Lenten Lections
Quite a lot of Lutherans today are accustomed to having additional services in the middle of the week, generally Wednesdays, during Advent and Lent. Usually this takes the form of a theme that is carried over from week to week. You might have heard a sermon series during Lent on the Arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion, or you may hear a series of reflections during Advent on the canticles recorded in the first few chapters of St. Luke’s Gospel. The midweek services in Lent can also commonly be centered around a reading of the Passion narrative from one of the Gospels, divided up among the weeks following Ash Wednesday.
All of these can certainly be good and praiseworthy. But for the clergy out there, there is generally some amount of head-scratching each year about what exactly the “theme” will be, and precisely which readings will be selected (or hammered like a square peg into a round hole) to fit that theme. So on this Tuesday of Septuagesima, as clerical consternation and anxiety are either beginning or intensifying, I’m happy to tell you that there is another way.
Instead of setting out each year to devise our own brief stretch of lectionary through Lent, our forebears have happily handed down a Lenten lectionary that provides for not only Wednesdays, but for every single day of the week from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday. And for those of you who would like to see more Old Testament readings in our cycle of readings, you’re in luck! The Epistles for the weekdays of Lent are all drawn from the Old Testament, largely from the Pentateuch and the Major Prophets. As was the custom for most of Christian history, there are two lessons, an Epistle and a Gospel, appointed for the weekday masses of Lent, with the exception of the Ember Days and the Wednesday and Saturday of Laetare.
In the chart below, I’ve put Sundays and Wednesdays in bold for quick reference. A single asterisk indicates that a reading is historic, though not found in LSB. Two asterisks indicate a reading found in LSB that is not historic. Usually, this refers to the Old Testament reading on Sundays, but, as you can see immediately below, Ash Wednesday’s Epistle was historically from Joel, and there was no reading from the New Testament apart from the Gospel. The chart below is not necessarily the final form of the Lenten portion of the lectionary that will appear in the completed missal, but it is, quite likely, at least 95% of the way there. With that said, I’ll leave you to your browsing, and see you after you’re finished looking through the readings.
| Ash Wednesday | Joel 2:12-19 / 2 Peter 1:2-11** / Matthew 6:16-21 |
| Thursday after Ash Wednesday | Isaiah 38:1-6 / Matthew 6:5-8 |
| Friday after Ash Wednesday | Isaiah 58:1-9a / Matthew 5:43-6:4 |
| Saturday after Ash Wednesday | Isaiah 58:9b-14 / Mark 6:47-56 |
| Invocavit – First Sunday in Lent | Genesis 3:1-21** / 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 / Matthew 4:1-11 |
| Monday of Invocavit | Ezekiel 34:11-16 / Matthew 25:31-46 |
| Tuesday of Invocavit | Isaiah 55:6-11 / Matthew 21:10-17 |
| Ember Wednesday in Lent | Exodus 24:12-18 / 1 Kings 19:3b-8 / Matthew 12:38-50 |
| Thursday of Invocavit | Ezekiel 18:1-9 / John 8:31-47a |
| Ember Friday in Lent | Ezekiel 18:20-28 / John 5:1-15 |
| Ember Saturday in Lent | Deuteronomy 26:15-29 / Deuteronomy 11:22-25 / 2 Maccabees 1:23, 2-5 / Sirach 36:1-10 / Prayer of Azariah 1:24-28 / 1 Thessalonians 5:14-23 / Matthew 17:1-9 |
| Reminiscere – Second Sunday in Lent | Genesis 32:22-32** / 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7 / Matthew 15:21-28 |
| Monday of Reminiscere | Daniel 9:15-19 / John 8:21-29 |
| Tuesday of Reminiscere | 1 Kings 17:8-16 / Matthew 23:1-12 |
| Wednesday of Reminiscere | Esther 13:8-11, 15-17 / Matthew 20:17-28 |
| Thursday of Reminiscere | Jeremiah 17:5-10 / John 5:30-47 |
| Friday of Reminiscere | Genesis 37:6-22 / Matthew 21:33-46 |
| Saturday of Reminiscere | Genesis 27:6-40a / Luke 15:11-32 |
| Oculi – Third Sunday in Lent | Jeremiah 26:1-15** / Ephesians 5:1-9 / Luke 11:14-28 |
| Monday of Oculi | 2 Kings 5:1-15a / Luke 4:23b-30 |
| Tuesday of Oculi | 2 Kings 4:1-7 / Matthew 18:15-22 |
| Wednesday of Oculi | Exodus 20:12-24a / Matthew 15:1-20 |
| Thursday of Oculi | Jeremiah 7:1-7 / John 6:27-35 |
| Friday of Oculi | Numbers 20:2b-13 / John 4:5-42 |
| Saturday of Oculi | Susanna 1:1-9, 15-17, 19-62 / John 8:1-11 |
| Laetare – Fourth Sunday in Lent | Exodus 16:2-21** / Galatians 4:22-31 / John 6:1-14* |
| Monday of Laetare | 1 Kings 3:16-28 / John 2:13-25 |
| Tuesday of Laetare | Exodus 32:7-14 / John 7:14-31a |
| Wednesday of Laetare | Ezekiel 36:23-28 / Isaiah 1:16-19 / John 9:1-38 |
| Thursday of Laetare | 2 Kings 4:25-38a / John 5:17-29 |
| Friday of Laetare | 1 Kings 17:17-24 / John 11:1-45 |
| Saturday of Laetare | Isaiah 49:8-15 / Isaiah 55:1-11 / John 8:12-20 |
| Judica – Fifth Sunday in Lent | Genesis 22:1-14** / Hebrews 9:11-15 / John 8:46-59 |
| Monday of Judica | Jonah 3:1-10a / John 7:32b-39a |
| Tuesday of Judica | Bel and the Dragon 1:29-42, Daniel 6:25-27 / John 7:1-13 |
| Wednesday of Judica | Leviticus 19:1-2a, 10b-19a, 25b / John 10:22-38 |
| Thursday of Judica | Prayer of Azariah 1:11-22 / John 7:40-53 |
| Friday of Judica | Jeremiah 17:13-18 / John 11:47-54 |
| Saturday of Judica | Jeremiah 18:18-23 / John 17:1-26 |
| Palmarum – Sixth Sunday in Lent | Zechariah 9:9-12** / Philippians 2:5-11 / Matthew 26:1-27:66 |
| Monday of Holy Week | Isaiah 50:5-10 / Mark 14:1-15:46* |
| Tuesday of Holy Week | Jeremiah 11:18-20 / John 12:1-36* |
| Wednesday of Holy Week | Isaiah 62:11-63:5, 7a / Isaiah 53:1-12* / Luke 22:1-23:53 |
| Maundy Thursday | Exodus 24:3-11** / 1 Corinthians 11:20-32* / John 13:1-15 |
| Good Friday | Hosea 5:15b-6:6* / Exodus 12:1-11* / John 18:1-19:42 |
| * = historic, differs from LSB | |
| ** = LSB, not historic |
Now that you’ve perused the list of readings, there are some final notes. When you find an asterisk next to a reading, indicating that it is an historic reading that differs from what is found in LSB, I would generally encourage you to make use of it. The only exception might be the Gospel for Laetare, in which LSB adds an extra verse. Do what you like with that.
Apart from Laetare, there are relatively few differences between LSB and the historic consensus until you arrive in Holy Week. The Gospels for Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week in the above table are exactly the opposite of those listed in LSB, while the Epistles are exactly the same. The historical data is likewise a little mixed. Out of the missals cataloged and tagged so far, about twenty have the John reading on Monday and the Mark reading on Tuesday, while about ten have the opposite, Mark on Monday and John on Tuesday, as found in the above list. So why, you would rightly ask, would we suggest the reading that is outnumbered two-to-one? For two reasons: confession and geography. All of the Lutheran sources currently cataloged assign the readings as listed above, and the medieval sources that contain them are all located in the northeastern portion of modern-day Germany (think old East Germany plus Pomerania to the east and a portion of Niedersachsen to the west). This geographic divide is a matter for another post, but suffice it to say that liturgical innovations and directives from Rome were moving up from the south, and this minority usage seems to represent an older tradition, as yet unaltered by Rome.
You may also have noticed that Exodus 12 appears on Good Friday rather than Maundy Thursday, and Isaiah 53 appears on Wednesday rather than on Good Friday. These usages, unlike the Gospels on Monday and Tuesday, are fairly universally attested throughout the sources cataloged. At a later date, we’ll have a post or two dealing with the technicalities of Holy Week, but for the moment you at least have the readings.
Lastly, the readings flagged with two asterisks that appear on this chart are all more recent additions to the lectionary, largely Old Testament readings on Sundays. Please don’t take their annotation as a suggestion for omission. A third reading on Sundays and holy days of particular note is, generally speaking, a good thing. However, you may have caught that the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week contain only two readings, a prophecy and a Gospel, rather than three. This is intentional. While three readings on Sundays and holy days may be commendable, a novel extra reading on a couple of weekdays that seems to exist for the sake of keeping the threefold pattern is, perhaps, just a little too much meddling. If the liturgy and ceremonies of Holy Week have one thing in common, it is a resistance to innovation and novelty. Oddly enough, the same can be said of Lutherans.
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Thank you, Fr. Gramenz. How different were the weekday services from the Sunday and holy day services? Did they generally have Mass or some other office like Vespers? If the prior, would the Wednesdays, and other days, have had introit, collect, gradual, etc.? If yes, happen to have those text references?
Every day in Lent had an assigned introit, collect, etc. They are, unfortunately, a long way from being sorted through. It’s possible that next year they will be available, but there’s no saying for sure. However, it should be possible to have the services laid out in detail and made available from Palm Sunday through Easter Vigil. Hopefully in the next few weeks.
Why, do you suppose, three readings for Saturday of Laetare?
There are a few occasions in the church year that have more than the customary two readings, notably: the four Christmas masses, the Vigils of Easter and Pentecost, and the Wednesdays and Saturdays of the four Ember seasons.
The week of Laetare appears to be a something of a parallel to the Ember weeks, with additional readings on Wednesday and Saturday, (though only one Prophecy on Saturday as opposed to five).
Holy Wednesday also has an additional reading in nearly all manuscripts, and in the oldest sources, the same is true for Holy Monday and Tuesday. The loss of these Prophecies in later manuscripts has led some scholars to conclude that a third reading used to be the norm, but there is scant textual evidence for this.
The Saturday following Laetare, sometimes known as Sitientes Saturday after the Introit (Sitientes venite ad aquas / “Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters” from Is. 55), was a customary time for ordinations. Not included in the lectionary chart above is the recurring note that the second reading, Isaiah 55:1-11, is only said when ordinations are celebrated.
The three readings for the Wednesday preceding are connected to the second of the scrutinies, one of the steps en route to baptism at the Vigil of Easter.