This weekend we celebrate the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Next weekend we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. These are the last two weeks of this liturgical year. On Sunday, November 30 we will celebrate the 1st Sunday of Advent, which begins the new liturgical year. What does this mean? This year for Sunday liturgies we are using Cycle A of the Lectionary. The Gospels mostly come from Matthew and a little bit from John. In Advent we go to cycle B of the Lectionary. The Gospels then mostly come from Mark and a little bit from John. There are three cycles of lectionary texts. The third, which we will not be dealing with for another year, is Cycle C, where the Gospel readings come from basically Luke and a little bit from John. In three years we are blessed, as Catholics, to get a good chunk of the bible read at our Masses. The major themes from the Bible and major parts are covered at Sunday Liturgies. We, as Catholics, may not know the address (chapter and verse), but we do know the content of what is in the Bible if we are paying attention at Sunday Liturgies. And the nice thing is, on a given Sunday at any Catholic Church we are to be using the same readings. So if I am in Vietnam for Mass on a Sunday, the readings should be the same as the South Pole readings which are the same as the readings in Guam. The same readings are done in the Vatican as are done here on Sundays. To paraphrase Dr. Edward Sri, in the Catholic Church, we don’t rely on our ministers to pick the readings so that we don’t get bogged down in one particular area and miss many important areas. And the cool thing about the cycles is that the first reading, responsorial psalm and the Gospel may be found to have a common theme. For those attending daily Mass, there is a two year cycle for daily Mass, and right now we are in Year 2 and in two weeks at the beginning of Advent we will go to Year 1. So if we want to grow in our knowledge of Scripture, read the Lectionary each day and that will help.
Fr. Thomas P. Galarneault