What About Lectionaries?

[David Lang]

And what caught my eye in Assistant is the Daily Readings feature. I suggest that the Common Lectionary or the Roman Catholic lectionary readings be incorporated as an option in Daily Readings.

 

This suggestion was made in another thread, but I think it deserves a separate discussion.

 

In Accordance 9.3, we've added a new Daily Readings feature. At present, it finds either the current month and day in a yearly devotional, or the current day of the month in a month-long devotional. I would like very much to add lectionaries, but as someone without a liturgical background, I frankly wasn't sure how to do it.

 

As I understand it, Lectionaries offer weekly readings based on various Sundays and special readings for specific holy days. A few of those holidays fall on the same day every year, but most tend to have a different date every year. So making a lectionary work with the daily reading feature would require either (1) producing a lectionary module which covers specific dates for a given year or series of years, or (2) publishing a general lectionary module and setting up complicated algorithms within Accordance to figure out which is the first Sunday of Advent, etc. in any given year. There may be other methods our programmers can come up with, but first, I'd like those of you who are wanting lectionaries to spell out for us exactly how you would envision the lectionaries working.

 

Give us a little direction, and we'll see what we can do.

[Michael J. Bolesta]

David

 

The Roman Catholic Lectionary has several cycles.

 

The Sunday lectionary runs in a three year cycle (A, B, C); we are currently in year A (year C is divisible by 3, though it begins the end of the previous calendar year).

 

The weekday lectionary runs in a two year cycle (I, II); we are in year I.

 

There is also a lectionary for special days, saints days, special celebrations.

 

The easiest option for the programmer is to provide the total lectionary and let the use look up the appropriate selection.

 

There is a book published yearly, The Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist (Ordo for short). It could be a yearly module with links based on each day of the year found in the Ordo. Obviously that is additional work. Those interested in the Catholic Lectionary probably have the Ordo or a Catholic calendar or can find on the celebration of the day online (there are websites and iOS apps for this). I suppose a program could check with a website for the day being celebrated.

 

There may be a way to program Accordance to "figure it out" the day but that would be complex. For any given year there are variations. The First Sunday of Advent is easy in that there are four Sundays before Christmas. Easter is the Sunday that follows the first full moon after March 21, the vernal (spring) equinox. (Therefore, Easter cannot fall earlier than March 22 or later than April 25). There is a hierarchy of days. For example, if All Saints (Nov 1) falls on a Sunday, it is celebrated instead of the appropriate numbered Sunday in Ordinary Time (it also "trumps" weekdays).

 

I have constructed my own Sunday Lectionary, with links to the readings, but I depend on "knowing" the appropriate day (from the Ordo).

 

Michael

[Outis]

Yep, I agree with Michael,

 

It would be difficult to incorporate a lectionary schedule, since the date for easter complicates everything (The date of the celebration of Easter is arbitrarily determined by the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the spring equinox). If you guys can figure out how to have Accordance handle that, then we can start to talk about how to make lectionary resources---then we can figure out how to squish or expand the Sundays after Epiphany or the Sundays in the Pentecost (Trinity) season.

 

Further complicating the issues is which lectionary calendar to use:

1) Historic

2) ILCW

3) RCL

 

But, perhaps, if the moving date of Easter is solved, then the other stuff is a whole lot more manageable. David, if you'd like an example of what a church year calendar would look like (at least in this calendar year), I've attached a copy of the schedule we use in our church-body:

 

calendar1011_A.pdf

 

 

On a somewhat simpler level, years ago I put together a user tool to walk through the bible and the Dogmatics notes from my seminary classes on a day by day basis. My question is this: would it be possible for us, users to make our own reading schedules? I'd like to link the reading schedules not just to sections of scriptures, but also to sections of user tools (Dogmatics, Concordia Triglotta). You can have a look at my user tool and see what I mean:

 

Pastor's Study Calendar.zip

 

 

This is a good conversation to have.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

I'd very much like to have one or more lectionary modules available in Accordance, especially on iOS. I can see how trying to incorporate them as reading plans would be extremely challenging, especially since they don't all follow the same rules.

 

I would be content with just a "static" module that listed the day of the Church Year, the dates it falls between, when applicable--e.g. "Proper 4 (9th Sunday in Ordinary Time) Sunday between May 29 and June 4 inclusive (if after Trinity Sunday)"--and the assigned readings.

 

This is what I currently use in Accordance on my Mac--a set of User Tools from Accordance Exchange for the Revised Common Lectionary. I can't currently use it on iOS, so I would really like either a) the ability to use User Tools on iOS or an official module with the readings listed.

 

I kind of like having it as a User Tool, because I can add notes about suggested adaptations (i.e. starting a reading earlier, or not skipping verses the RCL skips)

 

Personally I don't need the bells and whistles of the reading plan for the Sunday lectionary.

 

I can see more call, though, for some of the various daily lectionaries to be set up as reading plans, linked to a particular day.

 

All that's a long winded way to say my encouragement would be to:

-provide Sunday lectionaries as "regular" modules not keyed to calendar dates and

-explore the feasibility of providing one or more daily lectionaries as a fully-functional reading plan. [Perhaps manually tagged for a few years and then updated?]

 

Lorinda

[Fr. Rich]

The Roman Catholic lectionary and the Revised Common lectionary (as well as variations for United Methodists and Episcopalians) are available in book form and can simply be published. Personally, I use the Revised Common Lectionary that is available on the Vanderbilt University web site. The list of readings has linke to the readings so that clicking on one will go to the actual reading (NRSV). It does not take much work to copy the citations from the Vanderbilt RCL into workspace tabs in Accordance. After all of these years I am generally aware of when the Episcopal lectionary varies from the main RCL and know to look for the Episcopal alternative in the lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer.

[Michael B Thompson]

I'd like to add my name to the list of those that would love to see a daily lectionary module (particularly the Revised Common Lectionary) which would offer the standard readings for morning prayer. But I'm also very grateful for the addition of the daily reading feature to start with!

 

Michael Thompson

[Fr. Rusty]

I would like to see the Daily and weekly Lectionary BCP, RCL.

Would also like to see the Liturgy of The Hours ( wonderful resource btw )

 

I disagree on "how difficult" this must be to incorporate. Not a programmer, but there are several for IOS ( some not well done grant you) however, the fact they were available quickly on IOS through folks that were not professional programmers tells me there must be a way to incorporate these resources.

Would also like to see and have searchable: The Book of Common Prayer ( 79, 28 ) Roman Ordo, The Book of Divine Worship ( Catholic-Anglican use), The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil, Divine Liturgy of Saint Chrysostom, The Gregorian etc.

 

The older liturgies in both greek and english would be an incredible resource-in Accordance.

[C Layton]

I would love to see this, either as a module or incorporated into the new "daily readings" feature. It sounds like coding an algorithm would be very difficult, so the module would have to be updated periodically to tie the holy days to specific dates. But this updating would't have to happen that often - at the beginning of every three year cycle perhaps? Such a database of lectionaries would be really helpful - I love the thought of seeing various lectionaries side by side!

[Steve C]

David

 

The Roman Catholic Lectionary has several cycles.

 

The Sunday lectionary runs in a three year cycle (A, B, C); we are currently in year A (year C is divisible by 3, though it begins the end of the previous calendar year).

 

The weekday lectionary runs in a two year cycle (I, II); we are in year I.

 

There is also a lectionary for special days, saints days, special celebrations.

 

The easiest option for the programmer is to provide the total lectionary and let the use look up the appropriate selection.

 

There is a book published yearly, The Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist (Ordo for short). It could be a yearly module with links based on each day of the year found in the Ordo. Obviously that is additional work. Those interested in the Catholic Lectionary probably have the Ordo or a Catholic calendar or can find on the celebration of the day online (there are websites and iOS apps for this). I suppose a program could check with a website for the day being celebrated.

 

There may be a way to program Accordance to "figure it out" the day but that would be complex. For any given year there are variations. The First Sunday of Advent is easy in that there are four Sundays before Christmas. Easter is the Sunday that follows the first full moon after March 21, the vernal (spring) equinox. (Therefore, Easter cannot fall earlier than March 22 or later than April 25). There is a hierarchy of days. For example, if All Saints (Nov 1) falls on a Sunday, it is celebrated instead of the appropriate numbered Sunday in Ordinary Time (it also "trumps" weekdays).

 

I have constructed my own Sunday Lectionary, with links to the readings, but I depend on "knowing" the appropriate day (from the Ordo).

 

Michael

 

I agree with Michael as well (having posted in the request forum earlier and then finding this thread).

Relying on the Ordo for the right day is not an issue either.

 

Michael, is your Sunday Lectionary in a User Note/Tool that you could share?

 

Steve

[Michael J. Bolesta]

It is a user tool, but I have not posted it on the exchange as I do not know if that would violate copyright standards.

[Fr. Rusty]

Please forgive my ignorance in asking these questions:

1. Why would/is this so difficult for Accordance programmers? ( this keeps coming up in the conversation as an extreme bit of program coding, I do not understand how this can be so difficult if ios programmers can do it. Accordance is the most powerful Biblical software out there, the programmers can write for finding incredible details in many languages, and do so with speed, they can program incredible layers of information. Therefore, I have a hard time believing this is beyond their abilities.

 

2. Could we not, at the very least , have these works as just that- Books in our libraries? ( It would be wonderful to have: The Liturgy of The Hours, The Book of Divine Worship, The Sacramentary, The Book of Common Prayer 1928, 1979 etc. )

[David Lang]

Rusty,

 

In enumerating the challenges of bringing up the right daily lectionary reading, I certainly didn't mean to imply that this is somehow beyond our abilities or would require an "extreme bit of coding." As our lead programmer is fond of saying, "You can do anything given enough time and hassle." I merely raised the question so you all can help us think through the best way to tackle it and let us know which resources you would most like to have. You've been doing that, and it's appreciated. We're still discussing it internally (I was cc'd on an email about this just this morning), but we also have to prioritize this feature (and these modules) with all the other stuff we're doing. Bear with us, and we'll get there.

[Fr. Rusty]

Dear David: I pray you know I was not trying to be tacky, just questions, as so many had mentioned the "coding" issues, which are beyond my abilities to grasp.

I don't think anything is beyond the Accordance team and I am sure one has to weigh the financial aspects along with everything.

I hope there is enough interest to make it a financially sound decision to move forward.

 

At any rate, I was just interested.

[Dennis M Callies]

Rusty,

 

In enumerating the challenges of bringing up the right daily lectionary reading, I certainly didn't mean to imply that this is somehow beyond our abilities or would require an "extreme bit of coding." As our lead programmer is fond of saying, "You can do anything given enough time and hassle." I merely raised the question so you all can help us think through the best way to tackle it and let us know which resources you would most like to have. You've been doing that, and it's appreciated. We're still discussing it internally (I was cc'd on an email about this just this morning), but we also have to prioritize this feature (and these modules) with all the other stuff we're doing. Bear with us, and we'll get there.

 

This link shows how the US Conference of Catholic Bishops presents the lectionary readings on-line, www.usccb.org/nab/readings/051811.shtml. Perhaps Accordance programmers will find this helpful.

[Fr. Matthew Thurman]

This suggestion was made in another thread, but I think it deserves a separate discussion.

 

In Accordance 9.3, we've added a new Daily Readings feature. At present, it finds either the current month and day in a yearly devotional, or the current day of the month in a month-long devotional. I would like very much to add lectionaries, but as someone without a liturgical background, I frankly wasn't sure how to do it.

 

As I understand it, Lectionaries offer weekly readings based on various Sundays and special readings for specific holy days. A few of those holidays fall on the same day every year, but most tend to have a different date every year. So making a lectionary work with the daily reading feature would require either (1) producing a lectionary module which covers specific dates for a given year or series of years, or (2) publishing a general lectionary module and setting up complicated algorithms within Accordance to figure out which is the first Sunday of Advent, etc. in any given year. There may be other methods our programmers can come up with, but first, I'd like those of you who are wanting lectionaries to spell out for us exactly how you would envision the lectionaries working.

 

Give us a little direction, and we'll see what we can do.

 

Having this feature for the Orthodox Christian lectionary in Accordance would be awesome, but it is different from the various Western lectionaries. The variable elements (such as dates for Ascension, Pentecost, etc.) are based on the Orthodox dating of Easter (Pascha), which is different from the Western dating. Some feast days (such as SS Peter & Paul) have common Western/Orthodox dates. Some are different (St. Matthew is Sept. 21 on the Western calendar, Nov. 16 on the Orthodox calendar) Some feast days that are Western aren't Orthodox (and vice versa). It would involve essentially the same sort of algorithms as a general Western lectionary, but would need to be tweaked with a lot of the specifics of Orthodox variables.

 

I'd be content with the release of the Orthodox Study Bible module, which includes the Orthodox lectionary. It would involve clicking through things in a module, but I'm guessing there's a bigger market for the Revised Common Lectionary than the Orthodox lectionary.