occasional encyclicals of the Holy Father, pastoral instructions of their diocesan bishops, and the catechism in its various forms taught by priests and religious. Readings from the written Word of God or the Bible were used in the Mass, but that was celebrated usually in Latin, and the readings were not always used for the topic of the sermon. The result was that many Catholics at that time lived abiblical or nonbiblical lives. All that changed with what happened at the Second Vatican Council, convoked