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Dave_Noonan
Guest
Several other books are omitted as well, as I recall. Ruth maybe?
Since there are a selection of readings available for Nuptual Masses, Tobit isn’t always read in this context.
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Since there are a selection of readings available for Nuptual Masses, Tobit isn’t always read in this context.
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Millie123
Guest
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John_Martin
Guest
Well, when I was at seminary getting my Master of Divinity (as a Lutheran) we did use the term Deuterocanonical to describe those books and additions, knowing we placed the Deuterocanonical books in the Apocrypha as “not being the inspired Word of God” on a par with the 66 books of “the Bible”. I do see where this thread is leading people also, and it is not a good place, but people are going along. Everyone is trying to prove value in these books rather than displaying the simple obedience to the Church defining the Canon of Scripture, whether a specific text finds itself read in the Sacred Liturgies or not. And, if you can’t prove its value by its presence, you have the possibility of losing faith in that text because you forgot your obedience to the Church as the reason of holding a text to be Scripture.
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OraLabora
Guest
The Deuterocanonicals are also present in the lectionary for the Office of Readings in the current Liturgy of the Hours (what Matins/Vigils has become in the LOTH).I checked the Matins readings for the 17th-18th Weeks after Pentecost of this year (late September-early October 2015) as per the 1955-1960 Breviary in divinumofficium.com. (I didn’t include the responsories.)
17th Week after Pentecost (Tobit)
September 20th (17th Sunday after Pentecost)
Tobit 1:1-4
1:5-10, 11-15
Matthew 22:34-46, Homily 72 on Matthew (John Chrysostom)
Sept. 21st (St. Matthew)
(1st Nocturn)
Ezekiel 1:1-4
1:5-9
1:10-12)
Sept. 22nd (St. Thomas of Villanova)
Tobit 2:19-21
2:22-23, 3:1-3, 3:4-6
(Biography of St. Thomas)
Sept. 23rd (Ember Wednesday in September; St. Linus)
Mark 9:16-28, Homily on Mark 9 (Venerable Bede)
Homily (continued)
Homily (continued)
Sept. 24th (Our Lady of Ransom)
Tob. 12:1-4
Tob. 12:5-10
Tob. 12:11-17
Sept. 25th (Ember Friday)
Luke 8:36-50, Homily 33 on the Gospels (Gregory the Great)
Homily (continued)
Homily (continued)
Sept. 26th (Ember Saturday)
Luke 13:6-17, Homily 33 on the Gospels (Gregory the Great)
Homily (continued)
Homily (continued)
18th Week after Pentecost (Judith)
September 27th (18th Sunday after Pentecost)
Judith 1:1-4
1:5-9, 10-12; 2:1-3;
Matthew 9:1-8, Sermon 50 (Peter Chrysologus)
September 28th (St. Wenceslas)
4:1-4
4:5-8
(Biography of St. Wenceslas)
September 29th (St. Michael)
(1st Nocturn)
Daniel 7:9-11
10:4-8;
10:9-14
September 30th (St. Jerome)
10:1-4
10:11-12, 16-20
(Biography of St. Jerome)
October 1st:
12:10-13
13:1-7
13:8-11
Oct. 2nd (Guardian Angels)
Exodus 23:20-23
Zechariah 1:7-11
Sermon (Bernard of Clairvaux)
Oct. 3rd (St. Therese of Lisieux):
16:24-27
16:28-31
(Biography of St. Therese)
You would notice that certain feastdays cause a break in the flow. (You can find a full listing here.) Interestingly, I can find no trace of Esther for this year at least (1-2 Maccabees is read from the 19th Week to the end of October).
In the 1 year lectionary for the Office of Readings:
1st week of Ordinary Time:
Sirach
30th and 33d week of Ordinary Time
Wisdom
31st week of Ordinary Time
1 & 2 Maccabees.
The optional two-year lectionary for the Office of Readings also has Tobit (25th week, year II), Judith (26th week, year II)
As you pointed out in your other post, the Mass is not the only liturgy of the Church. Nearly as important, and complementing the Mass, is the Liturgy of the Hours, and even the modern breviary has long readings from the Deuterocanonical books in addition to many of the shorter readings.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
Thanks for your research. I had hoped for a retraction of the erroneous part of your post #10 (since there are not actually any Sunday readings from 1Macc as you had said), but no matter.
Here’s the gist of what I’m asking. If the Deuterocanonicals are as important as Catholic apologists claim, wouldn’t one expect more readings from them at Mass when more people would hear them? (That’s the sense expressed in Sacrosanctum Concillium.)
Since the Catholic church at least claims to select readings for Mass based on their judged “excellence”–i.e. the best parts of the Bible, to put it too colloquially–the Deuterocanonicals don’t come out very well in terms of numbers and frequency of readings, particularly at Sunday Mass.
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SyroMalankara
Guest
Dave,
The “Catholic Church” doesn’t have one set of readings universally. It is inaccurate to say one doesn’t get a reading from one of those books on a Sunday, however, even if this were the case, it is inaccurate to assume that this means the books are of less value.
In some Traditions, certain books are meant to be read during Vespers or Matins, in preparation for Liturgy. Other books of the Bible are revelatory of Christ in a particular way that the Liturgy and the memorial lead toward. There are multiple reasons for why certain readings are given for certain days.
Another important aspect to remember, our Jewish ancestors nor contemporary Jews read all of the books of the Tanakh liturgically. This doesn’t mean they are of less value or worth.
The “Catholic Church” doesn’t have one set of readings universally. It is inaccurate to say one doesn’t get a reading from one of those books on a Sunday, however, even if this were the case, it is inaccurate to assume that this means the books are of less value.
In some Traditions, certain books are meant to be read during Vespers or Matins, in preparation for Liturgy. Other books of the Bible are revelatory of Christ in a particular way that the Liturgy and the memorial lead toward. There are multiple reasons for why certain readings are given for certain days.
Another important aspect to remember, our Jewish ancestors nor contemporary Jews read all of the books of the Tanakh liturgically. This doesn’t mean they are of less value or worth.
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OraLabora
Guest
The issue here is that you’re limiting the liturgy to the Mass. Roman Catholic liturgy is the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass. The Mass, it is true, is the summit of the liturgy but in reality the liturgy is a continuum. The Liturgy of the Hours has, every single day, a long scriptural reading (and a long reading from the Church fathers) every single day at the Office of Readings (or still celebrated as Vigils in monasteries), plus numerous shorter readings at each other Office of the day. At those readings you’ll find substantial parts of the Deuterocanonicals being read.
You can’t really separate the two; the LOTH and the Mass are the same liturgy, sanctifying different parts of the day, and bringing Christ to us in flesh, blood and Word. The lectionary is designed to teach, elucidate, highlight and make Christ, His Church, and God’s covenants known to us. The Church picks the readings based on those aims, and to complement a particular feast, saint, and of course the paschal nature of every Sunday Mass.
Moreover, there are many of the other books of the Bible that we don’t read too frequently at Sunday Mass, and that aren’t Deuterocanonical. For example a quick check of the Canadian Sunday lectionary shows that Ecclesiastes is not found, and it’s part of the main canon of the Bible. That alone would kill your theory that the infrequency of the Deuterocanonicals at Sunday Mass somehow “prove” their lesser importance, if a canonical book (and thus I would presume you consider more “important”) is not found but Deuterocanonical books are indeed found on the Sunday lectionary.
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Della
Guest
Because the whole Bible cannot fit in a lectionary schedule–we’d be much longer at Mass than the usual hour.
They chose what would serve the Mass setting best–what would enhance the liturgy–the work of the people in worship. There’s a lot more to such decisions than appears on the surface and no one in the Church believes or promotes the idea that some Scripture is more important than others. Choices had to be made for the liturgy–the gathering together of the people of God for worship. If they had chosen texts for Bible study, I imagine they’d have chosen some other texts. They had a narrow focus–what would be best for reading for the Liturgy of the Mass. Indeed, the Bible was compiled mainly so all the dioceses would be reading the same texts, so the process of choosing is a regular part of making such decisions.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
I’m only considering the Mass because that’s how Vatican II sets out the project. The average Catholic isn’t going to hear these readings at the LOTH, and that’s the purpose behind the revision of the Lectionary—selecting the important parts of the Bible so they can be read to the people–at least that’s Sacrosanctum Consilium describes it.
Maybe you have an alternative theory as to why they are read from so infrequently?
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Elizium23
Guest
The only reason that the average Catholic doesn’t participate in the LOTH is because parishes have stopped offering it publicly. And that is what needs to be fixed more than the Lectionary for Mass.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
I think the conflict is that this is how you envision Coetus XI having made this decision, versus how their mission is set out in Vatican II. Maybe you could show me a document that states they were selecting texts that would “serve the Mass setting best.”
Again, this doesn’t seem to square at all with Vatican II and the direction to select the praestantior pars of the Bible.
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Isaiah45_9
Guest
Pars is “parte” in English “part, portion”
And in Spanish it would be:
“se lean al pueblo las partes más significativas de la Sagrada Escritura”.
It doesn’t say in any other language that “all” of Scriptures are to be read at Mass.
So I fail to see the point you are trying to make.
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ahs
Guest
ALL of God’s Word is a priority to Catholics, even the parts that don’t get read during Mass. And just to make sure that we are reading God’s Word, and not just relying on getting it during Mass, the Church exhorts us, and ALL Christian faithful, to read the Scriptures on our own as well.
“The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 133)
I hardly think it’s fair to say the Duet are “mostly ignored anyway” just on the basis that you don’t see them as much as you think you should in the Mass schedule. Is there a reason a book of Scripture must be read from during the Mass in order to be important to the Church?
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ahs
Guest
I think he is suggesting that: since “praestantior” can translate as “superior”, the reading would be “…a more superior portion may be read…” and therefore the Church meant that all the readings thereafter would be what the Church considers “superior”, as compared to the “inferior” parts of God’s Word that are not read as much. And therefore, the less heard-from part of God’s Word are seen as less important.
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ahs
Guest
Emphasis on your use of “the”. There’s your strawman…unintentional as it may be. The wording of the text you provided speaks of “a more representative part/portion”. What it does NOT do is seek out to define what that portion is, or which parts of Scripture are superior to others.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
I never claimed that all scriptures are to be read at Mass.
I said that in Vatican II, the more important/better/more excellent parts of Scripture are to be selected to be read at Mass.
The Deuterocanonicals don’t seem to have much material that measured up to that high standard. So to me all the fuss made by Catholic apologists over the Deuterocanonicals seems like much ado about (almost) nothing.
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Dave_Noonan
Guest
Praestantior doesn’t mean “more representative.” Someone has to select what those parts of the Bible are in order to create the lectionary, so in essence, yes, someone decided that. If you want to say someone decided on “a
more important part of Scripture…” I guess that’s ok, but it doesn’t work very well in English with a comparative.
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patrick457
Guest
I’d like to turn the question on its head for a bit. Which undisputed biblical books are only infrequently (or even never) included in the Lectionary? Anyone know?
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JRKH
Guest
I have a Missal from before Vat II and in it there are a single set of readings over the year.
Today, there are three cycles of readings over three years. So it appears that the commission has accomplished the mission of expanding the readings.
Just a thought.
I don’t really think we need an “alternative theory”. As already explained - We see Scripture as a whole. There is a lot to choose from. What does it matter if this book or that book is read from more than another?
Peace
James
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Isaiah45_9
Guest
That’s kind of shallow. Taking a jab at the DC’s because because they are not included in the Mass Lectionary… That means that whatever other books that are not included are in the same category as the DC’s.
Would you like to throw them away as well?
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