Introduction to lectionaries:

• lectionary is just a fancy name for reading plans. They assign the readings of "lections a.k.a. pericopes" to particular services or dates.
• lectionaries were used by the time of Ezra to spread the continuous reading of the Torah out across 3 years (or very quickly, 1 year).
• Jewish lectionaries start with the Torah as the driving force with readings from the prophets being selected on the basis of the Torah reading.
• Jewish feasts have their own set of readings that are independent of the annual cycle of the Torah
• The lectionary does not include all the scripture used in a synagogue service e.g. the psalms

Christian lectionaries:

• Christian lectionaries grew out to the synagogue practice - some scholars see evidence of the Torah cycle in the structure of the Gospels
• Christian lectionaries used the Gospel as the primary text around which other texts were selected
• Readings from books can be continuous (you pick up the next verse), semi-continuous (you read the text in order but may skip parts) or non-continuous (what you read is based on relationships to other readings not on text sequence)
• Historically across the breadth of Christianity, the number of readings has ranged from 2 (Gospel and Epistle) to 7 (no I can't name them all off the top of my head).
• Lectionaries provide additional context for studying Scripture - the relationship between the pericopes selected for a given day and the relationship between the readings for this service and the prior/next services
• Certain scriptures have been used for the same purpose across all liturgical churches for at least 1600 years - The Man Born Blind, the Woman at the Well, the Raising of Lazarus as the final weeks before welcoming new members into the Church at Easter.

Contemporary Catholic and RCL lectionaries:

• starting about 1880 and reaching fruition in the 1950's, a number of churches that had dropped lectionaries began to use them again - the ones I know best are Methodist and Presbyterian
• When the three year Sunday cycle Roman Catholic lectionary was published, these churches decided that the Catholic lectionary was better than what they had developed - and in some cases not yet implemented.
• Lutheran and Anglican lectionaries had remained essentially compatible with the Catholic lectionary so everyone climbed onto the bandwagon to create the Common Lectionary. The Lutherans quickly discovered the major problem - Catholics were heavily into Wisdom literature readings and Lutherans were heavily into Old Testament narrative. So the Revised Common Lectionary was born - for the Sundays after Pentecost and before Advent there is a thread of readings that stress narratives and a thread that stress wisdom literature.
• The RCL has selected readings for the seasons - Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter - that reflect the long historical use of readings. In ordinary time, the Gospel and the Epistle are both semi-continuous readings. The Old Testament reading is selected based upon the Gospel. The Psalm is chosen for its relationship to the Old Testament reading or the Gospel.
• Each of the three years emphasizes a specific Gospel; there are some British lectionaries that use a four year cycle - giving John its own year rather than just seasons (and filling in for Mark which runs rather short).
• Even if the pastor chooses to preach on only one of the texts, the homily is still influenced by the other readings for the day - the set of readings for the service set the tone for the service

Non-primary Sunday services lectionaries:

• In the Catholic tradition, the weekday lectionary is independent of the Sunday cycle; the new RCL weekday cycle is tied to the Sunday readings. The first half of the week the readings point back to the previous Sunday's readings; the second half of the week points forward to the upcoming Sunday. This provides a seven day set of readings which are read and interpreted in the context of the entire set.
• Lectionaries have two calendar cycles reflected in them - the liturgical year and the sanctoral cycle (the calendar of feast days of Saints). Different religious orders, geographical regions and "denomination" can determine which readings are used. There are also special purpose "votive" readings that are used for funerals, weddings, times of natural disaster, etc.
• Lectionaries (under other names) in the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran traditions also provide readings for Morning and Evening Prayer (or a full Liturgy of the Hours). The Office of Readings comes uses continuous and semi-continuous readings to go through most of the Bible. There are many variations on the Morning and Evening Prayer books to reflect the needs of everyone from a monastic to a busy professional to a young child.

Miscellaneous observations:

• Many churches have lectionaries not built from the Catholic or RCL models; several churches retain the old one year lectionary of Late Medieval/Trent times.
• Some churches allow the use of short, special purpose lectionaries for Season of the Earth or ecumenical purposes.
• Specially regarding Catholics - if you attend only Sunday services, over the space of a year you will hear (semi-continuously) one Gospel, three or four epistles, and 52 Old Testament passages. If you attend Sunday and weekday services, you will hear all four Gospels and several Old Testament books and New Testament Epistles. If you pray the Office of Readings, you will add reading through the Bible (minus the Gospels 'cause they are everywhere else) every two years.
• With the exception of the responsorial psalm mentioned above, none of the use of psalms has been mentioned - one used to go through the Psalms weekly, now it takes a month - they appear not only in the Liturgy of the Hours which includes all the psalms, but selected psalms are used as responsorial psalms and antiphons through the services - how many and how long varies widely.
• Strengths of the lectionary system: readings are always in the context of other scripture (scripture interprets scripture); there is a seasonal flow through the Scripture that reflects the chronology of Jesus' life - ingraining his life in your psyche; the pastor cannot simply choose his favorite passages - the wisdom of nearly 2000 years experience goes into selecting readings that feed/form the congregation

Any questions?

MJ.

This is amazingly helpful - many thanks for doing this.

Graham

Jeff Bridges said:

I seem to recall hearing about a monastic liturgy that went through the psalms twice in a year and the rest of the Bible once a year. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Not off the top of my head. The most common pattern for the complete psalms is weekly or 4 weeks/monthly. The most complete biblical readings that come to mind is the two year Office of Readings. You might check The Oxford Guide to The Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey. I've seen at least one Neo-Celtic lectionary that covers the Bible in a year and the psalms monthly but I would not recommend it. The authors clearly did not understand the concept of lectionaries.