Dividing Scripture

Consider this challenge:  Take the whole Bible and figure out how to cut it up into bite-sized pieces that can be used over 156 Sundays, plus a few dozen major feast days.  Take into account the seasons of the liturgical year, as well as 2000 years of previous ways of doing the same thing.  When you have all the Sundays and major feasts figured out, divide those into a three-year rotation.  Then, decide how to divide what’s left into about seven hundred weekdays to create a two-year list of readings for daily Mass. 

In the process, of course, you will have to decide which verses of the Bible are most important.  You have to determine how long each reading should be and where to start and stop each passage. 

These were just some of the challenges faced by those who created the book of readings that we call the Lectionary.  In making their decisions, the Church used two main patterns for choosing readings.

Generally the first reading is from the Old Testament, though during Easter season it comes from the New Testament book of Acts.  The second reading is from the New Testament letters or the Book of Revelation, followed by an excerpt from one of the four Gospels. For the seasons of Christmas and Easter, the readings are chosen based on the feast, so they all fit together well.

In Ordinary Time, a different principle comes into play.  We read through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, one each year, in what is called a semi-continuous reading.  We don’t read every verse, but we work the Gospel, chapter by chapter.  John’s gospel is used most often during the Easter season in all three years.

The first reading is chosen to relate to the Gospel passage, and the psalm is chosen to respond to the first reading.  The second reading is not necessarily linked to the other readings but gives us another set of ideas to ponder.

The goal of this rather complicated structure is simple: to expose us to more of the Bible than we used to hear in Church.  Before 1970, the Lectionary had only one year’s worth of readings and we heard about 10 percent of the Bible proclaimed at Mass.  Today’s three-year cycle allows us the opportunity to listen to some 60% of Sacred Scripture read at Mass.

Back in 1893 Pope Leo XIII (13th) reminded Catholic Christians that we have a holy obligation to study Scripture.  It’s not enough for us to hear the Word proclaimed at Mass, but to go home, open our Bibles and read the Word of God, allowing it to become part of us.