• The readings for Sundays, major Feasts and Vigils (in regular print below) are interspersed with lesser Vigils, Ember Days, Weekdays of Lent, and Weekdays in the Octaves of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost (in smaller print below).
  • For all other weekday Masses (outside of Lent and the three Octaves mentioned above), the scriptural readings were to be taken either from the Mass of the previous Sunday, or from a special Mass (for saints, rituals, votives, etc.)
  • Readings prescribed for various feasts of the saints, votive Masses, etc., as found in the back of the Roman Missal, are not (yet) included in the following table.
• The 1947 edition was substantially the same as the Missale Romanum promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570, with only a few changes, mostly additions of feast days for more recently canonized saints.
  • Several more significant changes were introduced in 1951: the six OT readings for the Vigil of Pentecost were dropped, and the number of OT readings for the Easter Vigil was reduced from twelve to four.
• In contrast to the post-Vatican II Lectionary for Mass, the pre-Vatican II Roman Missal had only two readings for each Mass, on a one-year cycle (i.e., the same readings used every year).
  • Since Vatican II, each Sunday Mass has three readings (OT, NT Epistles, NT Gospels), with different readings prescribed for each year in a three-year cycle.
  • Before Vatican II, the two readings were normally called "The Epistle" and "The Gospel," since readings from the Old Testament were almost never used (except for a few special Feasts, Vigils, and Ember Days).
• See the bottom of this page for some tables of summary statistics.

• Click the links in the right column of the following table to see the illustration of the Gospel Reading for that day.
• In some cases, more than one plate depicts the various parts of a longer story.
• Click here for more information about Nadal's Gospel Illustrations.

*Note in the Missal on the number of Sundays after Pentecost:
Si dominicae post Pentecosten fuerint plures quam XXIV, tunc post XXIII resumuntur Missae dominicarum quae superfuerunt post Epiphaniam, ut infra habentur, iuxta ordinem qui in rubricis invenitur. Et ultimo loco semper ponitur Missa dominicae XXIV.
That is, if there are more than twenty-four Sundays after Pentecost in any particular year, then after the 23rd Sunday one continues with the Sunday Masses that did not occur after Epiphany in that year (depending on how early or late Ash Wednesday was); on these "extra" Sundays at the end of the liturgical year, one uses the readings and prayers of the Masses for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and/or 6th Sundays after Epiphany; but the year always ends with the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.