Beyond the Lectionary (David Ackerman)

Above:  Cover of Beyond the Lectionary

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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Creating supplements to the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) seems to have becomee a cottage industry.  Some who have engaged in this practice have published their projects.  Presbyterian minister and seminary professor Timothy Matthew Slemmons published Year D in 2012.  United Church of Christ minister David Ackerman, working independently and, for a long time unaware of the Year D project of Professor Slemmons, developed Beyond the Lectionary, the text of which he copyrighted in 2012 and published the following year.

All this variety is fine with me, for it provides me with more lectionaries to follow as I key my Bible study to systematic, orderly reading plans and treat the entire project as a blogging regimen.  Besides, as I have read, the ideal lectionary for Sundays and major holy days is probably a seven-year cycle.  One might create a five-year cycle by using the RCL for its three years, making Slemmons’s Year D the fourth year, and Ackerman’s Beyond the Lectionary the fifth year.  Such matters are, of course, in the purview of ecclesiastical personnel.

I am a layman seeking lectionaries to guide my Bible study program.  Toward that end I intend to follow Ackerman’s proposal.  His book contains commentary and a prayer for each entry.  I plan to consult other commentaries before I read his thoughts on the readings; this was my pattern with the Slemmons book.  Ackerman also provides a prayer for each entry.  I have no plans to use any of those prayers.  No, the public domain Collect for Proper 28 from The Book of Common Prayer (1979) works well for me.  The text, after all, is appropriate for opening a Bible study.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JANUARY 22, 2017 COMMON ERA

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

THE FEAST OF SAINT SYNCLETICA OF ALEXANDRIA, DESERT MOTHER

THE FEAST OF SAINT ADELARD OF CORBIE, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK

THE FEAST OF JOHN JULIAN, ANGLICAN PRIEST, HYMN WRITER, AND HYMNOLOGIST

THE FEAST OF SAINT VINCENT PALLOTTI, FOUNDER OF THE PALLOTINES

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