Beginner at Liturgy

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Tom7

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Hello everyone.

I try to read the litugical readings each day. My question is: are they supposed to link in some way. Today took me from acts to revelation to John. I couldn’t see a link in thought between them.

Any advice?

Tom
 
Check out the Institute of Catholic Culture YouTube page. Fathers Hezekias and Sebastian have a weekly Sunday Gospel reflection and they show how the readings link in their historical context.

ZP
 
It varies by season and feast as to how they may connect, if they do. For instance, during Ordinary Time, the first reading of the Old Testament on Sunday and the Gospel do have an intended connection, while the second reading/New Testament one simply follows a chronological sequence week after week somewhat independent of the others. This is not necessarily the case during Easter season or at other times of year, where all three may or may not connect so well. The Responsorial Psalm should always connect to the Gospel in some roundabout way.
 
Practice the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, and you will usually find a connection if one is clearly not apparent in the readings.
 
First, let me say that I share some of your frustration at how the daily readings often seem to jump around a lot and present teaching in “bytes”. Many of the Bible study programs also jump around because they are trying to present a theme or a story of God’s covenant with us and also avoid losing people over the more boring or obscure books and passages. I decided to simply read the Bible straight through on my own. I did this once before in the past but it was many years ago and I am going much more slowly. I have been at it a year and a half and I’m up to 2 Chronicles. I am finding that reading it straight through helps me to better put the Bible in perspective than all this skipping around on a theme that is done by both Mass readings and Bible studies.

Having said that, yes there is always a theme for the daily readings. The priest’s homily at Mass is supposed to make clear the theme of the daily readings and explain the Scripture to you, so you wouldn’t be asking this question. Unfortunately, some priests and deacons accomplish this better than others. Also, sometimes the homily topic is not related to the readings - for example, yesterday I heard a wonderful homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, but it didn’t really talk about the day’s Scripture at all. And some priests do not do homilies on weekdays at all.

You can try Lectio Divina and see if that works for you. Sometimes I find a modified version of Lectio Divina to be helpful in that I read the whole reading through several times and think about particular words and get insights. I usually don’t do the formal Lectio Divina process though. I gave it the old college try last year but for various reasons it did not work well for me.

You can also try watching the daily video reflections, which USCCB posts here, where a commentator talks about the theme of the readings or at least one of the themes.

http://usccb.org/bible/reflections/index.cfm
 
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