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Friday, September 12, 2025Faith

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One of the goals of the liturgical revisions of the Second Vatican Council was to provide many more readings from the entire Bible so that we Catholics would grow in familiarity with and love of both testaments.

Father Robert M.
O'Grady

Following the example of Jesus, who, as the Gospel of Luke (4:16-30) relates, went to the Temple as was his custom, and he proceeded to read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The Word of God was and remains essential to Christian worship and specifically to Holy Mass.
While the Holy Bible is the library from which we draw the sacred texts proclaimed during the Liturgy of the Word, we do not proclaim the texts from a Bible but from the collection of readings that we call the Lectionary for Mass.
The present edition, and the only one to be used at Masses celebrated in English in the United States of America, is not a single book but four volumes. The Lectionary issued after the Second Vatican Council, and any subsequent revisions, is not a collection of biblical texts, but a collection of biblical citations. From these citations, the various territorial bodies of bishops -- in the USA, it is The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or USCCB -- oversees the forming of the Lectionary for its territory. The conference chooses the vernacular translation(s) of the Bible that will generate the complete text from the citations.
Once this has been done by working groups, then it is submitted to the entire body of bishops for its vote and, having been approved at that level, it is sent to the Holy See for its review and recognition.
This is a massive undertaking for the bishops and those they entrust with the editorial work.

There will be a new Lectionary for our country, probably several years from now. It will replace the present Lectionary for Mass. We'll need four new volumes to replace the present ones.
There are a couple of reasons why this revision is happening.
The first is that our bishops have adopted, as have other bishops' conferences around the world, a specific translation of the Bible for liturgical use. The new translation of both the Old and New Testaments has been going on for years.
Next, there have been additions made to the Lectionary, especially as new saints have been added to the calendar, and so readings are often chosen specifically for their celebrations.
Some changes have been made to Sunday readings, an especially notable one is the extended Vigil of Pentecost, which added several Old Testament readings for optional use at that Vigil Mass.
Revisions of readings by addition or editing have also been made to some of the ritual Masses, notable among these are the expanded choice of readings for the celebration of matrimony and for the Order of Christian Funerals.
The Lectionary for Mass has an extensive and important introduction called the General Introduction to the Lectionary for Mass; its second edition of 1981 is the one now in use.
The official introduction explains the whole process that is referenced above in my much-abbreviated version.
One of the goals of the liturgical revisions of the Second Vatican Council was to provide many more readings from the entire Bible so that we Catholics would grow in familiarity with and love of both testaments.
Did you know that in the previous Missal -- it contained both the liturgical texts and the biblical texts -- that apart from the Book of Psalms (they are constantly used) only about one percent (1 percent) of the Old Testament was proclaimed, and 17 percent of the New Testament? There was only one set of readings repeated every year.
The revised Lectionary has three sets of readings called Cycles: A is the Year of Matthew, in 2026; B is the Year of Mark in 2027, C is the Year of Luke in 2028; and they go in a rotating system. The Gospel of John is proclaimed during the Easter Season on Sundays and most weekdays, and on some of the days of the Christmas Season. It also makes a summertime appearance during several Sundays of Year B, when selections from his Bread of Life discourse in Chapter 6 of his Gospel are proclaimed. Now, we have 14 percent of the Old Testament, and 74 percent of the New!
The weekdays have a two-year cycle. Year I is for odd-numbered years, currently we are using this cycle; while Year II is for even-numbered years, which will begin in January 2026.
Another important introductory observation about our Lectionary for Mass is that it has been adopted by many of the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation. For the most part, these communities use the Lectionary but often a different translation of the texts.
Nevertheless, our Lectionary is generally applauded for making more of the Word of God available to Catholics at Sunday and Daily Mass, and making a substantial contribution to the ecumenical and interreligious dialogues to which the Vatican Council committed all of us.