The Case for a Lectionary Bible

This was published here on 2025-03-13, and on Catholic Bible Talk on 2025-03-28.

At the top of my Bible wishlist is a Lectionary Bible: a portable Bible annotated with the Lectionary readings at Mass for the 3-year Sunday cycle and 2-year weekday cycle. Such a Bible, once it exists, will be a valuable aid to the study of Scripture and living of the Liturgical life of the Church by keeping the Bible and the Mass in close relationship to each other and facilitating our reception of the Word in both Scripture and Eucharist.

Why a Lectionary Bible

The Bible and the liturgy are intimately connected. We must resist the temptation to view them separately, and further seek to understand and live them together.

The liturgy is the natural habitat of the Bible. And the liturgy is where the tradition of interpreting the scriptures lives. The Bible forms most of the words of the liturgy, and the Bible itself (the canon of scripture) grew out of what is read in the liturgy. We simply cannot have one without the other1.

The Lectionary Bible is an aid to living the Bible and the liturgy together. At its core, it is a Bible just like any other Bible. In addition to the Biblical text, annotations in the side margins indicate which readings make up the Lectionary to visually indicate the relationship between the two.

Using the Lectionary Bible

The Lectionary Bible facilitates what you could call a "two-way reading" of scripture. This means first celebrating the liturgy with a greater awareness of the big picture of the Bible, and second, engaging in personal study of scripture with the liturgy in mind.

The Lectionary itself—or and any missal one might ordinarily use at Mass—places the readings for the day next to each other. This is convenient, but at the cost of isolating the readings from their context. Reading the Lectionary from a full Bible gives one perspective and builds a sense of the "content and unity of the whole of Scripture"2. The Lectionary Bible is your companion at daily Mass to help you live the liturgy from the Bible.

In the other direction, when studying the Bible it is instructive to be aware of the placement of a particular text in the Lectionary. The Church pulls more heavily from some portions of scripture than others in the Lectionary, and making this visible helps you to slow down in the richest passages when reading through the whole Bible. This connects personal scripture study to the Liturgy and allows you to be led by the Church's tradition, which lives in the liturgy and is the living interpretation of scripture3.

Design of the Lectionary Bible

I first looked for an existing lectionary Bible, and the closest design I have been able to find is the Whirl Lectionary NRSV Bible. This Bible is designed for the third through sixth grade Whirl Sunday school curriculum and published by Sparkhouse, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Every reading in the Revised Common Lectionary, a version of the Vatican II Lectionary adapted by many Protestant denominations, is highlighted in this Bible using different colors corresponding to the liturgical season. Up to two different overlapping readings can be annotated with this design by applying a gradient to the background shading, as in John 16:12-15 in the photo.

Despite its shortcomings—in addition to not being the Catholic Lectionary, it is by no means a portable or sturdy Bible you would regularly bring to Mass—this Bible was helpful for thinking through the design of a Lectionary Bible, and I prefer the shading of the text if it could be designed in a way to accommodate the full Lectionary.


Whirl Lectionary NRSV Bible: The Revised Common Lectionary is highlighted using different colors corresponding to the liturgical season.

There is also the Liturgy and Life Study Bible4 which details how the Bible is used not just in the Mass but in the other liturgies of the Catholic Church, such as the Liturgy of the Hours and the Romand Gradual. It is beautifully designed by 2KDenmark. It is an "indispensable resource"5 for detailed study, but certainly not a Bible you would bring to Mass with you—the page from Luke 1 in the photo is typical of frequently proclaimed texts in that most of the page is taken up by the reference apparatus. The visual design of the apparatus and inclusion of other liturgical texts is also better suited to detailed study: the design is not visually helpful in seeing how the lectionary and Bible interact, apart from the (still useful) note above about getting a sense for how often a text is proclaimed by how little room is left for it at the top of the page.


Liturgy and Life Study Bible: An essential resource for detailed study of the use of scripture in the liturgies of the Catholic Church.

My first prototype of the Lectionary Bible consisted of marginal annotations in the Compact Ignatius Catholic Bible. This Bible is quite portable and durable making it a great testbed with which to iterate on the Lectionary Bible design.


Prototype Lectionary Bible: Annotations in the Compact Ignatius Catholic Bible

A second prototype digitizes this idea of annotating the Lectionary in the outer margins of the text to visually indicate passages that are proclaimed in the Mass. Colors in this version correspond to the Lectionary cycle: A/B/C for Sundays, Feasts, and Weekdays. Alternatively they could be colored by liturgical season.

Luke 1 is a useful "high-density" text that is proclaimed frequently in the Lectionary. This design demonstrates the ability to clearly indicate overlapping readings used in multiple locations in the Lectionary. Alternatively, a creative graphic designer could likely produce a design that uses shaded text like the Whirl Bible rather than sidebars while still displaying the full Letionary.


Prototype Lectionary Bible Design: Color-coded side bars indicate the passages in the Lectionary.

Further design elements to enable the intended purpose of the Lectionary Bible of living the connection between the liturgy and scripture include:

  • Portable: Dimensions not to exceed a compact Bible or typical breviary or missal, approximately 5" by 7" and not more than 2" thick (these are the approximate dimensions of Liturgy of the Hours, Volume II, and the same footprint as the Compact Ignatius Catholic Bible which has a thickness of about 1.25").
  • Durable: Smyth sewn binding, hardcover or zipper cover, durable paper—this is the Bible you bring to Mass with you every day.
  • Navigable: Includes a detailed table of Lectionary readings and 4 ribbons to mark the First Reading, Psalm, Second Reading (on Sundays and Feasts), and Gospel for the day. Also printed tabs for each book of the Bible to navigate directly from the outside (similar to The Great Adventure Bible).
  • Translation: A natural choice for the translation is the forthcoming (as of 2025) "liturgical Bible" update to the NABRE when it becomes available so that it "substantially matches" what you hear in the Lectionary6. If that is not possible, a viable alternative would be the RSV2CE7.
  • Extras: Other features would be minimal to facilitate portability (minimal footnotes, no cross-references, no book introductions, etc.)8. However, a detailed tabular lectionary and introduction would be included.

A Golden Age of Bibles

We live in a golden age of Bible scholarship and publishing. There has perhaps never been a better time in the Church's history for a lay English-speaking Catholic to study and live Sacred Scripture. Catholic Biblical scholarship has been spurred by landmark statements such as Vatican II's Dei Verbum and Pope Benedict XVI's Verbum Domini9. We live amongst a pantheon of great contemporary Biblical scholars and popularizers: Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, Brant Pitre, Jeff Cavins, Fr. Michael Schmitz, Bishop Robert Barron, Mary Healy, Mark Giszczak, and many others. The many wonderful Bibles and Bible study resources they and others have produced rightly deserve a place in your library10. A Lectionary Bible helps compliment these other tools, and would fit well in that same library.

I agree wholeheartedly with Timothy that "One of the best things about being Catholic is that we are often a both/and faith...With all these options, it is great time to be a Catholic who loves the Bible."11

It is indeed a great time to be a Catholic who loves the Bible, and I hope to soon have a Lectionary Bible to add to my library—not to sit on the bookshelf but to accompany me as I seek to live the Mass and the Bible together.

I am actively developing the Lectionary Bible. Please get in touch if you are interested: m.kudija@gmail.com

Created: 2024-07-23-Tue
Updated: 2025-03-29-Sat

  1. We can say along with Scott Hahn: "I hope to demonstrate the living relationship between scripture and liturgy, and how this relationship enables both, together, to draw believers, as active participants, into the divine drama of salvation history." (Letter and Spirit, 12) ↩

  2. "Since Holy Scripture must be read and interpreted in the sacred spirit in which it was written, no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out." (DV 12) ↩

  3. "The liturgy, likewise, proclaims the scriptures even as it interprets and actualizes them." (Letter and Spirit, 34) and "In its choice of biblical texts for the liturgy, the Church provides a living interpretation of the Scriptures." (Letter and Spirit, 137) ↩

  4. I discovered this Bible in the comments on this blog post. ↩

  5. "indispensable resource with introductions to each biblical book and extensive notes showing how biblical texts are used in the Mass and other liturgies of the Catholic Church." (The Catholic Lectionary Website by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.) ↩

  6. Mary Sperry of the USCCB said: "You’ll be able to buy a Bible that will substantially match the lectionary. Because of the sequence of retranslations, we’ve not had a Bible that matched the lectionary in 40 years." ↩

  7. Note: I have found that following along with the readings in Mass in a translation that differs from the one proclaimed can be a good jumping off point for further reflection on the deeper meaning of the text as prompted by the differences in translation. ↩

  8. An out-of-the way list of other feature ideas:
    ‣Highlight passages used in the Roman Canon similar to how some Bibles have the words of Christ in red: "This is my body." ↩

  9. And many others in the past 150 years:
    ‣Providentissimus Deus (1893)
    ‣Spiritus Paraclitus (1920)
    ‣Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943)
    ‣Dei Verbum (1965)
    ‣The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993)
    ‣Liturgiam authenticam (2001)
    ‣Verbum Domini (2010) ↩

  10. Some favorite Bibles include:
    ‣The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (NT 2010, Complete 2024) is perhaps the single best study resource. It is the masterpiece of a generation, especially now that the Old and New Testaments together allow for the full impact of the "content and unity" of Scripture to shine forth.
    ‣The Great Adventure Bible (2018) is a perfect introduction to the big picture story of salvation history. Its popularity with the Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz has sparked a new love for the Bible in the Catholic world.
    ‣ The Word on Fire Bible (2020-202?) lives up to its moniker as "a Cathedral in print" and is the most beautifully designed Catholic Bible available with ample commentary from the Fathers as well as contemporary authors, including Bishop Barron.
    ‣ The Liturgy and Life Study Bible (2023), as noted above, is the most detailed resource for studying the Bible in any liturgical book including the Missal, the Divine Office, the orders of sacramental rites, the Romand Gradual, and the Martyrology.
    ‣Schuyler (2021 Quentel RSV, 2024 Quentel ESV) and Cambridge (2022 Diadem ESV) both have beautiful premium editions of the Bible. While not Catholic editions, they include the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonical Books), and the ESV is especially well-suited to Catholic use (see Bible Translation & the Making of the ESV Catholic Edition). ↩

  11. From his comment on this post on the Catholic Bible Talk blog: link ↩