«To ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ», warned St. Jerome. The Roman liturgy has taken this statement with absolute seriousness. After the collect prayer, the Mass enters a decisive moment: the proclamation of the Word of God, not as mere instruction, but as a act of worship. In this new chapter of Claves — FSSP, it explains how the Epistle, the intermediate psalms, and the Gospel form a carefully ordered spiritual pedagogy, intended to nourish the faith of the faithful and to glorify God through his own inspired words.
From three readings to two: continuity and sobriety
In the first centuries of the Church, the Mass included three readings: one from the Old Testament, followed by a psalm; an Epistle, generally from St. Paul, accompanied by another psalm; and finally the Gospel. Very soon, around the fifth century, the practice stabilized at two readings, while preserving, however, the essential biblical richness. The first retained the name of Epistle, although it does not always come from St. Paul, as it may also be taken from the Acts of the Apostles or the Apocalypse. The Old Testament, far from being absent, deeply permeates the traditional missal, with more than 135 distinct passages distributed throughout the liturgical year. The second reading is always a text from the Gospel, the center and culmination of the liturgy of the Word.
Between both readings, the tradition preserved the intercalated psalms from the early times, the origin of the Gradual and the Alleluia, or the Tract in penitential seasons. Thus, even when the number of readings was reduced, the original spiritual structure remained intact.
The reading as an act of worship
The readings in the Mass do not fulfill only a didactic function. They are, above all, an act of praise. Proclaiming the Epistle or the Gospel is honoring God with his own Word. For this reason, the traditional liturgy preserves the proclamation in Latin, the sacred language, before any translation. From the second century, the reading of the Epistle was entrusted to an instituted lector, one of the ancient minor orders. In the solemn Mass, according to the Roman usage fixed in the eighth century, this function corresponds to the subdeacon. In the current sung Mass, it is usually the priest himself who proclaims or sings the Epistle.
Orientation and symbolism: south, north, and east
The Epistle is proclaimed in Latin from the right side of the altar, the so-called Epistle side, symbolically oriented toward the south, while the celebrant remains facing east. The Gospel, on the contrary, is proclaimed from the left side of the presbytery, oriented toward the north. The eucharistic sacrifice is always offered at the center of the altar, toward the east, an image of the Christ who is to come.
These orientations are not arbitrary. The east, direction of the rising sun, symbolizes Christ. The south represents Israel, the people of the prophets and apostles, from which the texts of the first reading come. The lector, positioned to the south but facing east, manifests that all prophetic preaching finds its fulfillment in Christ, like St. John the Baptist pointing to the Lamb of God. The north, traditionally associated with pagan peoples, receives the proclamation of the Gospel, a sign that the Good News is destined for all nations.
A lectionary proven by the centuries
The most recent liturgical studies confirm that already in the seventh century the selection and distribution of the readings were practically fixed. The traditional missal thus puts us in direct contact with the piety of the ancient Church. For more than twelve centuries, generation after generation, Christians have been formed, exhorted, and sanctified by the same readings, carefully chosen according to the rhythm of the liturgical year. When today, for example, St. Paul’s exhortation to fight for the incorruptible crown is proclaimed at the beginning of Septuagesima, the same call to perseverance resounds that the faithful heard in the Roman basilicas centuries ago.
The Gradual and the Alleluia: sung psalms for meditation
After the Epistle, the liturgy offers a time of contemplative repose before the Gospel through the singing of psalms. The Gradual receives its name from the place from which it was formerly sung, the steps —gradus— of the ambo. This name also evokes the gradual psalms that pilgrims intoned while ascending the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. These chants do not accompany a liturgical action: they are the action themselves, inviting deep meditation on the Word heard.
The Alleluia, taken from the Hebrew Allelu-Yah, «praise the Lord», is a cry of jubilation that the Roman liturgy received from Jerusalem, like the Kyrie. The genius of Gregorian chant prolongs the last vowel in an exuberant melisma, the jubilus, as if the human voice could not contain the joy of praise. This exultation explains why the Alleluia is omitted in penitential seasons, such as Septuagesima and Lent, and replaced by the Tract, a continuous chant of several psalm verses, performed without alternation.
Sequences: jewels preserved by tradition
On some solemnities, the liturgy adds to these chants a sequence or prose, a remnant of a much more widespread ancient practice. Of the numerous medieval sequences, the Roman liturgy has preserved only five: the Victimae paschali laudes of Easter, the Veni Sancte Spiritus of Pentecost, the Lauda Sion of Corpus Christi, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Stabat Mater of Our Lady of Sorrows, and the imposing Dies irae of the Mass of the Dead. Each of them is a poetic and doctrinal synthesis of the faith of the Church.
The liturgy of the Word, as preserved by the traditional Roman rite, does not improvise or scatter: it forms, teaches, and leads. Epistle, psalms, and Gospel constitute an ascending path that prepares the soul for the Sacrifice.