Where is my priest getting his readings from?

[victrolatim]

I have noticed that when I go to daily Mass that the readings Father reads are nearly always different than what is printed in the missal in the pews/on the USCCB site (which line up with one another). For example, today, the memorial of the North American martyrs, which he celebrated and used the correct entrance antiphon, collect and communion antiphon according to the missal, the Epistle was from 2 Corinthians and the Gospel was from Matthew, whereas the Missal gives readings from Romans and Luke respectively. Where are these readings coming from? Is he perhaps using readings from a different yearly cycle?

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Just a wild guess…

If you’re in a Jesuit parish today may be higher ranking than a memorial and have its own readings. I see these readings but they’re not from an official site that I can see: liturgies.net/saints/isaacjogues/readings.htm

 

[victrolatim]

Yes, these are the readings he read.

 

[Mintaka]

Some religious orders have their own official Masses and breviary readings for various feasts important to their order, or for saints that aren’t on the Universal Calendar but which are on the religious order’s calendar. Some archdioceses also have such things for saints from their own area.

For example, the Dominicans have their own feasts and lectionary (and even their own Rite, if they want to use it), as do the Carmelites. I think the Jesuits do, too. Often this derives from them being allowed to commemorate a saint before the rest of the Church got interested, or from the order focusing on different aspects of the saint than the Universal Calendar does.

Most Universal Calendar saints don’t really get their own readings; they just use the weekday readings, or the readings from “Common of a Martyr,” “Common of a Bishop,” “Common of a Virgin” or “Common of a Holy Man” - that sort of thing. But individualized readings were more common in the old days, and often were more adapted to events in the saint’s life.

So if you have a Jesuit priest, and he used the Jesuit readings for a Jesuit feast, that would be perfectly normal and okay and permissible.

 

[victrolatim]

That makes sense. I am glad I found the parish where I go to daily Mass. It is less than a mile from my house (saves gas). The priest is retired and he makes a point in his homily to give a brief biography of the saint whose feast is being celebrated. Also, after Mass is concluded, he always departs with a joke to give us for the day (Today; "A man went to his doctor complaining that he dreamt yesterday of being a tepee and today of being a wigwam. The doctor replied “I know your problem, you’re two tents” )

 

[marytk]

THE Priest had the option of using the readings for the Memmorial over ordinary time weekday/

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Some religious orders have their own official Masses and breviary readings for various feasts important to their order, …]
Most Universal Calendar saints don’t really get their own readings; they just use the weekday readings, or the readings from “Common of a Martyr,” “Common of a Bishop,” “Common of a Virgin” or “Common of a Holy Man” - that sort of thing. But individualized readings were more common in the old days, and often were more adapted to events in the saint’s life.

This makes it hard for any but the most attentive or expert to figure out whether the “correct” readings were employed, because each of those commons also has options within it. Furthermore “In Masses for special groups, the Priest shall be allowed to choose texts more particularly suited to the particular celebration, provided they are taken from the texts of an approved Lectionary” (GIRM 358), and the same paragraph gives leeway to add in (through combination) parts of the other weekday readings that were displaced by a higher-ranking day earlier in the week. Thus, in theory, all bets are off when it comes to what you will actually hear proclaimed.

Nonetheless the Church still expects that, as a general rule, the cycle of weekday readings will be employed (ibid.), and thus most of the Catholic world manages to function quite nicely with Catholic publishers printing on the assumption that those texts will be read. Unfortunately, you seem to live in a corner of that world that doesn’t function so smoothly, but that needn’t indicate any wrongdoing.