Now, here is a thing. Here is a wondrous thing.
Reading the Bible is an integral part of knowing about God, being a Christian, wanting to know more about the Christian faith and generally living the good life. However, most people haven’t a clue where to start with it.
Fortunately, the church in its wisdom publishes a list of suggested bible readings for every day of the year. Unfortunately, they are in a format that does not help people look things up very easily. You have to know which year of the two year cycle we are on, you have to know what season we are in and you have to know whether today’s readings have been budged out of the way by a festival. Then you have to look it all up in a spiral bound book which is falling to bits. (Trust me on this, it is falling to bits).
Anyway. As a further offering in my quest to make the spirituality of the church more accessible to everyone rather than just professionals, I thought I would produce a wee bookie with all the readings in for 2009.
So here it is – a Daily Prayer Calendar of Bible Readings.
So now you have your new year resolutions all sewn up. You can read the Bible every day using the same readings that are used in St Mary’s and in the wider Scottish Episcopal Church at Daily Prayer services. You can fit them into prayers if you want them or just do then at a time of day to suit you. Unless there is something more specific given, we do the Old Testament and Gospel at morning prayer in St Mary’s. The theory is, if we said Evening Prayer in public it would be the Epistle and Gospel.
What do you mean you don’t have a Bible? Go and get one. You want an Anglicised NRSV with Apocrypha. Stop making excuses.
I’ve also tagged onto the Daily Calendar a table of what colours we use on different days in church because people are always interested and I’ve included a list of the biblical abbreviations that are used in the tables.
Enough to get you started?
Any questions?
have you set a date?
It is worth noting that if we had variable psalms every day, there could be no possiblity of success with my project of putting seasonal wee bookies into people’s hands for Daily Prayer. The more variability, the more it becomes something for professional God botherers, I think.
I will grant that.
But for God botherers who must say daily prayer day after day year after year, and for those who do so without tangible company, variety helps.
We haven’t set a date for cookie making. I will do so soon.
Bailey Pies?
Hmm. Like my grandmother’s Hermits, the glory of Bailey pies is in the story and I am reluctant to give away the recipe. Do you think the world really needs more Bailey pies?
(but I promise that when the time is right, I will make a mitre’s worth of them for you)
You are probably right. Bailey pies would lose their significance if they were the object of any old cake and cookie day.
I’d quite like to taste your grandmother’s Hermits though.
I’m quite sure that you will be far to busy on the day of your consecration to make me Bailey Pies. But it is a nice thought.
I’ll swap you some hermits for a picked hegg.
…and you know I don’t wear hats.
Heggs are hall gone. I’d have to henquire of the pickled ‘ens.
You can get the NRSV in both English and American versions at http://www.oremus.org (Apocrypha included). There are lots of ways to search through the Bible too.