{"id":24131,"date":"2014-03-23T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=24131"},"modified":"2016-12-29T11:58:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T18:58:06","slug":"lectionary-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/03\/23\/lectionary-statistics\/","title":{"rendered":"Lectionary Statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"

When talking about the Bible, we Catholics inevitably end up talking about the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. I had always wondered how much of the Bible we hear proclaimed in the Liturgy. The other day I got a little curious and tracked done some statistics<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\"Lectionary\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lectionary Reforms<\/h2>\n

Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the format of the lectionary was similar to what is used in Eastern Christianity today. In the liturgy there would be a Reading from the New Testament, which was followed by a section from one of the Gospels. Old Testament readings were restricted to weekdays and special feasts. This exposed the layman to 1% of the Old Testament<\/strong> and 16.5% of the New Testament<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, with the Council\u00a0came a significant effort to revise the Lectionary:<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0treasures of the Bible\u00a0are to be\u00a0opened up more lavishly\u00a0so that a\u00a0richer fare\u00a0may be provided for the\u00a0faithful\u00a0at the table of God’s word. In this way the\u00a0more significant part of the Sacred Scriptures\u00a0will be read to the people over a fixed number of years”<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0Sacrosanctum Concilium, #51<\/span><\/p>\n

After the Council, the current format of four Readings was adopted: an Old Testament Reading, a Psalm, a New Testament epistle and a Gospel story. These reforms mean that a Sunday Mass attendee now hears\u00a03.7% of the Old Testament<\/strong> and 40.8% of the New Testament<\/strong>. The percentages are even better for those attending daily Mass, coming in at 13.5% for the Old Testament<\/strong> and\u00a071.5% for the New Testament<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/h2>\n

Some might think that these percentages are still quite low. However, I think two things must be remembered:<\/p>\n

1. How much there is to read<\/strong>
\nIt must not be forgotten that the Bible is, well, kinda big. For example, 13.5% of the Old Testament is still 3,378 verses, a significant chunk of the Bible!<\/p>\n

2. What is read<\/strong>
\nIt is also significant which<\/span> parts of the Bible are read. The sections which are read are the portions which are crucial to the story of salvation history, particularly focussing on the covenants in the Biblical narrative, as well as showing the unity of the Bible by arranging the Old Testament Readings to parallel the New Testaments Readings.<\/p>\n

Having said that, it still must still be said that even if you go to Mass every day there will still be 86.5% of the Old Testament and 28.5% of the New Testament<\/strong>\u00a0which you won’t have heard proclaimed. This just goes to show that one should not restrict the reading of Sacred Scripture to the liturgy alone. Instead, the liturgy should be used as a springboard to participation in group studies, as well as\u00a0private reading and devotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When talking about the Bible, we Catholics inevitably end up talking about the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. I had always wondered how much of the Bible we hear proclaimed in the Liturgy. The other day I got a little curious and tracked done some statistics…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[302,2969,288,91,373,147],"class_list":["post-24131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-bible","tag-featured","tag-lectionary","tag-liturgy","tag-sacred-scripture","tag-statistics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24131"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63558,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24131\/revisions\/63558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}