Lent and Lectionary

LENT: a gift? a joyful season? Whatever our doubts, that is clearly what the preface asserts: Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed. This single sentence confidently conveys the whole meaning of Lent. Lent is a season defined by its goal, namely, the celebration of the paschal mystery. 'Paschal mystery' is a dense codeword for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his sending of the Spirit upon us and our world.

Participating in this mystery by faith and baptism, we are set free from the tyranny of sin and death and made a new creation, transformed in mind and heart. We have every reason to celebrate! Week by Lenten week we look forward to the festival. But Lent is a joyful season not simply in its awaited climax. There is joy along the way as we submit to the word that enlightens and liberates us.

The power of Lent lies above all in the word of God proclaimed at our Sunday assemblies. This word has a persuasive logic to it which is worth exploring. There has always been a close connection between word and worship in both the Jewish and the Christian tradition. The fascinating story of how the spoken word of God found its way into collections of writings and how these writings became 'canonised' into the Old and New Testaments - our Bible - is a tale for another time. For now let us ask how word and worship gave birth to the Lectionary and take a closer look at what kind of book it is. Then we will focus on the Lenten word and its dynamic of conversion.

The claim can be made that the Bible is a book intended for use in Christian worship. Paul gives explicit instructions that his letters be read to the churches (1 Thess 5:27, Col 4:16) and he writes of the 'psalms, hymns and spiritual songs' inspired in the community by the word (Col 3:16). Justin Martyr, writing around the year 150 to give a plausible account of Christian faith and practice to Roman authorities, describes Sunday worship: And on the day called 'of the Sun; an assembly is held in one place of all living in town or country, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read for as long as time allows. It needs to be noted that at this point that the 'memoirs of the apostles' and 'the writings of the prophets' were not to be found in a 'Bible'. It was not until the end of the 4th century that Christians settled on an authoritative list of 46 books of the Hebrew scriptures and 27 Christian writings which were to constitute the single book that we call the 'Bible'.

The evidence as to how the reading of scripture at Christian worship was organised in the fust few centuries is fragmentary. The only 'liturgical books' would have been the collected manuscripts of the scriptures but we simply do not know what passages were read at what time or in what place. It is usually assumed that the reading was done on a 'continuous' basis (known as lectio continua), that is, books were read more or less in their entirety over a series of Sundays, with the presiding bishop determining the length of the passages proclaimed. Such a practice gave rise to codices annotated to mark the beginning and end of readings, and then to independent lists of reading references. The emergence of liturgical feasts and seasons - well advanced by the 4th century- with their own combinations of readings cut across the practice of lectio continua more and more. This interplay between 'semi-continuous reading' and 'thematic selection' is characteristic of our current lectionary.

The first reference to the existence of a Lectionary - a book with selected scripture readings organised to meet liturgical needs - is found around the year 450 but the oldest extant Lectionary dates only from the end of the 8th century. Local diversity in the choice and arrangement of readings gradually gave way to greater uniformity, especially in the 8th and 9th centuries under the impetus of Pepin and Charlemagne with their interesting imperial and therefore liturgical unity. The hybrid Franco-Germanic-Roman liturgy that they brought about is the foundation of what is over­ simply called 'the Roman Rite'.

In the diverse books of scripture texts emerged related to the ministries associated with them: the epistolary (with readings preceding the gospel, proclaimed by lectors), the evangeliary (with gospel texts proclaimed by the ordained minister), and the antiphonary (with antiphons sung by the schola). Of these the gospel book was accorded the most honour, as it was seen to represent Christ and therefore was elaborately decorated with illuminations and precious stones.

However as the priest celebrant assumed more and more of the ministerial roles, these books were gradually amalgamated. Not only were all the readings combined in a single Lectionary - a process complete by the 11th century - but increasingly the Lectionary was incorporated into the priest/presider’s book, the Sacramentary, to form the Missal which became the norm in the 13th century.

The liturgical reforms mandated by the Council of Trent led to the publication in 1570 of the Missal of Pius V. This essentially adopted the Romano-Frankish system of readings which had virtually no reading of the Old Testament on the Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year. The juxtaposition of epistle and gospel readings which had come about more by chance than design was destined to endure for more than a thousand years.

Vatican II declared that the treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that a richer share in God's word may be provided for the faithful (SC 51). This directive gave rise to  the Lectionary for Mass, first published in 1969 and revised in 1982.  It is a remarkable  achievement  Over the course of the three-year cycle for Sundays and feast days we read about 6% of the Old Testament (compared with the less than 1% in the 1570 Missal) and 41% of the New (compared to about 16% previously). The Lectionary utilises varying combinations of semi-continuous and selective (or thematic) reading patterns for the seasons of the liturgical year.

The key to understanding the Lectionary is the liturgical year. The Lectionary comprises a selection of readings from the Bible arranged according to the structure of the liturgical year. It is crucial to note these two differences between Bible and Lectionary: the latter contains a certain selection from the Bible and structures this selection on a different basis.

The principle of interpretation that is most fundamental to the Lectionary is the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. The dynamic of the Lectionary is paschal. The saving mystery of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection lies at the heart of the liturgical year and therefore governs the formation and interpretation of the Lectionary. This means that there are several things that the Lectionary is not. It is not a mini­ Bible in the sense of being an abbreviated version of the Bible in its usual form. Nor does it present a chronological history of salvation like a kind of 'bible history' story-book.

Nor is it arranged as a compendium of Catholic doctrine or as a catechism of Christian ethics.  It is ordered to proclaim the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ in which we participate by faith and baptism. Simply put, the key to the Lectionary is the paschal mystery.

This mystery is proclaimed via the weekly and annual corner-stones of Sunday and Easter. Every week, the word and rite of Eucharist on the Lord's Day declare that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Every year, the liturgical cycle reaches its climax in the paschal Triduum of Jesus' passion, death and resurrection. From this centre the liturgical year sets forth and to this centre it returns. The Triduum opens out onto the Easter season, our fifty­ day immersion in the Spirit of the Risen One, and extends back into the preparatory season of Lent. In the same way, the annual celebration of Jesus' birth leads into the Christmas season and is preceded by the season of Advent.

The remainder of the calendar year - unhelpfully termed 'Ordinary Time' - is devoted to 'the mystery of Christ in all its aspects' (GNLY 43).

The selection and arrangement of readings for the Sundays of Lent is entirely at the service of the conversion and renewal to which we are called. The Lenten word readies us to celebrate anew the dying and rising of Jesus and let his Spirit establish this paschal pattern in our daily lives. The three-year cycle of readings is constructed as a Lenten catechesis distinct from the semi-continuous reading of the synoptic gospels characteristic of Ordinary Time. The gospel passage is the anchor text. In accord with ancient tradition the gospel for the first Sunday of Lent is the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert, and for the second Sunday that of Jesus' transfiguration. Together these two Sundays orchestrate a prelude to the entire Lent-Easter cycle... The temptation story, symbolising the struggle against the forces of sin and evil, evokes Jesus' passion and death... The transfiguration, with its aura of transforming light, intimates Jesus' glorified state after his resurrection.' (Normand Bonneau, The Sunday Lectionary: Ritual Word, Paschal Shape. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998, pp. 97-98).

For the following three Sundays the pattern changes. The Year A gospel passages are those most intimately linked with the catechumenal process of the 4th  century: the Johannine stories of the Samaritan woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. With their elemental themes of living water, light and Iife, these readings are integral to the purification of the elect preparing for initiation into the life of Christ at the Easter Vigil. 'In relating stories of people coming to faith in Jesus, these narratives naturally evoked the journey of candidates towards baptism - conversion meant moving from sin (thirst) to grace (living water), from darkness (blindness) to light (sight), from death to resurrection' (Bonneau). They have such an importance, above all when the scrutinies are celebrated, that they can displace the gospel selections for Years B and C, though these too are chosen for their connection to the paschal mystery and the call to conversion.

In Lent the readings from the Old Testament are chosen to present a catechesis on the main elements of salvation history rather than for their immediate connection with the gospel as we would find in Ordinary Time.  In this way they anticipate the solemn retelling of the story of salvation in the series of readings at the Easter Vigil.  The second reading draws on the apostolic letters of the New Testament so as to harmonise with either the first reading or the gospel or both, and proclaim the paschal mystery of Christ refracted through the Lenten themes of penance and baptism.

The Lectionary for Lent invites us to become, like Jesus, a grain of wheat that is buried in the ground and dies, only to yield a rich harvest of life. It recalls for us defining moments in the long love affair between God and the chosen people of old; it evokes for us Jesus' own journey of faith, from initial temptation to final transfiguration by way of the cross; it empowers us to live as those reborn in the waters of baptism and anointed as the priestly, prophetic and royal people of God. It is the word which makes Lent such a joyful season and a gift to be treasured.

This article was originally published in Liturgy News ​Vol 36(4) December 2006. Reprinted with permission.