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STARTERS FOR SUNDAY: A GUIDE TO THE LECTIONARY
The Revised Common Lectionary
The Revised Common Lectionary was prepared by the Consultation
on Common Texts (CCT), and consists of a table of readings
which gives the liturgical day or date and the Scripture
references for the texts to be read. Liturgies are set
forms of public worship used in the Christian church.
It is arranged in a three-year cycle:
year A, the year of Matthew;
year B, the year of Mark;
and year C, the year of Luke.
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John is read each
year, especially around Christmas, Lent and Easter,
and also in the year of Mark, whose Gospel is
shorter than the others. The sequence of Gospel
readings is meant to lead God’s people to
a deeper knowledge of Christ and a stronger faith
in him.
Along with the Gospel, there is a rich provision
of Old Testament material, chosen to illuminate
the Gospel and to include important narratives
of faith. Acts and the Epistles highlight not
only apostolic authority, but Christian experience
of and reflection on the grace of God in Christ.
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Much of the material is offered in semi-continuous form,
which allows a larger variety of passages of the Bible
to be read. This return to a greater selection of readings
of the Bible is not only a means of combating the decline
of biblical literacy, among adults as much as among young
Christians, but is a recovery of a liturgical way to lead
the followers of Christ through his birth, baptism, ministry,
death, and resurrection.
The lectionary presented throughout this website is
the Revised Common Lectionary with some adjustments.
The calendar upon which it is based, and the principles
it pursues, are explained in The
Revised Common Lectionary (The Canterbury Press,
1992).
Finding the appropriate Sunday
The heading of the lectionary shows the appropriate cycle,
A, B, or C for each Advent-to-Advent year.
The lectionary provides readings for more Sundays than
there are in any one calendar year, and not every set
of readings will be used in any one year. This is because
Easter is a moveable feast, and the calendar of the
Christian Year is also therefore moveable, with only
Christmas (25 December) and Epiphany (6 January) fixed
to particular dates.
As the date of Easter varies from year to year, dates
which depend on Easter also vary. A
full description and table of moveable dates is given
here.
Wherever possible, particular dates, between which
the readings may occur, have been given in the lectionary.
The dates are inclusive. When Easter falls as early
as March 22, the readings for the Sunday following Trinity
Sunday are those given for the eighth Sunday after Epiphany.
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