Spending time daily with Christ in Scripture

A good way to spend time daily with Christ is through reading of Scripture.   The Sunday or daily Mass readings are a great resource and are a great way to prepare for Mass.   If you have a Bible at home you most likely have what you need to find the readings. The Bible used for the readings for the Mass in the US is the NAB (New American Bible) and that is most likely the version that most people have at home. If you don’t have one and are purchasing one you may find the NABRE, which was released within the past year.   There are several other Catholic Bible versions in English, but I will leave that for another post.   In the back of most Catholic Bibles there is a listing of the readings for Sunday Mass.  There are three cycles of Sunday readings: A, B, and C.  In 2012 we are in year B.  Some Bibles also contain a listing of the weekday readings as well of which there are two: cycles II and I.  We are currently following cycle II.   There is usually a table that shows by year what cycle the Sunday and weekdays readings are.  Once you locate the table all you have to do is look up the readings and you are ready to go!   This may seem like a lot of work, but it will help you to become familiar with where the books of the Bible are located.  A benefit of looking up the readings in the Bible is that you can see the text prior and after.  If you want to dig a little deeper into the passage this gives you all you need to do so.  There are also footnotes provided with some background on meaning of the sections.  

If your Bible does not have a the Sunday or daily reading listed don’t fret.  The parish bulletin lists the Sunday readings and the Archdiocese newspaper, the Criterion, has a weekly listing of the Sunday and weekday readings.  The Criterion also has a reflection on the Sunday readings in a column by Monsignor Campion that gives some background on the readings.

Another resource for the Mass readings are a Sunday or Daily Missal.    These contain the all the readings used at Mass for a particular day.   It’s much easier to follow along instead of having to go to multiple books in the Bible.  There are versions of the Missal that have all three Sunday cycles for a complete year and some have all the weekday readings as well.  St. Paul Daily Missal or St. Joseph Missal are a two examples and can be found in most Catholic bookstores.  Also included in the Missal are the prayers for Mass.   There are also some monthly printed publications that have all the Mass readings, plus a reflection, and additional daily prayers, two of which are: Magnificat and Living with Christ.    If you subscribe to these you’ll have access to website resources as well and even an app for iPhone for the Magnificat.  I’ll go into more online resources and phone apps on my next post.