The Blessed Apostle Paul?
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    When preparing some sung readings for a Mass I'm planning, I was looking at the documents on the ICEL music page [edit:] which are electronic versions of some of the missal's indices concerning sung readings.

    image
    Is this introduction that should be used for both singing and speaking the readings? I've never seen it anywhere else, neither in the lectionary, in general practice, nor in the general instruction to the lectionary, which simply states:

    121. The formula to be used is always: "A reading from the Book of. . ." "A reading from the Letter of . . . " or "A reading from the holy Gospel according to . . . " and not: "The beginning of. . . " (unless this seems advisable in particular instances) nor: "The continuation of. . . ."

    Can anyone clear this up for me?
  • Don't have a definitive answer to your question other than to say this is traditionally how the epistle was chanted and read in the EF. Lectio Epistolae beati Pauli Apostoli (ad romanos, ad corinthios etc)
    Not sure about the arrangement for the OF as far as this discrepancy is concerned. Others, more learned I am sure will chime in.
    Back to GIRM warfare....

    Peter
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    How about readings from the letters of Peter? And is that different from James?
  • It appears this way not merely in some pdf on the ICEL website, but in Appendix I of the Roman Missal, Various Chants for the Order of Mass. I assume that what happened is that they just translated what was given in the editio typica without realizing the variance this created with the practice prescribed by the Lectionary. In any event, since the Missal is both official and more recent, it is now clearly permissible to sing these chants as given here. The outstanding questions, then, are (1) is it mandatory, or can the old versions also be sung?, and (2) is it permissible to use the new wording when the introduction is merely spoken and not chanted?

    Edited to add: most interesting, I think, is the issue of Hebrews. The wording given in Appendix I of the new Missal implies that the introduction should be "A reading from the Letter of the blessed Apostle Paul to the Hebrews," but § 122(5) of the GIL, clearly adopted upon consideration, states, "The title is to be Book of Lamentations and Letter to the Hebrews, with no mention of Jeremiah or Paul."
  • I am wrong or were we to see a revision (albeit slight) of the Lectionary? Perhaps now that the Missal has been updated to the 3rd edition, the more faithful translation of the Missal is intended to affect the Lectionary as well, insofar as these issues are concerned.