Liturgy.com™ is a dynamic resource which will continue to grow and develop in response to the needs of members and new regulations on the liturgy. Here is where you will find the latest news about the service.

Portland, OR: March 12, 2004

My Resources

My Resources has been updated and simplified:

After a year of use, two housekeeping details have been attended to in the My Resources section of Liturgy.com™.

1. We are no longer offering as active resources the missals from last year. As users of our product are aware, the license to use them lasts only for the liturgical year for which they are printed. Saved planners that used these numbers will not be affected.

2. We are simplifying the list of resources. Since hymnals use the same numbers for the songs in all editions (assembly book, Keyboard, Guitar, Solo Instrument) we will now simply have a single selection to make for a given hymnal.

This is part of the ongoing housekeeping that will keep Liturgy.com fresh and easy to use.

Portland, OR: December 5, 2003

Advent - Mark your Missals!

Now that the new liturgical year is upon us, make sure that you go to the "Account Preferences" section and select the "My Resources" tab to select your new missals. Most users do not go to this section often, so this reminder is to both to help you remember how to make this change and to remind you that Liturgy.com™ does not do this automatically. Making this change will also bring in the suggestions appropriate to this new liturgical year.

NEW CONTENT!

As we move forward, Liturgy.com™ continues to add new contents. Now we have taken the published homilies of noted Jesuit preacher Walter Burghardt and placed them with each Sunday celebration. Over the dozen books that Fr. Burghardt has published over the years there are homilies for most of the celebrations in the liturgical calendar. In addition we now have sample homilies for Weddings, Funerals and baptisms by this expert in the field.

Empty Planners

One of the great things about Liturgy.com™ is that the program automatically saves your planners. There is no danger of losing any song selections that you have made. What this means, however is that there are a large number of empty planners, or planners that have only the personnel section marked with no music selected. As a service to our users, and in order to save space on our system and so keep the management fees to a minimum, we are planning to remove those planners in which all the music slots read empty and that are more than three months old. We are not looking at what is in the slots; so if you want to keep these planners, simply put anything in any one of the slots and it will not be removed.

Portland, OR: September 18, 2003

Liturgy.com announces a new feature, Ask The Liturgist, which will be a great help to liturgists and musicians who want to know what the rules say. Dr. Glenn CJ Byer, a graduate of the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy will take on all types of liturgy questions. "I'll look at what the legislation says and give as clear an answer as the documents allow," said Byer when asked about how he intends to deal with the many questions.

This service is available only to Liturgy.com subscribers. An archive of the questions organized by topic and date will also be available to subscribers.

Liturgy.com is also pleased to announce that readings up to the baptism of the Lord in 2004 and song suggestions to the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time are now available to our users. Look to this space for further announcements as to the progress in getting the planning data in place for next year.

Portland, OR: April 10, 2003

Walter Burghardt homilies are now available on Liturgy.com! We are pleased to present homilies from Walter Burghardt for many feasts at Liturgy.com. We are compiling homilies from his many books of homilies and inserting them for the day for which they were composed.

We're listening to you! By popular demand we have increased the number of music groups you can have from five to ten. This will allow you to enter all your choirs into the ministry area with ease. In addition we now have blank planners for you to use. To find the blank planner just go to the special liturgy section and click on "order of Mass" or "weekday Mass".

Portland, OR: March 26, 2003

So many improvements are coming to Liturgy.com, it is hard to know where to begin. First of all we are glad to announce that the readings to Pentecost are now available.

Our Scripture commentaries for that period are coming in quickly and all should be available shortly. We have had many positive comments on these commentaries that have been written especially for Liturgy.com. The authors have been asked to keep the commentary brief, address it to musicians and other ministers, and yet be truly scholarly, getting at the deeper meaning of the scriptures we hear when we gather for Mass.

We are especially happy to report that a second group of homilies, this time by Walter Burghardt will soon be added to Liturgy.com. Paulist Press has graciously agreed to the use of Father Burghardt's homilies, not only of his past books, but also of those currently in print. We are very excited about this and are working to get as many of them available as quickly as we can.

But the most wonderful development that we have had so far is the rapport that has developed between Liturgy.com and the support personnel. We have tried to answer your questions as soon as we can, some of them technical, some liturgical. Users have come up with a whole raft of suggestions for new features and improvements that we can make to Liturgy.com. Your interest in the success of our resource has spurred us on to find ways to implement your suggestions.

The future of Liturgy planning using Liturgy.com is bright because of the hard work of the developers, liturgists and you, the user of this great resource. Thank you, and keep on planning!

RESOURCE FOR LENT: Rite of Penance

Liturgy.com™ is pleased to provide a downloadable Rite of Penance (Form II), just in time for the season of Lent. Permission is granted to make as many copies as needed for Celebrations of Reconciliation in your parish community.

Click here to download.

Portland, OR: March 5, 2003

Liturgy.com™ is off to a great start! We are so pleased with the response, and the wonderful feedback we’ve received from our subscribers.

We have added many more resources and song suggestions, and we are continually working to make Liturgy.com the best product we can for all of you to prepare your liturgies and feel confident that you have all the information you need.

One new feature is a drop down list, on the top of the planning page, which lists your most recently opened planners. So, if you are planning three or four liturgies at one time, you can easily move from one to the other to refer to your selections, readings and so on.

Another new feature your choir will appreciate, is the ability to print the planner using the print version instead of just the email version. When you send out your planner via email, they will not only receive the email version, but will also receive a link to the printable planner version. It has a much nicer look, and is easier to follow.

And don’t forget about all the other wonderful features of Liturgy.com, such as: Readings, Articles, Homilies, Commentaries, Prayers of the Faithful, Bulletin notes and much more.

Thank you for helping us make this a very practical, useful tool in liturgy preparation. Keep your ideas coming in. We give everything careful consideration.

The Countdown to Launch is over!

Portland, OR: February 17, 2003

Launch features:
At launch we have many features that are complete for preparing an entire year or more of liturgies: Prayer of the Faithful, Song Suggestions, Bulletin Notes, Sacramentary Prayers and more. There will be celebration summaries, prayer and reading summaries for the whole year. The readings from Launch date to Easter Sunday will also be available online. The outlines and prayers for special liturgies are also there for your use.

Come see us at Anaheim:
The Los Angeles Religious Education conference, one of the largest gatherings of those who minister in the Church is the site of the first demonstration of the full Liturgy.com™ resource. Make sure you stop by our booth where you can see the site in operation, plan a liturgy and even sign up online for your own Liturgy.com™ account. Glenn Byer, the product manager and liturgist and Dave Pabley, the project manager who led the technology effort, will both be present to show you all the great features of the resource and answer all your questions. There will be a Liturgy.com™ demonstration on Saturday March 1, at 9:30 -10:00 am in the technology center. Mark your calendars and come and see the finest liturgy preparation resource in action.