Q: Father Paul, can you tell me why there are two choices of scripture readings on Easter Sunday, Ascension and Pentecost? Thank you!
==
A: I covered this in my book Words Without Alloy.
On Easter, the passage from 1 Cor 5 was in the previous missal, but the revisers thought that its references to yeast made it difficult to understand, so they replaced it with a passage from Colossians. When the first edition came out, both options appeared there.
On Ascension and Pentecost, the first edition of the lectionary placed the same readings on each year of the cycle, as on Epiphany, for example, but the three-year program had become so popular that the second edition of the lectionary offered options for Years B and C on those two days.