A living catechism in the rhythm of worship

By Daniel Francis

In a moment of realisation of how amazing the Catholic Church is, I came straight to you all to share.

I am not shy about sharing my ignorance. When you do the bare minimum for too long, you are bound to have gaps in your understanding of faith and religion. I am guilty of this, as I am sure many of us are. I’m here to continue sharing my continuing journey of discovery and growth in faith.

Rekindling my sense of curiosity has created a thirst for information about my faith that I pray I can instil in all my readers.

In a recent article, I spoke about my new goal to read the Bible in its entirety. To stick with this goal, my immediate actions after waking up were to say a prayer and read the Bible. The habit has been consistent so far, and I am proud of my progress, especially as there are some books in the Bible that I, embarrassingly enough, have never read.

There was one problem I was encountering: I didn’t fully understand a lot of what I was reading. I felt ashamed by this. I would read some portions, and I felt like I was guessing the context. I did not want to guess; I needed to know for sure.

My solution to this was to join a Bible study group, which makes sense, but I had an idea. Stay with me, it’s a very radical idea. I spoke to a priest and asked for help. Radical, I know. Special thanks to Fr Gregory for putting me, and hopefully, by extension, anyone who needed the following information, on the right track.

I explained my issue to him, and he offered up a great solution while dropping dimes of knowledge. He explained that if I read the readings for the day and the Gospel and simply view a homily from a local priest online, I would, over the course of three years, have not only read most of the Bible but received context and direction for the different readings.

Mind blown. I could also attend daily Mass on a given morning if I wanted a change here and there.

At Mass, I have heard my parish priest sometimes mention that we are in Year C. I would wonder what he was speaking about, but I never let my curiosity lead me to find out what it was about.

My curiosity now had its inexcusable outlet with minimal effort on my behalf to be quenched. I asked ‘Fr G’, as I refer to him, to explain what this Year C business was all about while we were on the topic of readings.

He went on to explain the Liturgical Cycle of Readings, which is broken down into Year A, B and C. Basically, the Catholic Church divides the Sunday Mass readings into a repeating three-year cycle.

Year A goes through the readings covered by the Gospel of Matthew; Year B covers the Gospel of Mark; and Year C covers the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of John is interspersed throughout all three years.

So, when my parish priest mentioned Year C, he was referring to the current liturgical year we are in, which makes sense, as most of the Gospel readings right now are from Luke.

Interestingly, with further digging, I learned that the daily Mass readings or weekday Masses follow a two-year cycle and expose us to a broader selection of scripture, especially from books not typically proclaimed on weekend Masses.

Learning all this made me think about how beautiful the whole system is. Every Catholic parish hears the same readings on the same days, which creates a true shared experience, a universal rhythm of scripture across the entire Church.

It’s like we are all reading, learning, and growing in faith together. The scientist in me can’t help but see it as a living, breathing system. A living catechism in the rhythm of worship with over a billion Catholics worldwide.

Again, mind blown at what I already knew but never truly appreciated. So now my morning routine looks like: reading the readings of the day, viewing the homily of the day on YouTube through the CatholicTT page, sitting in silent reflection of what I heard, and then praying.

Over these next three years, I expect this habit to form my mind, body, and spirit around the whole sweep of God’s Word. Who’s joining me?

Daniel Francis, author of The Millennial Mind, The Millennial Experience, and How to Write and Self-Publish Your Book, is an entrepreneur passionate about leadership and storytelling. As a leadership development coach at Rebit Limited, he has spent the last four years equipping individuals to thrive personally and professionally. He also leads One Momentum Publishing, a hybrid publishing company through which he has guided hundreds of authors on their journey from idea to published book.

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