One of the most striking examples of the ultimate lector is from the Book of Nehemiah, describing how the prophet Ezra's deep knowledge and dedication to the Torah resulted in a delivery so powerful that he captured the full attention of the people,
Search “Public Scripture Reading” online, and you’ll find concerns about the lack of attention to it in non-Catholic services. But one way for non-Catholic preachers to better appreciate the value of public scripture reading their services is to visit a Catholic Mass.
Is the lector ministry in your parish or diocese set up for a fixed number of years? I hope not. To decide who goes out based on their time in service is short-sighted, especially among the best lectors who make an impact on their listeners.
As we look out over our listeners, we should always ask ourselves, “What am I'm telling them about myself before I even say a word? What fruits of the Holy Spirit are shining through in me?
Unlike the quality and professionalism parishes demand from their musicians or cantors, few make similar demands on their lectors, leaving them on their own to find sources of self-development and enrichment.
Just as pro athletes fall into slumps, writers get writer's block, and our many great prophets had their dry spells, so does the lector hit these walls.
When we maintain our readiness for Christ’s return by living according to his will, we can “prevent” him from saying to us, “I never knew you.” Call it preventive maintenance of our relationship with him.
We are all hybrid humans living on a right-to-left or “sheep-to-goat” scale. As we grow in our faith and love for Christ, we start to become more selfless and giving toward others, and less selfish or “goat-like.” We begin to live more on the right side of the scale of inhabitants who will be welcomed into God's kingdom.
When we serve in too many different ministries at a time, nobody's lovin' it more but Satan, because we have less time to zero in on the one important thing God may be calling us to do. If certain ministries are interfering with us where our true passions are, we're being lead by Satan's "Plan B."
We can all recover from past mistakes. In Jane Fonda’s 2011 TED Talk, "Life’s Third Act," she stressed the need to review and study your first two acts of your life; to circle back to your young life and relive it on your terms today; to free yourself from your past and become the person you wished you would have been back then.
Though we’re not likely to ever see the face of our God in this life, his image can be found in our neighbor, the God we CAN see. We may have to dig a little sometimes to turn up that “God part” of a friend, neighbor or co-worker, but with a little loving effort it’s all doable and our discovery of it can be a joyous experience.
Most of my past life was dominated by what St. Paul said in 1 Timothy 6: 7-10— Those who want to be rich fall into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction.
In a parish ministry of thirty-some lectors, I observed a typical bell curve pattern where a very few at the beginning were great proclaimers, another few at the far end were terrible, and all the others fell somewhere in between.
There's a tie-in with the religious practices of post-exilic Jewish priests in the Book of Malachi and the Ministry of Lector. Temple worship was out of hand and filled with abuses. Priests were offering animal sacrifices from sick and diseased stock vs. healthy unblemished "prized" lambs as their ancestors once did. They were placing defiled food on the Lord's altar.
In his compelling book, The Spoken Christ (Crossroads 1990), Fr. Willard Francis Jabusch gives an enlightening comparison with a lector and a captivating singer who enflames the hearts of his listeners:
Once at a lector coordinators' meeting, the priest leading it began by saying, "The Ministry of Lector is the most exalted lay ministry in the church... I mean, you could train a monkey to be a Eucharistic minister." With a little deference to the priest’s remarks, it's without question a privileged role to proclaim God's word to worshipers, but certainly not a superior one.
What gives the lector a well-trained tongue goes far beyond speaking skills and knowledge of Scripture. We proclaim God’s word as an invitation to our listeners, not as a monologue or a soliloquy. We speak with them, not to them or at them.
Fr. Lawrence Mick in his guide to participating at Mass, Worshiping Well, notes, "Many Catholics view the Liturgy of the Word as some kind of Catholic version of Sunday School," like an educational experience instead of a spiritual one.
Pope Francis’ recent amendment to Canon Law allowing women to be instituted as lectors and acolytes has caused more media attention than church action. In most American dioceses, formal installment of these ministries has not been common. And since it’s only been open to men in the past, the extent to which women will pursue this accreditation will remain to be seen.
