The following is a draft proposal to expand the Sunday readings in the Lectionary for Mass in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. The goal is to read more of Sacred Scripture on Sundays by increasing the three-year cycle of Sunday readings to a four-year cycle. This would be accomplished by adding a Year D that would be based on the Gospel according to John, just as the Years A, B, and C are based on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke respectively. This draft proposal for the Sunday Lectionary is a sequel to A Proposal to Expand the Weekday Lectionary. The purpose of the first proposal was to read all of the Sacred Scriptures during the Liturgy of the Word on weekdays in a ten-year cycle. The purpose of this second proposal is simply to provide a year for the fourth Gospel thereby allowing more readings from Sacred Scripture to be read on Sundays when the faithful are more accustomed to attend Mass.
This second proposal (for Sundays) incorporates the same principles contained in the Introduction to the first proposal (for weekdays). As in the first proposal, no changes are proposed to the liturgical calendar. The structure of the Liturgy of the Word is also maintained, that is, a Gospel passage would be read at every Mass, the First Reading would be followed by a Responsorial Psalm, and on Sundays and festive days there would be a Second Reading before the Gospel.
The Acts of the Apostles would be read continuously in its entirety during the Easter season. The Sundays of the Easter season would be incorporated with the weekday readings to produce the continuous reading. Thus, there would no longer be a three-year cycle for the First Reading on the Sundays of the Easter season, only a one-year cycle.
Over the course of the four-year cycle of Sundays all the verses of John’s Gospel and all the verses of Mark’s Gospel will be read.
Subjective decisions had to be made as to which new passages from the Sacred Scriptures to include and which not to include. Other choices could be made to accomplish the aim of reading more of the books of the Bible in the Sunday liturgy.