The response to Daily Divine Service Book: A Lutheran Daily Missal has been overwhelming. In fact, the publisher notified me that DDSB received second place in their December sales contest. Not bad for a book aimed at an admittedly niche market: the liturgical Lutheran pastor. I am very gratified that the book is proving useful to so many of my colleagues in the ministry.

I am happy to announce two new resources related to the missal: Easter Vigil as a stand alone document and Rubrics and Prayers for Celebrant and Deacon.

DDSB: Rubrics and Prayers for Celebrant and Deacon

Several users of DDSB have mentioned how much they have benefited from the rubrics included with the Ordinary of the Common Service – and yet I had wished to include much more. Hampered by considerations of length, I included only the Ordinary with rubrics for the Celebrant and lay server. I had wanted also to include rubrics for an ordained clergyman serving as Deacon as well as vesting and preparation prayers.

All of that information as well as an appendix with the full ceremony of the Celebrant and Deacon from a 19th century Western resource is now available in DDSB: Rubrics and Prayers for Celebrant and Deacon. The complete contents of this 73pp book are:

• Prayers of preparation for the Celebrant and his assistants

• The vesting prayers

• The Ordinary with Rubrics from DDSB

• The Ordinary with Rubrics for Celebrant and Deacon

• A Preface that includes instructions for adding a Sub-Deacon and certain roles of the Bishop where appropriate

• An Appendix with the full traditional ceremony of the Deacon and Celebrant from Ceremonial according to the Roman Rite, A+D 1859

• Charts illustrating the order of processions

I am offering this resource in paperback, an open flat coil-bound format, and as a downloadable file. I think that it will be most useful in the electronic format as this will allow pastors to print out the Ordinary with rubrics in a size suitable for use in a binder at the altar and in color (the cost of color printing is simply too prohibitive in the book formats – like DDSB, this supplementary volume includes the rubrics in gray rather than ruber in the paperback and coil-bound editions). However, some may find it useful to order the coil-bound edition for use on a missal stand or the paperback edition for desk reference.

DDSB: Easter Vigil

If your parish does not currently celebrate the Easter Vigil, make that your new year's resolution for 2011. To help you in this regard, I've pulled out the Easter Vigil section of DDSB as a stand alone ebook that you can size and print as you like. I'm also offering it as a saddle stitched booklet. As with all of DDSB, what I'm really doing is just making available to you the resources I myself have found lacking. I'm planning on buying several of the saddle stitched booklets to keep on hand for all of the assisting clergy and lay servers at our annual Vigil.

+HRC