LECTIO CONTINUA ATAU LECTIO SELECTA? TINJAUAN HISTORIS ATAS PEMANFAATAN LEKSIONARI

Abstract

At this moment in several Indonesian Protestant Churches the (Revised) Common Lectionary is used and sometimes even synodes more or less oblige to use it. In this article the history of lectionaries is shortly described, especially the lectionaries for Sundays and Holy Days. It starts with the Jewish tradition, where the whole Torah was read in a one year or three year cycle within a liturgical year, where Eastern and Pentecost were important Holidays. In the Christian tradition the gospel gradually became the most important part of the readings and the life of Jesus became the base for the liturgical year. In the history of the church there are all kinds of different traditions of reading the scriptures in the liturgy. The Eastern Orthodox Church has its own tradition different from the Western Church. For the first time in history the Council of Trent completed the lectionary as a one year cycle, with two readings for Sundays. Almost all readings were taken from the New Testament, and obliged for the whole Catholic Church all over the world. The Second Vatican Council changed that lectionary. The one year cycle of Trent became a three year cycle with three readings and a Psalm between the first and second reading for every Sunday, so that much bigger part of the bible is used. This lectionary was discussed and accomodated to the Protestant tradition in ecumenical co-operation and became the Common Lectionary in 1983, then revised in 1992. This lectionary suits very well for the liturgical year, but does not treat the whole bible. It still can be seen as ‘lectio selecta’. So liturgical creativity is needed if one wants to read the entire bible as ‘lectio continua’.