These books will be used 2 to 5 times a day for decades. Durability is paramount.

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   1. Yes, Psalm prayers are gone. I’m keeping my old Christian Prayer psalter around for this reason. OTOH, we now have a standardized set of hymns.

      Ascension commissioned custom art. IMHO looks nice and less likely to be dated compared to CBP’s. WoF is sticking to Dore, safe and even more timeless.

      Don’t feel bad for CBP. They (and not these two) got the Major Extracts contract alongside Magnificat, Liturgical Press and Midwest Theological Forum (MTF’s proposed offering is also getting lots of attention on the subreddit). Given the up-market pricing of the 4-vol sets, I expect the bulk of the business to go to the Major Extracts work.

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      1. I have read that CBP is going to be redoing their “Christian Prayer” book as well after the release of the new LotH set to match the liturgical language etc. I haven’t come across anymore details than that though.

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   2. The Psalm Prayers have been relegated to an additional volume that will be published later (one or two years?). It will contain a second arrangement of the Office of Readings using a different cycle of readings.

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      1. This is new to me. Can you say more about it or point us to the source?

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         1. https://adoremus.org/2025/03/pope-francis-approves-publication-of-supplement-to-liturgy-of-the-hours/

            It’s Psalm and Canticles Prayers now. Our current LOTH only has Psalm Prayers for Psalms, but the supplement will have canticle coverage too.

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            1. Many thanks for this. I hadn’t been aware of it. I was disappointed to learn a while back that the psalm prayers would not be included in the new edition of the LOTH, as I quite like them.

7. It is interesting to see the various textual changes in the new edition.

   The doxology is officially restored to the more traditional “Glory Be” form, which is in keeping with the renderings of the Our Father and Haily Mary, and will hopefuly stop causing confusion during group Rosary recitation.

   I am so accustomed to the current translations, that the new rendering of the Invitatory Ps 95 seems very clunky to me.

   Also, goodbye to my favorite line in the LotH from Sunday of the 1st week Lauds: “you dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord”… The new rendering “sea beats and all that move in the water” just doesn’t have the same poetry.

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   1. They’ve denied an entire generation of priests, religious, and laity the mental image of Flipper sending up praises to Heaven, and for this, I will never forgive them.

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8. I really hope Ascension comes out with a daily hand missal once the new lectionary eventually comes out. I have the Daily Roman Missal from MTF, and the cover is held on with packing tape. My brother-in-law’s has the same problem. The apparently very high quality of these LOTH offerings from Ascension, along with their GAB, suggest that they are capable of creating a missal of much higher quality than what MTF has produced.

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   1. On day 1 the MTF missal looks better than the Daughters of St Paul missal. But after three years the gilding on the Daughters of St Paul missal is a little blotchy and the MTF missal is held together with glue and tape.

      Or at least that is what the word is among the people I know who carry a missal around.

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      1. If you keep the MTF Daily Missal in the zipper case, it lasts about ten years until the pages and the binding separate. But it’s such a superb book that I accept the fact that it will need to be replaced every decade.

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9. No pricing on the WoF edition?

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   1. You could wait until July 1st for the official PR to go out. Or (spoiler) you could see what those obsessed folks on r/divineoffice managed to dig up that caused WoF to hurriedly pull their semi-hidden web pages:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/divineoffice/comments/1ud4827/word_on_fire_pricing_announced/

      WoF only have one price level, not 3 like Ascension. Surprisingly, their Italy-printed set is closest in price to Ascension’s cheapest set (Ascension’s 2 cheapest are printed in China, the most expensive in Netherlands).

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10. Over $1000 for the cheapest copy of all 4 volumes of LOTH? Are these people insane? Who has that kind of money? Elon Musk?

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    1. The prices at the bottom of the post are for the 4 volume set, not for each individual volume. So it is $265 for the bonded leather set, with a 5% pre-order discount. So about $250 plus tax for the set; $62.50 per volume. That to me is reasonable.

       I must say I like the Ascension layout much better, and I personally prefer red for prayer books and black for Bibles. Since the two goatskin versions are black and really expensive, which fits with my theory of a worldwide shortage of the coveted black goat to explain the rediculous cost and “limited edition” nature of the black goatskin Great Adventure Bible, looks like the economy version is for me!

       One other note. At the LOTH Word on Fire page, there is a promotional video with Bishop Barron, and are are various pictures of their edition shown throughout. I took screen shots of them and posted them here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRIY8nh8AzwXMnCx0SgxQf99oYGkG1EdJgF4XDA_PcuJ8pstZUmaU_K_X55EeEorM7S5IFAaSTgiPnl/pub

       One of the pictures shows the page has gold as the secondary color, whereas the other pics (including the Reddit ones) show red as the secondary color. Does anyone know more about this? Maybe they initially considered gold but switched to red.

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       1. I thought the cheapest set from Ascension is genuine leather, not bonded leather. Genuine leather is a step up from bonded. The black “leather” 1st edition of LOTH is bonded leather, so the cheapest 2nd edition should still be better quality than the more expensive bonded leather of the 1st edition that CBP put out years ago.

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          1. I originally thought that too, because Ascension calls their cheapest option “Standard Leather.” But if you look at their page on “which edition is right for you?” (link below), they describe the standard leather as: “Spanish Taratan II Cromwell bonded leather (Red)”

             https://ascensionpress.com/pages/content-hub/the-liturgy-of-the-hours-second-edition-which-edition-is-right-for-you

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11. Become a Benedictine oblate, and the monastery will almost certainly provide you with your own copy of the monastery’s LOTH book. Plus, you are part of a monastery community and included in their daily prayers.

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12. Hearing Fr Jedidah’s mention his “professional stipend” reminds me that there’s a big difference between a dabbler like myself — for whom this is a discretionary expense — and those for whom this is a professional and moral obligation. In the latter case, this is professional equipment. I might not be praying the LOTH a year from now, but Fr Jedidah will certainly be. That gives a different perspective to these books’ pricing. Also, I cannot be trusted with really nice books.

    I wish the 4 Major Extracts publishers were further along with their plans. Their stuff will probably come out long after the 4-vol editions. But given the prices revealed, I wish they’d come out sooner. MTF indicated that their 2-vol set will be “suitable for praying every hour” (https://theologicalforum.org/the-liturgy-of-the-hours/). It might be an option for the budget minded.

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    1. For the record, and at risk of “letting my left hand know what my right is doing,” I will happily be contributing to Ascension’s “Liturgy of the Hours Assistance Fund” since my editions will be generously comped as a professional expense.

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    2. To be fair though, Bishop Barron and WoF did have an announcement of a donor making a huge donation to assure that all parishes in America get a copy for the priest. Which, I can’t imagine how much that gift was tbh,

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       1. For parish priests? I’ve heard only that WOF is gifting a set to every seminarian, not priests.

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          1. I think you are correct there, Apologies for some reason I though parishes, regardless an awesome gift.

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             1. Indeed it is! I asked only because if they were also gifting sets to diocesan priests, those I know aren’t aware of it! Our diocese so far has not made any moves toward giving them to our priests or making discounted sets available to them.

13. I sincerely hope that someone makes a lower-cost version. I appreciate that Ascension has different tiers of price/quality, but $70 a pop for bonded leather still seems steep. I hope that someone (maybe Catholic Book Publishing?) makes a more practical, economical edition that offers good durability for a lower price by opting for hardcovers, a durable plastic faux leather, etc. Given that a lot of the people who will be buying the complete set are either 20-something seminarians, religious who have taken vows of poverty, or missionary priests from the other side of the world, I really hope that an edition comes out that better fits the tighter budgets of a lot of buyers.

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14. I feel like I’m the only person I know who plans on preordering the Word on Fire edition I’m also the only person I know who currently pray the Liturgy of the Hours using the Daughters of St. Paul Christian Prayer book. It’s a shame that book went out of print years ago, as it’s more complete than the current one published by Catholic Book Publishing

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    1. What do you like best about the WOF Liturgy of the Hours edition?

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       1. [pardon any grammatical errors. I’m typing this on a phone]

          For me, it was the price compared to Ascension Press’ Genuine leather. Plus WOF being slightly taller, is also less chunky. Plus, I like the unique design and the classic artwork makes the WOF breviaries feel like a blend of the old and the new, exactly what the OF liturgy is anyways their breviaries remind me of older ones from the 20th century, but the design is much more modern looking.

          As much as I don’t want to wait, I might end up canceling my order and wait for MTF’s diurnal (which will be published sometime in 2028). They also have a second Office of Reading volume they’re publishing, too. I mostly just pray Lauds and Vespers. So a diurnal makes more sense for my purposes anyways.

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       2. This was a hard decision. I like the AP artwork and am not crazy about the gold color of the WOF artwork (though Dore is great), but it appears that the AP edition is slightly smaller than the current CBP volumes and uses the same 10-pt font size. I like that the WOF edition is a bit bigger and that the standard one has a larger 11.4-pt font (the large print one is 14-pt). I had always planned on buying the bottom-end AP edition due to price alone, but after digging more deeply into the comparative details and seeing the early bird discount from WOF, I switched to the latter. I agree with those who find the top-tier AP edition prohibitively expensive, and I don’t like that their bottom- and middle-tier options are printed in China.

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       3. Also, be aware that if you order each volume individually from AP as they’re published, you will be charged for shipping. That likely adds another $10+ per volume. You only get free shipping from AP if you pre-order the whole set. WOF allows you to pay as you go and still get the 28% pre-order discount plus free shipping on each volume.

          I checked with WOF directly and they said that the early bird discount is the best deal they will be offering on these volumes, so don’t wait for a better one. It may not be available for more than a few weeks.

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15. You guys should take a look at the new Divine Office: Daily Worship North American Edition that is being released soon. I am supposed to get my copy on July 3rd and will probably use it until the Liturgy of the Hours Second Edition begins to be released.

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16. I had understood that main-stream Catholicism had landed on language for our common prayer that does not use grammatically male words to refer to both women and men—for example “mankind,” “brethren,” or “he,” “man,” ‘brothers.”
    English has words that unambiguously and clearly mean all humans of both genders. But I get the sense that this second edition will use masculine words. I do not understand why a Christian enterprise would do this. No matter how you slice it, the practice comes from women being seen as secondary humans. Catholic liturgy can do better that that.

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    1. The Catholic Church is no mere Christian enterprise. It is the Body of Christ led by the Vicar of Christ on earth, our Holy Father the Pope. Perhaps an approach of seeking to understand why the Vatican has prescribed translating Liturgical texts in a particular way would be more charitable. Are you open to the possibility it has nothing to do with the reasons you are supposing?

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