My Daily Office Experiment for Year A

This liturgical year I am trying something new for the Daily Office. The new Lutheran worship book Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) has a daily lectionary that is explicitly tied to the Sunday readings. A Psalm and two readings are provided for each day except on Sundays, when it is assumed believers will attend Sunday worship. The weekly cycle begins on the Thursday before the Sunday in question; Thursday Friday and Saturday are designed to prepare for the upcoming Sunday, and Monday through Wednesday are designed to reflect on the past Sunday.

I thought this was kind of interesting and so I'm going to try the following, as an aid to my own sermon preparation. I am going to read the morning office from the BCP Lectionary, using two readings: the Hebrew Scripture Reading, and then two days worth of the Apostolic Writings selection or two days worth of the Gospel. This way, I get the entire cycle of the lectionary in one office and also keep up with all the readings. In the evening, I'm going to use the ELW lectionary, beginning an entire week in advance, so that on Monday I will read Thursday's designated readings, on Tuesday I will read Friday's, and so forth. My goal is to gain a whole week of reflections as I prepare for the upcoming Sunday sermon, even if I am not preaching that Sunday. There's a slight problem with the Psalm, as ELW designates a single Psalm for Thursday-Saturday and another for Monday-Wednesday. I think I'm going to use the BCP Psalms for Evening Prayer, because the seven-week cycle I use just doesn't seem to work only half-time.

Tell me what you think. So I'll let you know how it goes!

RFSJ