Which Reading Is From the Old Testament in a Mass

If you lot wander into a Catholic Mass in Parramatta, New York, Rome, London, a tiny state church building in outback Australia or a European village on whatsoever given twenty-four hours, y'all will mostly hear the same Bible verses being read.

Merely who picked those readings? And why are they presented to us in this way?

Dr Paul Taylor, the Executive Secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Bishops Committee for Liturgy, says the answer lies in the want of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) to draw more securely on Scripture in the liturgical life of the Church.

"In general, following the Vatican Two call for a 'ressourcement' or taking people back to the scriptural sources of our faith, the framers of the Lectionary wished to impart to the true-blue a richer fare of readings from the various books of the Bible," he said.

"In that location is therefore, greater selection of readings than with the selection for the Mass prior to 1969."

The Vatican II Constitution on the Liturgy ordered that "in sacred celebrations there is to be more reading from holy Scripture and information technology is to be more varied and apposite". (due north.35.1)

"The treasures of the Bible are to exist opened up more than lavishly, and then that a richer share in God's word may exist provided for the faithful". (n.51)

2nd Vatican Council by Lothar Wolleh. Paradigm: Wikimedia Commons.

In 1965, 31 scholars from all over the earth were given the task of selecting from all the books of the Former and New Testaments the passages that they regarded as all-time for liturgical apply, says Archbishop Annibale Bugnini in his book, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Printing, 1979).

They were asked to choose passages that they judged easily understandable by the people and all-time suited for conveying the cardinal messages of salvation history.

"2 whole years of study and meetings … fabricated it possible to come across more conspicuously the direction to be taken in the new Lectionary," Archbishop Bugnini, who was secretarial assistant of the Commission that worked on the reform of the liturgy post-obit Vatican II, wrote.

Finally, the new Lectionary, based on the Ordo Lectionum Missae, for the Roman Cosmic Church was promulgated in 1969 and was further revised in 1981, with bishops' conferences in various language groups using the Ordo Lectionum Missae as a base for the creation of their ain lectionaries, approved by the Vatican.

The Introduction to the 1981 revised Lectionary says the readings were placed into an order which helps the faithful to make sense of the story of conservancy as information technology is presented in the Bible.

"The nowadays Gild of Readings for Mass, then, is an organization of biblical readings that provides the true-blue with a knowledge of the whole of God'due south give-and-take, in a pattern suited to the purpose," it says.

"Throughout the liturgical year, merely above all during the seasons of Easter, Lent and Appearance, the choice and sequence of readings are aimed at giving Christ'due south faithful an always-deepening perception of the faith they profess and of the history of salvation."

The readings are arranged and then that Sundays and feast days nowadays the more important biblical passages.

"In this way the more pregnant parts of God's revealed word tin exist read to the assembled faithful inside an appropriate menstruum of time," the Introduction to the Lectionary says.

Weekdays nowadays a second series of texts from sacred scripture. The series of readings for Sundays and those for weekdays are not dependent on each other.

The club of readings for Sundays and festive days extends over iii years (Years A, B and C), with each twelvemonth existence defended to a item synoptic writer – Matthew, Marking or Luke; for weekdays over two years (Years I and II).

On Sundays, each Mass has three readings: the first from the Old Testament, the 2nd from an Apostle (either from a Letter or from the Book of Revelation, depending on the season), and the third from the Gospels.

"This arrangement brings out the unity of the Old and New Testaments and of the history of salvation, in which Christ is the primal effigy, commemorated in his paschal mystery," the Lectionary says.

"A more than varied and richer reading of sacred scripture on Sundays and festive days results from the iii-year bicycle, in that the same texts are read only every fourth year."

On weekdays, each Mass has two readings: the outset is from the Old Testament or from an Campaigner, and during the Easter season from the Acts of the Apostles; the second, from the Gospels.

The yearly cycle for Lent has its ain principles of organisation, taking into account the baptismal and penitential character of this flavour.

The cycle for the weekdays of Advent, the Christmas season and the Easter season is also yearly and the readings remain the same each yr.

That'due south why, no thing where you are in the world, you'll ordinarily hear the same, carefully chosen and ordered readings at Mass, reminding us over again that nosotros belong to a Universal Church.

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Source: https://catholicoutlook.org/choosing-the-word-how-and-why-mass-readings-are-chosen/

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