Irish speakers at home can now access daily Mass readings online as part of a much-welcomed faith initiative.
The ‘Soiscéal an Lae’ are now available free through Evangelizo.
Evangelizo seeks to make free and available online and on social media daily Mass readings to as many people as possible, today the service has seventeen language versions and over 500,000 subscribers.
Ciarán MacGuill, a Paris-based Irish language enthusiast and co-founder of An Ghaeltacht-sur-Seine, led the creation of ‘Soiscéal an Lae’.
With the help of the Monastic Community of Jerusalem, MacGuill assembled a team of Irish language speakers from across Europe to translate and prepare the daily readings.
Full permission to publish the Irish translation has been granted by An Bíobla Naofa © An Sagart, Maigh Nuad 2000, Éire.
MacGuill hopes that “Soiscéal an Lae” will become as popular as the French, Italian, and German versions of Evangelizo.
In welcoming the success of the project, Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, former Bishop of Raphoe and the current Bishop of Down and Connor, said, “Go gcoimeáda an Tiarna na hÉireannaigh ina lámha agus a muintir atá ina gcónaí thar sáile, sa Fhrainc agus ar fud an domhain. Go gcosnaí an Tiarna iad, agus go bhfana siad gar don Tiarna. [May Our Lord hold the Irish living in France and around the world in His hands and protect them, and may their families flourish and stay close to God].
Bishop McGuckian continued, “Reading the Scriptures in Irish, or indeed in any language, is an extraordinary way to discover and rediscover the richness of the words and images of the Holy Bible. The daily Mass readings are a particularly powerful way to follow the liturgical year and explore the connections and associations between the books of the Bible. It is especially gratifying for Irish language enthusiasts to see our language take its place among seventeen major world languages. I wish to commend Ciarán and the Irish language community in France for this work of evangelisation. May I encourage everyone of faith, and with a love of our language, to access Soiscéal an Lae, the daily Mass readings on www.evangelizo.com.”
