Seasons & Lectionary

This Sunday's Readings

Seasons & Colours — 2026

The Church keeps time differently. Her year begins not in January but in Advent, and moves through the whole story of Christ — his coming, birth, ministry, death, resurrection and the gift of the Spirit. Each season has its own character and its own liturgical colour, seen in the vestments and hangings in our churches.

Festivals of Our Six Churches

Alongside the great seasons, each of our congregations keeps its own patronal festival — the feast day of the saint for whom the church is named, traditionally observed as follows. Each year's celebrations are announced in the pew leaflet:

Other special observances in the parish year — the Season of Creation, Harvest, Dedication festivals and diocesan themes — are announced in the weekly pew leaflet.

Anglican Lectionary 2026

The lectionary is the ordered pattern of Scripture readings appointed for each Sunday and principal feast of the Church's year. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa follows the Revised Common Lectionary, adopted for use with An Anglican Prayer Book 1989: a three-year cycle rotating through the Synoptic Gospels, with St John's Gospel woven throughout. Each Sunday appoints four readings — an Old Testament passage, a Psalm, an Epistle and a Gospel. In Ordinary Time the parish follows the semi-continuous track, reading the great Old Testament narratives in sequence.

Sunday Readings — Three Full Years

All Sundays and principal feasts from Advent 2025 to Christ the King 2028 — the complete three-year cycle. The current year opens automatically, with the coming Sunday highlighted; the widget above rolls over from Year A to B to C on its own as each Advent arrives. Source: Revised Common Lectionary, Vanderbilt Divinity Library (semi-continuous track). The Collect for each Sunday is found in An Anglican Prayer Book 1989 and the ACSA Lectionary booklet.

From Advent Sunday, 3 December 2028, Year A begins again — this page can then be refreshed with the next cycle's dates. Full texts of every reading at lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu.