SilverMine

Sermons from Revd Matt Ralph and reflections on Christian worship. "Surely there is a mine for silver" - Job 28:1

Musings on Lectionaries 08/08/2025

Musings on Lectionaries I am a Church of England clergyman, and as such have committed to following the Canons of that church. requires the daily saying of Morning and Evening Prayer (an obligation that is also a source of great joy). Since General Synod's authorising of Common Worship materials, these can of course be used to fulfil this obligation. In short, any Service of the Word is valid to meet this requirement (indeed, Common Worship: Daily Prayer's many services of Morning and Evening Prayer have no special authorisation or commendation - they are all simply authorised as being valid services-of-the-word). Yet to be valid, an authorised lectionary must be used, as clarified in . Which lectionaries are "authorised" in the Church of England? The question is more complex than it might seem, as it requires knowledge of both history and of the ways the lectionaries are structured. In particular, weekday lectionaries are entirely distinct from Sunday lectionaries in Common Worship (though not in the older BCP lectionaries). Glossing over some of the complexity for the time being, there are basically three authorised lectionaries for weekdays: the 1871 lectionary (the "table of lessons" in a recently printed BCP) the 1928 lectionary (the "alternative table of lessons" in a recently printed BCP) The Common Worship Weekday Lectionary, published It is the last of the three that seems most commonly used, either looked up in the Lectionary app, read direct from the Daily Prayer app, or in a physical lectionary booklet bought every year for clergy and church-office use. Yet for someone who actually follows this lectionary daily, it is dismaying quite how much Scripture is left out of it. All of the instances of the Abraham and Jacob committing acts of deception by claiming that their wife is their sister, for instance, are omitted - presumably because the notion of a lying patriarch feels difficult to stomach! The omission of imagery of sexual violence and prostitution from Ezekiel is perhaps more understandable. And the omission of the "imprecatory" psalms (especially 58 and 109) follows Roman Catholic practice. But my problem with this is twofold. Firstly, I gave an ordination vow to "be diligent in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith". I didn't vow to be "diligent only in reading that Holy Scripture which doesn't upset modern or Victorian sensibilities". Secondly, if we reduce the canon of Scripture, on what basis do we do this? Surely our Anglican normative framing for this is Article VI, establishing the primary canon as that "whose authority was never any doubt in the Church" and the deuterocanon as that "read for example of life and instruction of manners". If a third category of Scripture is introduced (that deemed too difficult for Morning and Evening Prayer), by which criteria might this be drawn up? By which Fathers or ancient practice of the Church might such a category be justified? It seems to me that we are in hot water here. Better by far to choose a clear framing - either the whole primary canon of "the Protestant Bible", or the Bible including Apocrypha as per Article VI (my preferred framing). None of the three above-listed lectionaries covers the whole Bible (even the whole "Protestant Bible"). Even in the original (no longer authorised) 1662 lectionary, Cranmer omitted chapters of Revelation he deemed too difficult for public understanding (but again, how is this scoping justified?). It seems to me that, for clergy at any rate, the project should be to read the *whole* of Scripture. How do I preach the whole of Christ, if not from the whole of Scripture? As I take seriously my canonical oaths, I set to work on an improved Common Worship Weekday Lectionary, which would on each day include all the readings of the original, but would also have additional readings, such that over the whole cycle of the lectionary, the whole Bible and Apocrypha is read.I have now completed it, and there's a download link at the bottom of this article for those interested. All's well that ends well, you might think. Well, almost. A few "caveat emptors" remain: Note that the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary is a 2-year lectionary, so during Ordinary Time, year 2 is split into 2 tracks, "a" and "b". If you want to read the whole thing in one year, then you have to do BOTH tracks 2a and 2b of the Old Testament during Ordinary Time, and the extra readings. Also note that the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary, like the 1922 lectionary, uses the ecclesiastical calendar (as opposed to 1871 and 1662, which used the secular calendar). As this combines solar elements (Christmas) with Lunar ones (date of Easter), the length of Ordinary Time differs, both in the "weeks before Lent" and in the "weeks after Trinity". It's very rare for all of these ordinary time readings to be done. So again, if you want to *guarantee* you're reading all of the Scriptures, you'll need to add in any readings that were skipped to get to Ash Wednesday or the first Sunday of Advent. Of course, on Saints' days and other major festivals, the lectio continua (continuous reading) of the lectionary is replaced by lectio eclectica, a specific set of readings chosen for that day. My own approach, in all honesty, is to compeltely ignore the eclectic readings. If I'm celebrating St Luke, it doesn't really help me to abandon my continuous reading of Scripture and read another arbitrary passage in which Luke is mentioned. I'd far rather retain the lectio continua, and then read an extra reading from the "Celebrating the Saints" volume for the feast in question (an excellent resource which I commend to you!). Psalms are an entirely different matter. The distribution of Psalms in the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary system is so absurdly complicated (with different schemes for Ordinary and Seasonal time), and has so many permitted variations (see all the alternatives listed in the lectionary booklets), that I could find no way to make it "psalter-complete". Fortunately, Cranmer already fixed this with his 30-day psalter from the BCP, which I commend to you. For those slightly more spiritually impoverished, like myself, who can't quite manage Cranmer's scheme, my lectionary includes a version of Cranmer's allocation of psalms, but spread over *three* offices instead of two. Thus, the psalms can either be said over Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline (Night Prayer), in which case they will all be said in 30 days. Or they can be said over 2 offices. My own practice is to say psalms at two offices, on a 3-month cycle. In month 1, I do the MP and EP psalms, in month 2 I do the EP and Night Prayer psalms, and in month 3 the Night Prayer and MP psalms. A scheme that may seem mad, but works well for me. It means that over 90 days you have said all the psalms twice. My psalms scheme is here for reference: In any case, without further ado, I will hand over the goods. Here, with all its faults and errors, is my "improvement", my superset of the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. Version: 9c For the (inevitable) mistakes and corrections, please contact me! Usage notes: The mechanics of the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary are confusing at best. You'll probably want to consult and to get a sense of how it works. You print it two-sided, slice it down the middle, put it into an A5 plastic wallet, then you should be able to slot it into the back of your Bible quite easily. Cells highlighted in yellow represent readings that have been "lengthened" from the original lectionary. The "sup" column gives "supplementary" readings, additional readings to be done on that day. Asterisk (*) indicates a point where, depending on how days of the week and solar dates interface with lunar ones, readings above this line may have been skipped (in case you want to include them in your Offices for the sake of completeness) On feast days, the Weekday Lectionary OT/NT 1/2a/2b system isn't followed and instead there are readings given for Morning and Evening Prayer (these are listed in the Common Worship Main Volume, rather than in the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary). Where this is so, MP readings are in the "OT-2 a/b" and "NT-2" columns, and EP readings are in the OT-1 and NT-1 columns. Thanks - happy praying, and happy Bible reading. /episode/index/show/714c344c-832b-4aa4-bf98-2d7bfc4439f5/id/37738725

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