The Novus Ordo Mass - Part II - Liturgy of the Word
God Speaks Before Man Offers
The Novus Ordo’s Liturgy of the Word is not a “teaching portion” tacked onto the “real Mass.” It is itself a liturgical act: God addresses His people publicly, and the Church answers with faith, repentance, prayer, and obedience. The structure is intentionally covenantal: first God speaks, then His people respond—a pattern that runs from Sinai to the Apostolic preaching to the Church’s public worship.¹
In the Roman Rite, the Word is not treated as private reading but as proclaimed Scripture, received by a listening people and interpreted authoritatively in the homily, so that the Church may move from hearing to offering: Word → Faith → Sacrifice.²
I. Sacred Silence and the Posture of Hearing
Theological Meaning
The Liturgy of the Word begins, properly speaking, not with the first lector’s voice but with the Church’s posture of receptivity. Silence is not empty space; it is the liturgical acknowledgment that Scripture is not primarily information but divine address.
The Church’s logic is severe: if God is speaking, man’s first duty is not commentary but attention. In the biblical encounter with the Word, silence is the natural posture of creature before Creator, disciple before Master.³
Development
The post-conciliar reform explicitly emphasized moments of silence so that the Word would be received not as noise but as spiritual nourishment and interior assimilation. The reformed rubrics and instructions underscore purposeful silence as part of the proclamation itself—an aid to “conscious, active” participation understood first as interior engagement.⁴
II. The First Reading: The Old Testament as Preparation and Prophecy
Theological Meaning
At Sunday Mass, the first reading is ordinarily drawn from the Old Testament (with Acts replacing it during Easter). This is not a literary preface. It is the Church’s declaration that:
the God of the Old Covenant and the God of the New are the same God, and
Christ is not an interruption but the fulfillment of what God began.⁵
The first reading typically corresponds thematically to the Gospel, not because the Old Testament is merely “background,” but because the Church reads the Scriptures as a unified divine economy culminating in Christ. To hear the prophets and the Law in the light of the Gospel is not to reduce them; it is to read them as the Church has always read them: **as converging upon Christ.**⁶
Development
The greater prominence of Old Testament proclamation in the reformed order directly reflects Sacrosanctum Concilium’s insistence that Sacred Scripture be given “great importance” in the liturgy and that a richer portion of Scripture be opened to the faithful.⁷ The expansion is not merely quantitative; it is structural: the reformed Liturgy of the Word, especially on Sundays, intentionally widens exposure to the Old Testament to better manifest the unity of the Testaments within the public worship of the Church.⁸
III. The Responsorial Psalm: The Church Prays Back What She Has Heard
Theological Meaning
The Responsorial Psalm is the Church’s first response to God’s Word: God speaks; the Church answers in inspired prayer. The Psalms are uniquely suited for this role because they are not merely human composition but Scripture given for worship—divine words placed upon human lips.
This is why the Psalm is not a “musical interlude.” It is the liturgy’s theological hinge: the Word proclaimed becomes the Word prayed. In the Psalm, the assembly learns the posture the Word demands—fear, trust, sorrow, praise, pleading—depending on the day’s mystery.⁹
Development
The reform preserved the Psalm as a stable element while emphasizing its responsorial character (dialogue between cantor and people) as a concrete expression of the Council’s vision of participation in the rite.¹⁰ This also serves intelligibility: the people do not merely overhear Scripture; they are taught to respond to it with Scripture.
IV. The Second Reading: Apostolic Doctrine as the Church’s Norm
Theological Meaning
On Sundays and solemnities, the second reading—usually from the Apostolic Epistles—teaches that the Church is not built on vague religiosity but on apostolic doctrine. The Epistles do not merely explain the Gospel; they form the Church’s mind in Christ: doctrine, moral exhortation, ecclesial order, sacramental realism.
In the Roman Rite’s logic, this reading safeguards worship from becoming pure sentiment. God does not merely console; He commands, forms, and judges. The Epistles therefore function as public ecclesial instruction so that faith is not self-made but **received from the apostles.**¹¹
Development
This additional reading is a major structural development relative to the older one-year Sunday schema. The Council’s push for a richer and more representative portion of Scripture to be read “over a prescribed number of years” made a broadened lectionary structure not only possible but expected.¹² The postconciliar lectionary, promulgated in the Ordo Lectionum Missae, implements that directive by extending Scripture proclamation and arranging it in cycles for continuity and breadth.¹³
V. Gospel Acclamation and the Gospel: Christ Speaks to His Church
Theological Meaning
The Gospel is not simply one reading among others. It is honored because it is the Church’s liturgical confession that Christ Himself speaks. The Gospel is proclaimed with a distinctive reverence: standing, acclamation, and (where present) the deacon’s special role.
The Gospel acclamation is the assembly’s act of readiness: “Speak, Lord—your servants are listening.” In effect, the Church is trained to recognize that she approaches not merely a text but the living voice of Christ mediated through the Scriptures in the Church’s worship.¹⁴
Development
The reformed rubrics clarify the hierarchy of readings and the unique dignity of the Gospel proclamation within the Liturgy of the Word. The Council emphasized not only more Scripture but Scripture proclaimed “more varied and suitable” in the sacred celebrations.¹⁵ The restoration of a richer lectionary also required stronger ritual markers so that the Gospel’s primacy would not be lost amid increased quantity.
VI. The Homily: Authoritative Interpretation Within Worship
Theological Meaning
The homily is not an “inserted talk.” It belongs to the liturgy because it is the Church’s act of authoritative interpretation: God has spoken; now the Church—through the ordained minister—explains the Word so that it may be believed, obeyed, and lived.
The homily therefore is not primarily entertainment, commentary, or moral scolding. Its proper function is ecclesial: to open the Scriptures and the mystery being celebrated so that the faithful may enter more deeply into Christ’s saving work.¹⁶
Development
Sacrosanctum Concilium explicitly urged that preaching draw chiefly from Scripture and the liturgy and that the homily be fostered as integral to worship.¹⁷ Consequently, the postconciliar reform strengthened and regularized the homily’s place, especially on Sundays and holy days, aligning the preaching office with the Council’s intent to nourish the faithful more deeply from the table of the Word.¹⁸
VII. The Profession of Faith: The Church Answers the Word With the Rule of Faith
Theological Meaning
After hearing Scripture and its interpretation, the Church responds not with personal opinions but with the Creed—the Church’s public rule of faith. This locates the individual believer within the Church’s corporate confession: we do not invent belief; we receive it.
Liturgically, the Creed is the Church’s “Yes” to God’s Word. The Word demands assent; the Creed expresses it in a stable, communal form that transcends the moment.¹⁹
Development
The postconciliar structure retained the Creed in its traditional role while clarifying the flow of the Liturgy of the Word as: readings → homily → Creed → intercessions. This reflects the Council’s concern for intelligible structure and for rites that clearly express their meaning without unnecessary complication.²⁰
VIII. The Prayer of the Faithful: Priestly Intercession of the Baptized
Theological Meaning
The Prayer of the Faithful (Universal Prayer) is the Church’s act of public intercession flowing from the Word received. It expresses the baptized as a priestly people who, having heard God, now turn outward in charity: for the Church, the world, the suffering, the local community, and the dead.
This is not merely “announcements to God.” It is the Church’s exercise of intercessory charity as a body—publicly bearing the needs of the world before the Father.²¹
Development
The Council explicitly called for the restoration of “the common prayer” in certain places, especially on Sundays and feasts, so that the faithful might more fully exercise their liturgical role.²² The postconciliar order therefore restored this ancient element more broadly as a stable conclusion to the Liturgy of the Word.
IX. The Three-Year Sunday Cycle A, B, C and the Expanded Lectionary
Theological Meaning
The lectionary is not random sampling. It is the Church’s pedagogy: a disciplined exposure to Christ over time. A multi-year lectionary trains the faithful to live inside the mysteries of Christ’s life—hearing His voice not as isolated sayings, but as a coherent Gospel.
In the Roman Sunday cycle:
Year A reads chiefly from Matthew,
Year B chiefly from Mark (with significant use of John, especially where Mark is brief),
Year C chiefly from Luke,
and John is proclaimed prominently in Lent and Easter across all years.²³
The added Sunday reading (Old Testament) and the structured cycles aim to provide what Sacrosanctum Concilium demanded: that “the treasures of the Bible” be opened “more lavishly,” so that “a more representative portion” of Scripture would be read “over a prescribed number of years.”²⁴
Development (History and the Consilium under Bugnini)
Historically, the Roman Rite’s older Sunday schema functioned largely on a one-year cycle. The postconciliar reform decided that the Council’s mandate for broader Scripture exposure would be best implemented through:
a three-year Sunday cycle (A/B/C), and
a weekday arrangement that expands continuous reading.²⁵
This work was carried out by the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, the commission established by Pope Paul VI to implement Sacrosanctum Concilium.²⁶ The Consilium’s secretariat was led by Fr. Annibale Bugnini, who became the most prominent administrative architect and defender of the reform’s implementation.²⁷
The lectionary reform was promulgated in the Ordo Lectionum Missae (1969) as part of the postconciliar liturgical books.²⁸ In other words: the A/B/C cycle and the expanded set of readings were not a free-floating innovation; they were presented as a concrete implementation of the Council’s explicit direction to expand Scripture in the liturgy and to do so in an ordered, multi-year scheme.²⁹
For a more thorough treatment of the history of the Consilium, click here.
Conclusion
The Liturgy of the Word in the Novus Ordo is constructed to ensure that the faithful do not merely “attend Mass,” but are addressed, formed, corrected, consoled, and instructed by God—so that they may approach the altar not as spectators but as a believing Church.
In the Roman logic, the Word is not preliminary to sacrifice as a warm-up. It is covenantal: God speaks, the Church responds, and then the Church offers.
Endnotes
Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) §7, §24 (Sacred Scripture’s role and Christ’s presence in the liturgy).
General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) §55–57 (structure and purpose of the Liturgy of the Word).
Cf. Nehemiah 8:1–6 (public proclamation and reverent reception); Luke 10:39 (listening at the Lord’s feet); also GIRM on silence in the Liturgy of the Word.
SC §14 and GIRM §56 (silence as part of the rite).
GIRM §57 (unity of Testaments and the “table of God’s word”).
CCC §§128–130 (unity of Scripture and typology), and the Church’s traditional Christological reading of the Old Testament.
SC §24 (Scripture’s “greatest importance” in the liturgy).
SC §51 (more representative portion over a prescribed number of years).
GIRM §61 (the Responsorial Psalm as integral response).
SC §30 (responses, acclamations, participation).
2 Thessalonians 2:15 (apostolic tradition); 1 Timothy 3:15 (Church as “pillar and bulwark of the truth”).
SC §51.
Ordo Lectionum Missae (1969), typical edition; promulgation of the postconciliar lectionary.
GIRM §60 (Gospel acclamation) and §62 (Gospel proclamation).
SC §35 (more varied and suitable readings in sacred celebrations).
GIRM §65–66 (homily’s purpose and place).
SC §52 (homily strongly recommended; draw from Scripture and liturgy).
GIRM §65 (homily required on Sundays and holy days).
GIRM §67–68 (Creed’s role).
SC §34 (noble simplicity; rites clear and free from useless repetition).
GIRM §69–71 (Universal Prayer).
SC §53 (restoration of the Prayer of the Faithful).
USCCB explanation of the A/B/C cycles and Gospel distribution.
SC §51.
General Introduction to the Lectionary / authoritative summaries of Sunday/weekday cycle structure (three-year Sundays; weekday arrangements).
Holy See (Dicastery for Divine Worship) history: establishment of the Consilium by Paul VI via Sacram Liturgiam (Jan 25, 1964).
Annibale Bugnini’s account of the reform process (primary-source narrative, though interpretive) and general historical treatments noting his secretariat role.
Ordo Lectionum Missae (1969) typical edition.
SC §24, §35, §51 as the conciliar basis for expanded proclamation of Scripture in the liturgy