VERBUM TIP of the day: Teaching how the lectionary is made

MJ. Smith

This post builds upon the previous tip TIP of the day: Scripture formatted for proclaiming / reading aloud.

When a lectionary is developed, not only do the readings need to be selected, they also need to be edited to insure that they can easily be understood when proclaimed, that everything understood by context (e.g. the antecedents of pronouns)  has a clear antecedent, that the reading fits into the time allotted ...

Using the same example as in the previous post, the lectionary contains::

While the Bible contains::

I begin by building a highlighting palette that I use to teach how the Bible is edited to create the lection. It does not create a text for practicing proclaiming the text. However, it does hide my lack of the fine motor skills required to use the Draw mode (TIP of the day - oldies weekend: drawing mode) for teaching. The palette contains:

• Lection boundaries
• New line marker
• Text attributes: addition. deletion. modification, optional
• Incipits: the eight that occur in the USA Roman Catholic lectionary

Applying the styles to the Bible per the Lectionary yields:

So why go to the work of building a visual filter, just for a teaching example?

• for some of us, it  is easier than Draw mode
• the filter can readily be turned on and off so that you can return to it even weeks later with assurance that you are duplicating what you originally showed.
• one can do multiple passages including ad hoc examples knowing that you are showing them in a consistent manner.