Look Ahead: the Liturgy landing page

Look Ahead is the page Liturgy opens on, and for most days it is the only liturgy screen you need. It lays the coming weeks out one week at a time, a card for each day, and puts everything about that day in one place: the liturgical day and its color, the readings, every Mass with its celebrant and intention, the ministers assigned, any guide or notes, and what the parish has chosen where the day offers a choice.

Read the weeks

• 1. Open Liturgy. Look Ahead is the first tab and shows straight away.
• 2. Each week has a heading — its title, its dates, and the season, week number and color on the right.
• 3. Underneath sit seven day cards. The colored strip across the top of a card is the day's liturgical color, and today wears a ring so it stands out from the rest.
• 4. Scroll to the foot and click Load more weeks for two more. Look Ahead opens on five weeks and will carry on about six months ahead.
• 5. To go back, click ‹ Earlier weeks at the top of the grid. One week of history loads above without costing you your place — the weeks you had loaded, the day you had open and a half-written note all stay exactly as they were.
• 6. To go somewhere specific, type a date into Go to a date — in the grid header, or at the top of the day rail. Past or future both work; if the date is outside the weeks on screen, Look Ahead re-anchors on that week and opens the day for you.

One exception, and it is deliberate: if your parish is on an alternate liturgical calendar, a date outside that calendar's published years is refused with a message rather than answered out of the modern calendar. Vianney would rather say it cannot tell you than tell you the wrong day.

What one day card tells you

• The celebration — the day as the calendar names it — with its rank and color beneath.
• A small chip for anything special that day, a holy day of obligation included. Vianney knows the US rule here: when January 1, August 15 or November 1 falls on a Saturday or a Monday the obligation is lifted, so no obligation chip appears — the solemnity, its rank and color are unchanged.
• The lectionary line and a USCCB link that opens the full readings for that date in a new tab.
• Each Mass: its time, who is celebrating (or a dash when nobody is set), and the intention booked on it, with a dagger for a soul.
• Ministers 12 of 14 · 2 open where a published schedule covers the day, so a shortfall is visible without opening anything.
• A liturgy guide line when one is linked, and a count of the day's notes.

Open one day

Click any card. The day opens in full on the left, with a rail of every loaded day on the right so you can move around without going back.

• ‹ Previous and Next › step a day at a time, straight across the end of a week.
• The left and right arrow keys do the same, and Esc closes the day again.
• Stepping ‹ Previous past the first loaded day loads a week of history first, so going backwards never hits a wall.
• Advancing past the last loaded day quietly loads the next week for you.

The day itself gathers, in order: its title, rank, season and color; the optional memorials it offers; anything special; the readings with the lectionary citations and the USCCB link; the At a glance summary when your parish has that switched on; and then Masses & intentions — one block per Mass. Beside them, in its own card, sits a two-tab panel — Notes and Liturgy Guide — which is where the day's shared notes and its worship-aid PDF both live now.

Today's own card is time-aware: on a Saturday (or the eve of any anticipated day), once the day's scheduled Masses are done the day view leads with the Anticipatory Mass and its Sunday readings, and the day's own section tucks behind a Show link with a line saying why. The liturgical day itself is unchanged, and browsing any other day never second-guesses the calendar.

Inside a Mass block

• The time, a Vigil badge where it applies, the celebrant, and the intention (or a quiet "no intention booked").
• Where the lectionary offers options, a line inviting you to record which ones the parish took.
• Two tabs: Ministers and Music. Ministers lists each role with the people serving — every name links to their profile — and marks how many places are still open. Music holds that Mass's plan.
• Make a change on a Mass that belongs to a published schedule jumps you into that schedule, opened at this very Mass, to swap somebody.

Where the Masses come from

Look Ahead shows the Masses your parish will actually celebrate: a published ministry schedule wherever one covers the date, and your standard Mass schedule everywhere else. Additions, moves and cancellations made in a published schedule all show through here.

Good to know

• Celebrants are read-only on this page. Assigning happens on the schedule workbench — see Assigning who says each Mass.
• The old Today, This week and This weekend tabs were retired: everything they showed lives on a day card now.
• The Home page carries the same week strip, built from these very cards. Clicking a day there brings you here, opened on that day.
• Next: Day notes on Look Ahead, Linking a liturgy guide, and Music plans for each Mass.