My small parish has used P.M. Scott’s Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for several years. It has become a favorite. What was offered for a season became a year and then several years running. Every time we start over in Advent, we go deeper into the Scripture with the One Year Lectionary as a doorway to a vast amount of resources. From Aquinas to Isaac Williams, we are in step with the sermons and teachings of the Church in all places, time, and people. Most of us have used the Three Year Novus Ordo Roman Calendar at some point and none of us has met anyone who can remember what the lessons were on a particular Sunday much less any doctrine. No one seems have any idea that the Collect for each day at one time signaled each Sunday’s teaching much less builds on the previous collect and sets up the following one.

In researching this post I’ve discovered there are others in traditional Anglican, Lutheran, (even Baptists) and some Catholic circles realize the shift to “Ordinary Time” and the three-year Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) in the post-Vatican II era merely prioritizes quantity of Scripture exposure over the repetition and doctrinal depth that the historic one-year lectionary. And this comes at a real pastoral and formative cost, especially when the Book of Common Prayer and other prayer books already supplies a daily lectionary for systematic year-through Bible reading. Dropping Trinitytide for Ordinary Time is in itself a step away from Doctrine. Trinity Sunday begins the season of Christian life with the realization of who God is- “I AM.” It’s no accident that the Catechism in the 1928 BCP begins with the question “What is your name?” The associations between the One Year Lectionary and the catechism continue from that point.

The Underlying Assumption of the Reform

The architects of the 1969 Roman lectionary (and the RCL that followed) explicitly aimed for “richer fare” from Scripture. In other words, people weren’t taught the One Year doctrines and lost interest- they were bored! Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium (51) called for the Bible’s “treasures” to be “opened up more lavishly” so the faithful would receive a “more representative portion” over a multi-year cycle. In Ordinary Time, this translated into lectio continua (semi-continuous reading through books of the Bible) rather than the old annual cycle’s tighter thematic/doctrinal selections. The thinking was: broader coverage combats biblical illiteracy, prevents repetition fatigue, and lets preachers teach whole books in series. 

That assumption sounds reasonable on paper—more Scripture = better formation. But in practice, as many have experienced and some report, it often doesn’t deliver the hoped-for retention or doctrinal payoff.

The “Massive Disadvantage”: Memory, Retention, and Doctrinal Formation

Human formation works through repetition, not one-off exposure. “Repetitio mater studiorum est” (repetition is the mother of learning) is an old pedagogical principle that applies powerfully to liturgy. The historic one-year lectionary repeated the same core texts annually, creating:

• Yearly familiarity: Congregants (and even irregular attendees) would recognize “that Gospel we always hear on the Xth Sunday after Trinity.” Over decades, these passages became part of the community’s shared vocabulary and memory. In other words… common.

• Doctrinal buildup: As Melville Scott showed for the old cycle, the lessons harmonized with the collect and built Christian teaching progressively across the seasons. Trinitytide emphasized growth in grace, the Christian life, etc., in a “first things first” sequence. The RCL’s semi-continuous approach in Ordinary Time fragments this into horizontal book-by-book progressions with far less vertical thematic unity. 

• Practical retention: No one has a reliable three-year memory. Even regular worshippers rarely recall “Oh, this was the reading from two years ago!” Irregular attendance (common today) makes the problem worse. Clergy often note that sermons on RCL texts feel less rooted because the text itself isn’t “owned” by the congregation the way annual repetition allows. 

After 50+ years of the three-year cycle, there is little evidence of dramatically improved biblical literacy in the pews. Critics argue the sheer volume can feel more like a “Scripture course” than worship, and the loss of annual anchors weakens long-term catechesis. 

The BCP Daily Lectionary Makes It Worse

The Book of Common Prayer has always treated the Daily Office as the primary vehicle for comprehensive Scripture reading:

• In the classic 1662/1928 BCP the daily lectionary was designed so “all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year,” with the New Testament read three times and the Psalter monthly. It was explicitly for lectio continua at home or in church offices. 

• Even the 1979 BCP’s two-year Daily Office lectionary covers most of the New Testament yearly and a substantial portion of the Old Testament over two years (plus the Psalter every seven weeks). It was never meant to be duplicated on Sunday mornings. 

The Sunday Eucharist, by contrast, was historically the place for selected, repeatable, doctrinally rich readings that formed the people’s faith week by week in the context of the church year, sacraments, and collects. Ordinary Time turned that into another venue for broad sequential reading essentially pre-empts the daily office’s job—while sacrificing the one-year cycle’s coherence. Why overload the principal gathering of the people with texts they won’t remember when the daily office and private reading already exists for breadth? How does one claim Catholicity while departing centuries of received wisdom and logical progression?

Those who have returned to the historic one-year lectionary report exactly what I describe here: deeper doctrinal coherence, easier preaching, stronger congregational memory, and a sense that Sunday worship is once again about formation in the faith rather than randomizing Bible readings. The daily office handles the “read through the Bible” task; the Sunday propers then focus on what actually sticks and shapes souls year after year. In short, the 3 Year Lectionary not only ended a fist things first building the knowledge of the Christian life, it preempts the duty of the believer to use the daily offices. Pew (2019) and CARA/ McGrath show upto 69% of Roman Catholics believe the bread and wine are mere symbols of the body and blood of Jesus disaffirming the Real Presence.

In short, the three-year approach’s emphasis on breadth in Ordinary Time is, IMO, a pastoral miscalculation precisely because it undervalues repetition, severs the tight collect-lesson harmony of the old cycle, and redundantly overlaps with the daily lectionary’s purpose. People don’t remember the lessons or derive lasting doctrinal value—is not anecdotal; it’s noticed by those who have lived with both systems.

Here is a partial list of the Sundays in Melville Scott’s Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (1903, based on the 1662 Book of Common Prayer one-year lectionary). Scott organized the Christian year as a systematic, continuous doctrinal teaching. He groups Sundays thematically, especially in Trinitytide (Sundays after Trinity/Pentecost), showing how the Collect sets the theme and the Epistle + Gospel harmonize with it to build Christian doctrine progressively.

Scott covers major feasts (e.g., Christmas, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Ascension) and all Sundays, emphasizing doctrinal buildup rather than broad scriptural coverage.

Here is a sample from P.M. Scott’s book which can be purchase in bulk off of Lulu.com. There are other similar books as well. Scott can be accessed free on LectionaryCentral.com. The structure of the long “green season” after Trinity Sunday (the Octave of Pentecost) as a logical progression of Christian living, divided into clear doctrinal blocks 5 + 5 + 2 + 5 + 5 + 2. This is the heart of his “first things first” harmony.

A. Five Sundays of Love (Christian Motive)

B. Five Sundays of Duty (Service and Responsibility)

C. Two Sundays of Grace

Scott continues with five Sundays of Inward Graces of Character, five Sundays of Outward of Life and two Sundays of The Close of the Christian Life and cycling back to Advent. Themes of faith, prayer, wisdom, judgment, and the final hope, build through to the end of the church year, all emphasize progression toward holiness, warning, and eschatological hope, always with the Collect as the doctrinal key that unifies the readings.

Up Next: The God-send of Repetition / The idea of spontaneity as being Spirit driven is a vain thing fondly held.

See you then!