A Walk in the Ancient Western Lectionary: An Introduction

The one-year Sunday and holy day lectionary educated, catechized, and marked the days year by year and century by century for the Western Church. When the traditional one-year lectionary was replaced during mid-20th-century prayer book revisionism, we lost the pattern of catechesis and marking of time that formed and molded Western Christianity for well over a thousand years. Even Ælfric, whose homilies were written a thousand years ago, tracks the same readings as much of the classic prayer book tradition. When we pray the ancient collects and hear the same epistle and gospel lessons proclaimed, we sit at the feet of saints who walked before us.

Doubtlessly, contemporary Anglicans will praise the modified RCL three-year Sunday lectionary for adding more Scripture to the Sunday lessons. But at what cost? The beauty of Cranmer’s reforms was an intent to make the daily offices, Litany, and Holy Communion normative for the entire people of God. Cranmer wished to give the English people more Scripture, not less, by encouraging daily worship through the daily offices and a reformed daily office lectionary that practically guides the congregation through the entire Old Testament once and the New Testament (excluding Revelation) three times a year. Alas, regular and frequent Holy Communion did not return to Anglicanism until the 20th Century, but the regular proclamation and reading of Scripture was maintained through the daily offices.

The lectionary reforms of the late 20th Century and the Parish Communion Movement resulted in taking away while giving. For example, while Holy Communion became normative for Sundays and Holy Days, it resulted in morning prayer and the Litany falling away into obscurity. The daily offices ars rarely offered as public worship, and many 20th-century daily office lectionaries have minimized or stripped Cranmer’s original vision of reading straight through the Scripture during the offices. Instead of a marathon of Scripture reading during the year, the people of God must attend three years’ worth of Sundays to hear just over half of the Gospels, a quarter of the Epistles, and a token amount of the Old Testament. Meanwhile, the ancient collects are either absent, reworded, or constantly floating (especially during Trinitytide) without the lessons originally pegged to a particular collect.

So why take a walk in the Western lectionary of old? Because the English Reformers preserved (with minor edits) the ancient lectionary that had served the Western Church for centuries, with the understanding that it delivers the key Scripture a Christian requires to digest each year and to meditate upon for the rest of their lives. The English Reformers did not see the ancient lectionary as a problem in teaching Scripture alone; instead, it was a tool that reinforced the ancient faith reformed, including teaching the people of God that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Furthermore, the lectionary is arranging the lessons and the collects carefully and with great intent. If we walk a year in the Western lectionary and do so annually, it reveals our nature and need for the Savior’s redemption lovingly provided by His Father, and now Our Father. This same lectionary inspired and spurred the great missionary efforts of the English people, from North America to India and all points in between. It formed saints like the Venerable Bede, Aquinas, Anselm, and it can form the saints we need in this evil day and age.

Therefore, let us challenge ourselves to walk on the ancient path of the old lectionary. Let us dare to be formed by its tried and true Scripture lessons and prayers that discipled great saints of old from the Old World to the New. This old lectionary has new saints to form, if only we would walk in its time-tested way.