[Alex Murphy]

Is the multi-year Lectionary of the Novus Ordo, containing vastly greater quantities of Scripture, superior to the old one-year Lectionary of the usus antiquior? For a very long time, this question was hardly taken seriously, its answer being assumed to be a self-evident yes. It is therefore gratifying to see more and more people awakening to the seriousness of the question and undertaking comparisons and studies, rather than assuming, in a distinctively modern fashion, that bigger is better.

Decades' worth of experience with both lectionaries has led me, in fact, to just the opposite conclusion: the new Lectionary is unwieldy and hard to come to terms with, whereas the old cycle of readings is beautifully proportioned to its liturgical purpose and to the natural rhythm of the year. The regular and comforting recurrence of the readings helps the worshiper absorb their teaching ever more deeply.

This should be interesting. It's only a recent occurance that the lectionary expanded the readings into a three-year cycle, and included Old Testament passages. Now we're hearing that some Catholics want to scale back on the amount of Biblical content?

[Hieronymus]

The Mass is a prayer, not a Bible study. The question is what is helpful with the act of worship at hand. Multiply not words as the pagans do.

[Campion]

The old missal has some OT readings, and most of the propers of the Mass (which are sung) are from the OT.

[Verginius Rufus]

There used to be two main readings in the Sunday Mass--the Epistle and the Gospel (but the Epistle could sometimes be from one of the other books such as Acts), but there were also shorter bits of Scripture, mostly from Psalms. During Lent the daily Mass would have a "Lectio" (reading) from the Old Testament as well as a Gospel.

Some of the Old Testament readings were from books accepted by the Catholic Church and by the Eastern churches but rejected by Luther. Sirach was used so often it became known as Ecclesiasticus. The reading for the Saturday before Laetare Sunday (the 4th Sunday of Lent) was the story of Susanna and the elders from Daniel (an episode relegated to the Apocrypha by the Protestant Reformers).

[NYer]

Now we're hearing that some Catholics want to scale back on the amount of Biblical content?

No. The piece offers a comparison of past vs current readings in the Latin Church ... period. Please don't make this into more than what it is.

[vladimir998]

“...and included Old Testament passages.”

A number of the Masses in the 1962 missal (old Latin Mass) had a reading from the Old Testament.