Revised Common Lectionary

The Revised Common Lectionary provides a scheme of readings for every Sunday and major feast day of the year. The complete set of readings covers the greater part of the Bible and is organised into a three-year cycle (Year A, Year B, and Year C). We are currently in Year C, which began at the start of Advent 2009; Year A begins in Advent of this year; and Year B begins in Advent of 2011.

The church calendar contains five seasons:

1. Advent - Begins on the Sunday between November 27th and December 3rd, ends on Christmas Eve.
2. Christmas - Begins on the morning of Christmas Day, and ends on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6th).
3. Lent - Begins on Ash Wednesday and ends the day before Palm Sunday.
4. Easter - Begins on Palm Sunday and ends on the Day of Pentecost eight weeks later.
5. Ordinary Time - Consists of the two periods of time between the other four seasons. The first period begins on the first Sunday after Epiphany (January 6th) (or on January 7th if Epiphany falls on a Sunday) and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The second period (Season after Pentecost) starts on the day after Pentecost and ends the day before the start of Advent of the following year.

The lectionary for each service is delivered in the form of four readings:

1. The First Lesson, which consists of a reading from the Old Testament.
2. The Psalm, which may sometimes be a reading from elsewhere in the Bible.
3. The Second Lesson, taken from the New Testament.
4. A Gospel reading: Matthew is covered during Year A; Mark is covered during Year B; Luke is covered during Year C; and John is scattered between Christmas, Easter and Lent, and is also read during Year B, since Mark is shorter than the others.

The First Lesson and Psalm readings during Ordinary Time each have two alternatives:

• The first set of alternatives are semi-continuous in that complete stories or sections of the Bible are read over successive weeks, though in this case these readings are not connected with the New Testament readings (the Second Lesson and the Gospel).
• The second set of options for the Old Testament are discontinuous readings that are related to the New Testament readings.

Due to these differing goals behind the two alternatives, and the aim to cover the entire Bible during the course of the lectionary cycle, the options should be chosen consistently: if the first alternative for the First Lesson is chosen, then the first alternative for the Psalm should also be chosen, and this should be the case every week.

During the other seasons of the year (Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter), there is only one alternative, and the Old Testament readings are linked to the New Testament readings.

The dates of the seasons of Advent and Christmas both depend on the date of Christmas Day, which always occurs on December 25th, meaning the dates of these seasons are relatively stable (for example, the start of Advent always occurs between November 27th and December 3rd). However, the dates of the seasons of Lent and Easter vary wildly from year to year. The date of Easter Sunday is defined as the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (generally the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere). According to this complicated algorithm, Easter Sunday may occur as early as March 22nd or even as late as April 25th. Therefore Lent may start as early as February 8th or as late as March 14th; the season of Easter may also end as early as May 9th or as late as June 12th.

Due to this vastly-differing position of the seasons of Easter and Lent each year, the lengths of the two disjoint periods of Ordinary Time change from year to year. For example, in 2008, Epiphany is only four and a half weeks long, whereas the season after Pentecost is twenty-nine weeks long; by contrast, in 2011, Epiphany is eight and a half weeks long and the season after Pentecost is twenty-four weeks long.

The following table lists the services in each season covered by the lectionary along with the dates on which they occur. Note that the dates of the Lent and Easter seasons are calculated relative to the date of Easter Sunday (which is calculated by means of a complicated algorithm, outlined above).