Compatibility – variations and additional options

This is the programme followed by SSRA for the Gospel readings in Ordinary Time

The underlinings indicate those few occasions where the gospel reading for the day may be found to vary between different lectionaries and lectionary resources.

Where there is no underlining, Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), Common Worship Principal Service Lectionary (CW), Lectionary for Mass (LFM), and SSRA, all have the same gospel reading.

SSRA consistently prioritises the systematic reading of the gospel for the year. This includes keeping the Second Sunday before Lent and the Last Sunday before Lent as Sundays in Ordinary Time, rather than displacing those readings with Creation or Transfiguration themes. The Transfiguration is observed on the Second Sunday of Lent, as in LFM and RCL.

The Gospel readings for the fifteen Sundays of the Easter series are consistent across all lectionaries, except for the question of the Transfiguration reading on the Second Sunday of Lent, and different options for Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.

The Gospel readings in the Christmas series are consistent across all lectionaries through Advent, and on Christmas Day, with variations limited to the two weeks between 26 December and 8 January. SSRA handles the practical lull experienced in most churches between Christmas and the Epiphany by celebrating Saint John the Evangelist on the first Sunday after Christmas (providing a different set of readings for each year), and moving the Holy Family readings from Saint Luke (including The Presentation) into January of Year C. The Epiphany is then kept on any Sunday falling between 2 and 6 January - with different Old Testament and Epistle readings provided for each year. The main programme for the year then begins resolutely on 7 January.

Old Testament readings and Epistles have less impact on the compatibility of lectionary-based resources, as the gospel is usually taken as the lead reading for the day; but Old Testament readings do occasionally vary, and epistle readings are occasionally out of sync – although the same epistles are always being read at the same time (with the one exception of a CW excursion into Revelation for three Sundays early in Year B). The diagram at this link gives the shape of each year.

The Acts of the Apostles is read in all lectionaries during Eastertide, but there is wide variation in the selection and arrangement of the readings. SSRA arranges readings from Acts across three annual themes: Year A highlights the early days in Jerusalem, Year B the emerging inclusion of the Gentiles, and Year C the ministry of Saint Paul.

January readings from Saint John, which other lectionaries spread across all three years on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, are here gathered together instead on the first three Sundays in Ordinary Time in Year B. This allows Matthew 4^12‑25 to expand across two Sundays in Year A, and also allows the two Holy Family readings from Luke chapter 2 to be given appropriate prominence, in the correct sequence, at the beginning of Year C. It places the wedding at Cana - John 2^1‑11 - on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year B, which is one of the three options in CW.

All Saints Sunday is an option in CW for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (the Fourth Sunday before Advent / the Sunday between 30 October and 5 November). SSRA has readings on that date, in all three years, suitable for an observation of All Saints / All Souls Sunday, without interrupting the sequential reading of the gospels and epistles for the year.

Remembrance Sunday is kept in the UK on the second Sunday in November, which is either the Thirty‑second or Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (the Third or Second Sunday before Advent) each year. SSRA has readings on both these Sundays, in all three years, suitable for an observation of Remembrance Sunday, without interrupting the sequential reading of the gospels and epistles for the year.

For Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Ascension Day (and also for The Epiphany), SSRA provides different readings for each year of the three year cycle. The Maundy Thursday readings are themed: in Year A, the Lamb of God; in Year B, service to others (the washing of the disciples’ feet); and in Year C, the Bread of Life.

Finally, some lectionaries offer readings for a Mothering Sunday theme on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, a Bible Sunday theme on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (CW ‘Last after Trinity’), plus Saints Days and other Festivals. In these cases, as elsewhere, SSRA prioritises the systematic reading of the gospels and epistles for the year, reducing interruptions and omissions to a minimum. Special themes, prayers and readings can always be added to a service whenever appropriate, without interrupting or omitting the ongoing lectionary programme.

The three-year cycle of Sunday readings was first published as LFM in 1969. LFM churches universally use all three readings. RCL (1992) lengthened many of the Old Testament and Epistle readings. CW (1997) was based on RCL. Because of the longer readings, almost all RCL and CW churches omit one of the first two readings, and most find the remaining reading discouragingly lengthy and complex. To encourage the use of all three readings, SSRA returns to the original concept of one pericope (or single clear point) per reading, then selects verses, and arranges continuous passages across consecutive weeks, to ensure consistency in the total combined length of the three readings each Sunday.

The 34 Sundays of Ordinary Time are hugely important, forming the Main Programme for the year.

The original Latin for Ordinary Time is tempus per annum.

And tempus is not just time. Like the Greek kairos, tempus can mean the opportune moment or the critical juncture. It is the complete opposite of ‘down time’ or ‘filler’. It is about what is happening, and what matters, right now.

Tempus can designate a specific season of the year – again, not ‘filler’, between other, more important things, but an important, specific season of its own.

In the plural, tempora, the word’s signification of importance has even more clarity: ‘these are the times’.

Medieval Latin came to use tempus to mean weather – surviving into Italian, French and Spanish. As such it has the nuance of the flavour of the moment, again signifying the distictiveness of the time designated.

In Roman linguistic and rhetorical theory, tempus designates the tense of a verb – past, present or future – again signifying the importance of the moment.

In ancient music and poetry, tempus referred to the beat or meter, the length and rhythm of the tones and syllables. Tempus per annum – Ordinary Time – is the heartbeat of the year.

200 years ago, ordinary (in English) still meant an important person, the one who keeps order. Church of England legislation still refers to a diocesan bishop as the ordinary of the place. If there is any justification for translating tempus per annum as Ordinary Time, it is this sense of keeping things in order through the year.

During tempus per annum – Ordinary Time – the Gospel for the year is read, in order. Epistles also are arranged to be read, in an orderly manner; readings from each epistle are arranged sequentially, in order.

The negative nuance of the word ordinary in contemporary English has too often distracted from the vital role of these readings in order in the lectionary’s systematic study of the whole of scripture.

The confusing array of different names given to these Sundays in different lectionaries has further distracted from the unity and clarity of purpose of these Sundays.

It is most unfortunate that the contemporary nuance of ordinary as unimportant or uninteresting may have led to the compilers of some lectionaries designating these Sundays as Sundays whose readings can be omitted or displaced simply because the day or the week has a particular additional theme.

There will always be countless additional themes available, all of them worthy, every Sunday of the year.

But these 34 sets of ordinary readings – 102 sets across the three years – are not unimportant or uninteresting. They are, in terms of the systematic reading of the scriptures, the Main Programme for the year. These sets of ordinary readings are how the church reads the scriptures. Without them, the church fails to read the scriptures. This is the extraordinary importance of Ordinary Time.

Ordinary Time is the Main Programme for the year – and “when selecting from the options and variations on offer, SSRA consistently prioritises the systematic reading of the gospels and epistles for the year, reducing interruptions and omissions to a minimum”. “Special themes, prayers and readings can always be added to a service whenever appropriate, without interrupting or omitting the ongoing lectionary programme.”

◄ for an introduction to the three‑year programme of readings, click here