500 Years of the Holy Communion Lectionary
In this article and its predecessor, “500 Years of the Daily Office Lectionary,” Fr. Matthew Brench surveys the development of the lectionaries of the Anglican Prayer Book tradition, especially those of the England, the U.S., and Canada, culminating in the present 2019 Prayer Book of the Anglican Church in North America.
Like the Daily Office Lectionary, the readings for Holy Communion have seen drastic changes since the original Book of Common Prayer was published. Unlike the Daily Office Lectionary, however, the Communion Lectionary saw considerable continuity on both sides of the Reformation. Thus, while the Church has felt free to rewrite her lectionaries in the previous century, we have lost access to at least 1,500 years of organic tradition and development.
Sponsored
How the Old Tradition Worked
To understand the traditional lectionary, it is first necessary to understand the traditional calendar. By the time of the Reformation, Advent contained four Sundays, Christmas was on December 25th, and the Circumcision was on January 1st, which would then be celebrated again if there was a Sunday between then and the Epiphany.
The Sundays after Epiphany were fewer in number than we have today because Lent was preceded by three Pre-Lent Sundays, sometimes called the “Gesima Sundays” after their Latin names, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinqugesima. The mini-season of Pre-Lent was a time of preparation focused on self-examination, leading up to the old tradition of making one’s confession of sin on Shrove Tuesday and then using the season of Lent as a time of penitence and amendment of life.
Lent then gave way to Eastertide, which, in turn, is probably the most similar to the old lectionaries. The Ascension, Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday), and Trinity Sunday rounded off the festal season, followed by the Sundays after Trinity, which spanned most of the next six months and were characterized by a theme of discipleship and Christian growth.
A Difference in Propers
Another difference between the traditional lectionary and the modern one is that the number and nature of the Propers are different. A Proper is an element of the liturgy that is ‘proper’ (or belongs to) a particular day or occasion. As the Western Medieval tradition developed, the propers for each Sunday and Holy Day grew in number and complexity, to the point where the Reformers complained that it took longer to determine what to say in the liturgy than actually to pray it. There were introits, graduals, sequences, tracts, readings, collects, secret prayers (private for the priest), communion sentences, all requiring the priest to juggle multiple books at the altar.
The 1549 Prayer Book simplified this considerably: each Sunday or Holy Day now got a Collect, an Introit, an Epistle lesson, and a Gospel. The Collect we know as “The Collect of the Day”, the Introit was a psalm text to be read near the start of the liturgy (and is largely not in continuity with pre-Reformation introits), the Epistle was the first Scripture reading, and the Gospel was the second. In probably less than ten cases throughout the year, the Epistle text was taken instead from Acts, Revelation, or the Old Testament. But there was always a Gospel text to be read. The Introits did not survive the first Prayer Book revision, leaving the collect and two lessons as the standard Prayer Book Propers thereafter.
The Revised Common Lectionary
That is, of course, until the 1970s, when the Roman Church discarded the historic Communion Lectionary and replaced it with something new. The mainline Protestant churches followed suit, creating the Common Lectionary, which was later revised as the Revised Common Lectionary. It is now used by over a billion Christians worldwide. This puts traditional Anglicans in something of a bind. Do we seek catholicity by using the Communion lectionary used by the vast majority of Western Christians today, or by using the Communion lectionary known for over a thousand years (allowing for minor variations in either case)? Unlike the Daily Office Lectionary, there was no compromise that could be a viable solution, taking the “best of both worlds”; we had to choose one or the other. And so, the 2019 Prayer Book uses a version of the Revised Common Lectionary, arguably with a couple of its weaknesses addressed.
The Revised Common Lectionary and ACNA’s adaptation of it, called the “Sunday and Holy Day Lectionary” in the 2019 Prayer Book, provide an Old Testament Lesson, a Psalm, a New Testament Lesson, and a Gospel. In the vast majority of cases, the Old Testament Lesson is typologically or prophetically linked to the Gospel lesson, the Psalm is a response to the Old Testament Lesson, but the Epistle has a 50/50 chance of being entirely unrelated. Furthermore, modern lectionaries are constructed around a three-year cycle, rather than just one. This allows for a broader range of Scripture lessons to be heard at the Church’s Communion services, even including some elements of lectio continua during the Epiphany and post-Pentecost seasons.
Comparing Old and New
The traditional and modern lectionaries can be best considered in tandem, season by season.
Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
The four Sundays in Advent, in the modern calendar, follow a consistent pattern of focusing on eschatology, John the Baptist twice, and finally Mary or Joseph. The traditional lectionary, however, has two eschatological Sundays followed by two dealing with John the Baptist.
Christmastide is very similar in both calendars. It should be noted that a greater emphasis on the Holy Days immediately after Christmas was upheld in the Prayer Books before 1979, such that if (for example) December 28th was a Sunday, that day’s liturgy would be for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, not the 1st Sunday of Christmas. Similarly, there was initially no 2nd Sunday of Christmas; if there was a second Sunday, the feast of the Circumcision of Christ would be celebrated then.
Epiphany, on the other hand, is very different. The traditional season is a sequence of up to six epiphanies, or manifestations, of Christ’s divinity throughout the Gospels. Perhaps surprisingly from a modern perspective, the Baptism of our Lord was not on the first Sunday of Epiphany, but instead the finding of Jesus in the Temple (at the end of Luke 2). Second is the Wedding at Cana, and then various miracles and prophecies round out the rest of the season.
Lent and Easter
Pre-Lent, as mentioned above, is a sequence of three Sundays that shift the worshiper’s attention from the divine Christ to the response of the self. Their Propers emphasize labor, trust, and love, respectively.
The season of Lent itself holds some similarities across traditional lines. The first Sunday was, and is, on the Temptation of Christ. The fourth Sunday was on the feeding of the five thousand (preserved in Year B’s Gospel as well as in the 2019 Collect). Palm Sunday used not to have the liturgy of the palms in the old Prayer Books, so it was more singularly focused on the death of Jesus than the modern observance. Similarly, the Gospel readings through Holy Week in the old lectionary covered all four passion narratives in detail, repeating the experience of a long Palm Sunday Gospel reading for six consecutive days.
Eastertide, old and new, begins with the resurrection, moves through some post-resurrection material, touches upon the Good Shepherd discourse, and then switches gears to the Upper Room Discourse in preparation for the Ascension and Pentecost. The traditional lectionary spends one less Sunday in the former section, landing Good Shepherd Sunday a week earlier than the modern lectionary has it.
Trinitytide
The Sundays after Trinity are where the greatest changes are to be found; almost no trace of the historic lectionary remains. Our 2019 Prayer Book consolation prize is that most of the historic Collects have been restored (after the 1979 Prayer Book displaced or replaced over half of them). The Epistle readings in the traditional lectionary are largely sequential, skipping their way through the Pauline corpus (albeit with a couple of entries from 1 John at the start).
The Gospels jump around, though, and commentators have developed various interpretations of the logic of Trinitytide, ranging from a loose and haphazard theme of Christian living to extremely detailed deep-dive catechetical systems involving Collect, Epistle, and Gospel each week. The modern lectionary, by contrast, uses this period of the year to walk through the New Testament Epistles and Gospels semi-continuously, focusing on different books each year (Matthew in Year A, Mark and John in Year B, and Luke in Year C). This sequence actually starts on the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany, and the Propers after Pentecost are carefully timed to pick up wherever Epiphany left off.
Final Note on Differing Logics
It is all too easy to assert that one lectionary is better than the other, especially when comparing the Communion lectionaries on either side of the 1970s. The old calendar has been accused of providing too little Bible for the worshiper, especially in neglect of the Old Testament. The new calendar has been criticized for being too shallow, bombarding the worshiper with an incoherent array of readings week by week. Before wading into the fray of hot takes and strong opinions, one must first understand the two very different logics and purposes operating behind each lectionary.
The Old Communion Lectionary
The old traditional historic Communion Lectionary was built by the Early Church and codified in Late Antiquity. Its “greatest hits” approach to the New Testament text ensured that a largely illiterate population would consistently hear the same stories every year, allowing for a deep (if narrow) understanding of the Bible and its message. The Daily Office Lectionary complements this as the perfect counterpart: day by day in the Office, the worshiper gets “The Bible in a Year,” and week by week at Communion, “the Gospel in a Year.” Together, they form a two-pronged approach to catechizing and forming the worshiper into the image of Christ.
The Modern Communion Lectionary
The modern Church built its Communion Lectionary in response to the reality that most people were not experiencing the Daily Office, and thus missing out on “the Bible in a Year”. By expanding the Communion lectionary, the Church would provide more biblical coverage at the one time a week the worshipers actually show up. The Revised Common Lectionary is, therefore, trying to do the jobs of two lectionaries at once, and some might argue it’s failing at both. But is it a worthy goal to attempt anyway? Many would argue yes.
A Good Shepherd’s Decision
Knowing the strengths and purposes of the two lectionaries will help the bishop, rector, vicar, or chaplain make an informed choice. A worshiping community that is well-versed in the Scriptures and frequently reads the Bible comprehensively is better positioned to benefit from the riches of the historic Communion Lectionary. In contrast, the Sunday-only pew-sitters probably need the broad exposure to biblical texts that the modern lectionaries provide. The old lectionary is better suited for topical preaching week by week; the new one has more opportunities for continuous biblical exposition. And beyond the confines of the old Prayer Book tradition, several resources have emerged that provide various Old Testament lessons for the historic lectionary, enriching the old with elements of the new. A good shepherd knows his sheep and can choose the better fields for them to graze in accordingly. The answer need not be the same for all.
Photo by Leadinglights from Getty Images Signature, courtesy of Canva. Digital editing by Jacob Davis.
500 Years of the Daily Office Lectionary
In this article and its follow up, “500 Years of the Holy Communion Lectionary,” Fr. Matthew Brench surveys the development of the lectionaries of the Anglican Prayer Book tradition, especially those of the England, the U.S., and Canada, culminating in the present 2019 Prayer Book of the Anglican Church in North America. The Daily Office…
The Book of Common Prayer (BCP): A Rookie Anglican Guide to the Prayer Book
This article was written in 2018 by Joshua Steele. It was heavily updated in 2023 by Jacob Davis. For a guide to the Anglican Church in North America’s 2019 Book of Common Prayer, read our Rookie Anglican Guide to the ACNA’s 2019 BCP here. You can’t be curious about Anglicanism for long without running into…
