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Formed in Christ

Liturgy of the Word -- Second reading

Friday, October 17, 2025Faith

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Those letters and Revelation can provide important advice for us today, even though they were written centuries ago to people very different from us in geography, language, and culture.

Father Robert M.
O'Grady

The second reading, which is the third biblical text assigned to each Sunday, is always from the New Testament. It is either from one of the apostolic letters, written by Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, the anonymous author of Hebrews, or from the Bible's last book, Revelation.
For those who like numbers or statistics, the following gives you a sense of what appears in the entire Lectionary. Though we are speaking of Sundays, the numbers give you a sense of how much of the New Testament texts besides the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles we might hear. Of the 13 letters bearing Paul's name, each has at least several verses in our Lectionary. The longest letter, First Corinthians, provides the largest selection of texts, while his shortest letter, Philemon, gives us eight.
The other books according to their length and the number of verses we might hear proclaimed are: Hebrews, 84 of 303; James, 31 of 108; 1 Peter, 36 of 105; 2 Peter, seven of 61; 1 John, 33 of 105; Revelation, 38 of 404; while from 2 John, or 3 John, or Jude, there are no selections in the whole Lectionary.
The selections are arranged in a "semi-continuous" manner. What this means is that texts are selected from a particular book and, for the most part, start at the beginning and "wander" through the remainder of the book. Some verses, sentences, paragraphs, or chapters are skipped over. Sometimes, it may be that only a paragraph or two of a whole book is proclaimed.

The second reading is always "sandwiched" between the responsorial and the Gospel. As you read in a previous column, the first reading, when it is from the Old Testament, was chosen because of its relationship to the Gospel; and the responsorial was chosen both to highlight the first reading and bridge it to the Gospel.
This often leaves the second reading as a kind of an orphan when it comes to preaching. So rarely does the second reading in any way relate to the first reading and Gospel that it is frequently overlooked by preachers.
Those letters and Revelation can provide important advice for us today, even though they were written centuries ago to people very different from us in geography, language, and culture.
They were Mediterranean; we're not. They spoke Greek; our modern language is certainly not their Greek, though we experience more and often vastly different cultures than we hear the early church was encountering in these Letters. Cultures were and are different.
The second readings have very different tones and address very different issues.
Following are a few examples:
Corinth was a particular concern for Paul. We have two letters, and they contain hints that there were probably at least two other letters now lost to us. We hear a mix of praise and criticism of the Corinthians in both letters. Praise for their embrace of the faith at Paul's preaching, but also his criticism of how the Lord's Supper has developed into a mere love fest. And worse is that some are excluded because of their economic condition: the rich here, the poor there. In other words, people started doing whatever they wanted at Mass -- the Lord's Supper. Paul reminded them it was contrary to what he had handed on to them as he had received it from the Lord. His account of the Last Supper is the earliest written one we have. (Cf. 1 Cor. 11:17-34.)
Paul also lists a litany of other "irregularities" that seem to have crept into the Corinthian Church.
Romans is a treatise on grace and its power in the lives of Christians. Galatians is a warning not to demand that all new Christians must become practicing Jews before they could be admitted to the Christian Church.
The Thessalonians seem to have been among Paul's most enthusiastic converts, embracing his preaching and exceedingly generous in providing for the financial needs of both Paul and the special "second collection" he was taking up for the struggling church in Jerusalem.
Hebrews, which is more of a homily than a letter, is a splendid exposition of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. It is only here that Christ is called a priest, in fact, the high priest. This text teaches us what Christ's priestly sacrifice has accomplished and how his priests ought to conduct their own lives.
The Book of Revelation is famous for its dire scenes, providing authors and artists over the centuries with all kinds of material to cajole, frighten, and scare us into line. The book really is written in code language and contains much consolation for the persecuted churches and Christians, then and now.
Remember, there is more to each of these books than what we hear on Sunday. The invitation is to read more of these sacred texts.