Scholarly articles and resources

There are many scholarly articles and resources that can help illuminate how our foremothers in faith are omitted in our lectionary. On this page we try to offer some of the most notable.

Important Scholarly Resources

Women in the Bible and Lectionary by Sr. Ruth Fox, OSB (text)

The Lectionary: A Canon within the Canon by Regina Boisclair in The Anselm Academic Study Bible, Carolyn Osiek, RJCJ, Ed.

Amnesia in the Lectionary by Dr. Regina A. Boisclair (audio) (text from her chapter in Women in Theology)

We Must Restore the Powerful Witness of Women Leaders to the Catholic Lectionary by Sr. Christine Schenk, CSJ (text)

Restore Mary Magdalene to the Easter Lectionary

The Gospel Restoration Project by FutureChurch

USCCB Lectionary reading for Easter Sunday: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033124.cfm

John 20: 1 – 9 is read on Easter Sunday every year eclipsing the story of Jesus’s commission to Mary Magdalene and her apostolic witness of his Resurrection.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

USCCB Lectionary Reading: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040224.cfm

John 20: 11-18 is read on Tuesday in the Octave of Easter when few Catholics hear it.

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her.

John 20:10 which shows the actions of the male disciples leaving is never read.

10 Then the disciples returned home.