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Press Release - Mass readings and Divine Office published in downloadable form The sound of a congregation listening to the gospel at Mass could soon be transformed by technology, as the centuries-old rustle of a hundred missal pages being turned gives way to the almost imperceptible click of a hundred scroll keys being pressed at once. Universalis Publishing, which since 1996 has made the Mass readings and the Liturgy of the Hours available on the World Wide Web, has launched a downloadable version of its software. Available on Palm and Pocket PC palmtops (including the iPaq) and on Windows computers, the Universalis download gives Mass readings, plus psalms, prayers and readings for Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer and the Office of Readings, for every day of every year – for centuries ahead. Liturgy is the “killer application” for e-books. When you read a 300-page novel, for example, you have to read all 300 pages of it whatever the medium is, and the algorithm for reading it (read page 1, turn over, read page 2,…) is simple enough for anyone’s fingers: computers have no special advantage. But a liturgical book is never read straight through, and of its thousands of pages, no more than a dozen are needed on any one day, and choosing which dozen they are requires a PhD in airline timetables. In contrast, Universalis scores on weight (missals plus Liturgy of the Hours adds up to 9,000 pages in five heavy volumes whereas bytes weigh nothing), on skills (the interactions of lunar, solar and 4-week calendars are calculated instantly), and of course on price: the downloadable Universalis costs £30, the same as a single daily missal. In its web form, Universalis is used by people on every continent and in all circumstances, from US missile bases to a Belgrade under attack by NATO bombers. Undercover nuns hide it in their laptops to avoid arrest and imprisonment in anti-Christian countries. And the partially sighted can use a large font size to receive the spiritual sustenance they thought they had lost forever. Universalis contains the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours but it is being used by all denominations, including Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists.

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