Father Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco, gave a 10-minute homily on August 30.
Go to the 34 second marker of the video:
About three years ago, my spiritual director asked me to begin reading the Bible. He said, “I want you to read the Bible every day” I said, “Well, I am reading the Bible. Five or six times a day. Five times a day I do my breviary. I read the Bible. I do daily Mass. We have two readings for that…”
Maybe the spiritual director meant study the Bible every day as opposed to reading snippets. People who attend daily Mass can also say they are reading the Bible every day, but it’s not the same as studying it.
My understanding is that, in the three year cycle in the lectionary, the Church does not cover all the Bible. Not even all of the four Gospels.
That may be true if one looks only at the Sunday readings. but if one includes the daily readings we may actually get it done. Covering the entire Bible in 156 days does appear to be impossible with the shortness of the readings.
http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Index-Weekdays.htm
http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Index-Sundays.htm
These list the readings from Scripture for weekday and Sunday Masses in the order that they appear in the Bible. The only book of the Bible that does not appear on these lists is Judith. Which seems like it might not be correct.
http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Index-Weekdays.htm
http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Index-Sundays.htm
These list the readings from Scripture for weekday and Sunday Masses in the order that they appear in the Bible. The only books of the Bible that do not appear on either list are Judith and Obadiah. In many instances only a few verses of a book are included.
https://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm
These charts show how many verses from which book are used.
.
The only book used in its entirety is 1 John.
I am so appreciative to whoever took the time to compile these charts. What a labor of love!
Reading the Bible is very much worth it…for example, Sirach, “My son, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials”…(understated!) Get ready for it! They’re coming!! Knocking on your door!! But then from our woes, one learns how much help the Blessed Mother gives…
And once, after Mass, one of the lady lectors, came in complaining about that sexist reading about Eve, starting all our troubles by causing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. “How come women are always treated as troublemakers in the Bible! That is so Sexist!!” She was fuming and very upset.
I had the pleasure of quoting from the Book of Wisdom to her, wherein, Wisdom is spoken of as a woman, “For She is Fairer than the Sun, and surpasses in beauty, every constellation of Stars!” No one else in the Bible, is praised to the stars, except, for Wisdom.
According to Catholic Answers the daily and Sunday liturgy contain:
13.5 percent of the Old Testament (not counting the Psalms)
54.9 percent of the non-Gospel New Testament
89.8 percent of the Gospels
71.5 percent of the entire New Testament
So after this snippet he describes how his spiritual director told him to read a chapter of two of the Bible every day. Now he does it after brushing his teeth every morning, “and it has been such a blessing.” He also says that it is transformative; it renews your mind.