Break Open the Word

The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9 - 3 July 2011 Zechariah 9:9-12 Psalm 145:8-15 Romans 7:15-25a St. Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30                                                                                     BACKGROUND: The RCL and Ordinary Time Since Advent of 2007, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) has been the Lectionary of the Episcopal Church.   The history of the RCL, and of the three-year lectionary is a study in ecumenism.   The three-year lectionary that was adapted by the Episcopal (1979) and Lutheran Church (1978) (later by the Methodists, Presbyt...

The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8 - 26 June 2011 Jeremiah 28:5-9 Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 Romans 6:12-23 St. Matthew 10:40 - 42 BACKGROUND: Ordinary Time When last in “ordinary time” we were in the Sundays following The Epiphany of Our Lord, a brief pause in the festival half of the Church’s Year.  Now we enter it again.  From the First Sunday after Pentecost (Trinity Sunday) until The Last Sunday after Pentecost (Christ the King) we shall be in Ordinary Time.  In the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) there are options during this period.  The Lectionary provides for a continuing reading from the Hebrew Scriptures with it’s own responsorial psalm.  This is the option to the regular reading from the Hebrew Scriptures that reflects the themes of the Gospel for the day.  Each Sunday is named for the number after Pentecost, and is assigned a proper.  The length of Ordinary Time depends on the date when Easter falls, a date in the lunar, rather than ...

The First Sunday after Pentecost - Trinity Sunday, 19 June 2011 Genesis 1:1-2:4a Psalm 8 II Corinthians 13:11-13 St. Matthew 28:16-20 The Holy Trinity - Rublev                                                                                     BACKGROUND: The Feast of the Holy Trinity Festivals in the Christian Calendar usually celebrate events in the life of our Lord.   This particular festival, however, celebrates a dogma of the Church, and is a latecomer to the liturgical year.   The 10 th Century saw the introduction of offices dedicated to the Holy Trinity, bu...