When we began podcasting on New Year’s Eve 2012, our province (The Anglican Church in North America) did not have an official lectionary and we could not find one among the many choices available to us that met all of our desires – so we created one: The Trinity Mission – Daily Readings for the Christian Year.
We created it with the following values:
- Read through the whole of the New Testament at least twice a year
You will read the New Testament completely through every year if you do only Morning or Evening and you will read through the whole New Testament twice a year if you do both. Some of the more formational passages are read more frequently than this.
- Read through greater part of the Old Testament every year
We read through most of the Old Testament every year if you do both Morning and Evening and in the course of 2 years if you do only one or the other. We have ordered the readings more or less chronologically according to the context of the book (not necessarily its writing). The portion of the Old Testament that we do not cover is listed here.
- Have Old Testament and/or Psalm readings that “speak in” to the New Testament reading for the day
The New Testament readings are placed so that they A) often align with a relevant Old Testament passage (e.g. Jesus’ temptation and Deuteronomy 6-8), B) align with the Psalm for the day, or C) align (within a week) with one of the Sunday Eucharist readings (see the next item). We do this, however, while still reading through the whole book from beginning to end.
- Coordinate with the ACNA/RCL/’79BCP Sunday readings
The New Testament readings also often will align with a recent or upcoming Sunday Eucharist reading. The Sunday Eucharist readings are on a 3-year cycle so this occurs probably 8-10 times a year and at different times. As mentioned already, we do this while still reading through the New Testament books from beginning to end.
- Both OT and NT readings that proceed semi-continuously
As mentioned already, our readings proceed in a semi-continuous fashion – that means we start at the beginning of a book and read through to the end. Sometime this even happens so that a special reading for a Holy Day is the appropriate next reading following the day before. (e.g. Luke 2:22-40 is the reading for the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on February 2nd. The February 1st reading is Luke 2:1-21).
- Consist of one OT and one NT reading for each day
Seems pretty straightforward.
- Use readings that follow the liturgical season with special readings for Holy Days
As mentioned above, we have special readings for each of the major Holy Days (those listed in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer). Additionally, we have readings appropriate to Advent during Advent and appropriate to Lent during late February and early March which will always be late Epiphany or Lent.
- Be simple and clear as to which reading is to be used on any given date
We wanted a lectionary that was easy to use. It seemed to us that knowing whether it was the 18th or the 20th Sunday after Pentecost was asking a little much. Currently, our lectionary requires you to know 2 things: what season of the year it is and the date. We are working on simplifying even this.
HERE you can see the order of readings for this year.
HERE you can buy a hard copy of it for yourself or you can download the pdf for free.
HERE you can see what Scripture is not covered by our lectionary (mainly OT genealogies, boundary descriptions, and some duties of the Levites).
Please Note: We also maintain a Daily Office site that uses the ACNA lectionary (text only) at acnadailyoffice.org.