A Proposal to Expand the Weekday Lectionary

A Proposal to Expand the Weekday Lectionary indicates how all the books of the Bible can be read at Mass in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in ten years. This would be accomplished primarily by expanding the two-year cycle of First Readings on weekdays in Ordinary Time to a ten-year cycle. The goal is to provide a complete and continuous reading of every book of the Bible. The proposal would provide for reading of the whole biblical Word of God at the liturgy where the faithful gather to nourish and express their faith together.

The average length of those First Readings would be fourteen verses. No changes are proposed to the liturgical calendar. The structure of the Liturgy of the Word would remain the same, that is, a Gospel passage would be read every day, along with a First Reading and its Responsorial Psalm. Minor adjustments to the sequence of Gospel readings are proposed, chiefly to restore those canonical verses that have been omitted in the current Lectionary. The Acts of the Apostles would be read continuously in its entirety during the Easter season, and the average length of those readings would be twenty-one verses.

Bishops, clergy, liturgists, or anyone interested in more readings of Sacred Scripture at Mass will find this proposal interesting, helpful, and satisfying.

Richard J. Flynn is a former Jesuit priest who was laicized in 1987. As a Jesuit scholastic he earned an AB degree in philosophy and a Licentiate in philosophy from St. Louis University and then taught high-school chemistry in Baghdad, Iraq. He studied Arabic in Lebanon and Syria and theology in France and Lebanon, was ordained a priest in 1975, and has pastoral experience in a parish. He obtained a master's degree in theology from the Jesuit Faculty of Theology in Paris. Additionally, he was a hospital chaplain for eight years, then spent a year starting a PhD program in Biblical studies at the Catholic University of America. After being released from the Jesuits, he obtained an MS in computer science at George Mason University and worked as a software developer until 2003. He married his wife Veronica in 2002, and he is now retired. He has knowledge of English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic.