13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 1, 2012

What would you like the people who hear your proclamation of the Scriptures at Mass do?

Should you put yourself in their place and think about how they might respond to the readings?

Advice on effective lectoring often focuses on how well the lector sounds.  Certainly, this is important.  However, just as important, is how well the people hear.

Here are two questions you might ask yourself the next time you proclaim the Scriptures:

   -  Are your hearers actively listening to what you are saying?

   -  Are your hearers making a connection between the reading and their own lives?

While lectors can’t take a survey of peoples’ responses, they can sense if their hearers are actively engaged.  Developing that sense takes time, but it can contribute significantly to effective lectoring.

Lectoring means more than just getting the words out.  It means caring that the words are really heard.

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First Reading  -  Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-14
No Man is an Island

Could God have created a world without suffering and death?  Perhaps that is what the Garden of Eden was meant to be. Perhaps it was humanity’s misuse of free will and the prompting of the devil that caused the expulsion from the garden.  Or perhaps utopia on earth was never possible anyway.

It may be that these questions are less important than the actual experience of suffering and death encountered by the people with whom you worship.

How your hearers understand the words, “God did not make death,” depends on their personal experience of death and on their answer to the question, “Why does God permit suffering?”

Today’s first reading can be read in less than one minute - not enough time to significantly broaden or inform anyone’s understanding of suffering and death.  However, when proclaimed with sensitivity, these words can offer reassurance that God understands the pain of his people - the people he created in his image.

Equally important, when the Scriptures are read with compassion, your hearers may truly come to believe that they need not experience suffering alone.

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Second Reading  -  2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15
No Man is an Island, Part II

Today’s first reading  encourages us to think about God’s justice in a world that was made less than perfect by the work of the devil and by humanity’s misuse of free will.  Today’s second reading examines a specific kind of justice that addresses disparities in the distribution of life’s basic necessities.

People have the ability and the free will to help each other.  It is a kind of reciprocal help that can equitably address the different needs of people as they change over time.

At every Mass, there are people who have needs.   As Paul suggests, the answer to these needs can be found close to home in a community of believers committed to equity and justice - not to an abstract concept of equity and justice, but to the kind of giving and receiving most powerfully demonstrated by Jesus himself.

Perhaps through this reading, your hearers may sense that their gathering together at Mass is more than just a casual meeting, and that they are members of a community committed to answering mutual needs.  Perhaps they may also come to recognize that their communal worship is a sign of their membership in a caring parish family.

Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
June 23 & 24, 2012

Reflection on Lectoring

Lectors need people.

They need people to share the words they proclaim.  They need their brothers and sisters to reflect with them on the meaning of those words.

Just as there can’t be a speech without people to hear it, there can’t be a Scripture proclamation without an assembly to respond, “Thanks be to God.”

Scriptures can be read quietly by people seeking personal guidance, inspiration, or a closer relationship with God.  However, Scriptures proclaimed at Mass add a new dimension - a communal sharing in a face-to-face setting where the entire community listens and responds.

Lectors need hearers not because they crave attention, but because they are part of a worshipping community.  Far from being great orators who stand alone in the limelight, lectors are people who sincerely want to be connected with other people.

The Holy Spirit offers lectors spiritual energy and guidance when proclaiming God’s words.  Lectors can also derive energy and encouragement from their connection with their fellow worshippers.  Experiencing that connection is an important aspect of an effective proclamation - the kind of proclamation that brings the Spirit, the assembly and the lector closer together.

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"Then I will proclaim your name to the assembly; in the community I will praise you.”

                                                                                    -  Psalms 22:23

Vigil Mass
First Reading - Jeremiah 1:4-10
Hesitant Prophet

The prophet Jeremiah seems to have heard identical words from God when he heard him say, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you.”

Compare that to the first reading from today’s Mass during the day (see below) where Isaiah says, “The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”

Both of these prophets were called by God.  Both experienced the hardships of their profession.  Jeremiah even accused God of duping him and causing him to be an object of laughter (Jeremiah 20:7).  And he said so in writing.

There are many truly profound and emotional stories that lectors share with their brothers and sisters at Mass.  In some ways, lectors pick up where the prophets left off.  They may even have some of the same fears and hesitations experienced by the prophets.

But whether we are a prophet, a lector, or a sincere Christian, we can be sure that God has a plan and a calling for each of us, even before we are born.

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Vigil Mass
Second Reading - 1 Peter 1:8-12
Searching Prophet 

Today we know even more than the greatest prophets of the Old Testament.  They “searched and investigated,” seeking the truth that has now been revealed.  For us, Christ’s death and resurrection provide a clear reason to hope for salvation.

Regardless, however, of how much or how little we know, there is still an indispensable need for faith.  The prophets needed faith to continue their search.  We need faith to continue on the path to salvation.

In his first letter, Peter is promoting membership in the church despite the costs and persecutions incurred by early believers.  It may well be that paying for something has always made it harder to take things for granted.  Perhaps this second reading can provide us with the encouragement to commit more fully to live a life of faith. 

Prophets often paid the price for their searching.  Christians today must also make sacrifices and make difficult choices.  Perhaps lectors can encourage their brothers and sisters to make those difficult choices by proclaiming the “indescribable and glorious joy” that comes from searching and believing.

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Mass during the DayFirst Reading - Isaiah 49:1-6

Joyful Prophet 

Occasionally, prophets are allowed to be joyful.  Too often, however, they are called to pronounce stern warnings about the consequences of disobeying God’s law.  Sometimes they also found it necessary to complain about the bad treatment they received when pointing out the faults of others.  Being a prophet could be a very disagreeable job.

Not in this first reading, however.

It was true that Isaiah often thought he “had toiled in vain, and for nothing.”  However, in these verses he also recognizes that “my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God.”

In describing the servant “through whom I show my glory,” this reading sometimes refers to Isaiah, sometimes Israel.  Although his identity is not always clear, it is certain that the Lord had a plan for his servant when he “called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”

There is one additional thing that is also certain.  People who are faithful to their calling in life, and who find joy in their relationship with God will be “a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

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Mass during the Day
Second Reading - Acts:13:22-26

Eloquent Prophet

The Acts of the Apostles is filled with “firsts” - many really significant first events in the history of the Church.  Today’s second reading recounts Paul’s first big address delivered during his first missionary trip to Asia Minor.

By the way Acts 13, verse 16 describes it, you can tell Paul’s inaugural address was be a big deal: “Then Paul arose, and motioning with his hand for silence said, ‘Israelites and you others who are God-fearing, listen.’”

Paul then recounts the historical events that led up to the Messiah and the salvation that he earned for us.  Paul ends his narrative with the story of John the Baptist who, like Isaiah in the first reading, has some really good news.

Paul had a way with words.  Like Peter at Pentecost, he got people’s attention.  Happily, we still have Paul’s words.  We also have the help of the Holy Spirit for effectively sharing those words with others.

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, June 17th

Although they share little in common, there is one important similarity between lectoring and advertising.  In both cases, the hope is that people will hear and respond to the message.

Peter did not go out into the streets after Pentecost proclaiming the risen Lord believing that people would forget everything he said in two minutes.  He had faith that the Holy Spirit stood behind his work.  Although some of the people in the street may have turned away, enough listened so that the new church grew exponentially.

There is no reason to think that your work as a lector has any less support from the Holy Spirit.

Every time you serve as lector, you proclaim the most important words ever written.  You have an assembly of people who need to hear those words.  And you can have a genuine expectation that the words you say will have the power to move and inspire.

Lectoring is not manipulation.  It is not selling a product.  It is, however, a personal, three-way conversation between God, the people and the lector. It is the kind of conversation that does not fade away without effect. 

Just as he did at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit continues to guide his church today.  Just as he supports all those who witness God’s presence, the Holy Spirit supports you as you proclaim the Scriptures

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"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

                                                                                                -  Acts 1:8

First Reading  - Ezekiel 17:22-24

Saying and Doing

Failed geopolitics in the year 597 B.C. and a failure to heed the prophets are the backdrop to this Scripture passage. Things get even worse ten years later when the Babylonian King Nabuchadnezzar strongly objects to Judah’s King Zedekiah making a deal with Psammetichus II of Egypt.  After that, the whole roof caves in.

Obtaining meaning from today’s first reading would be a real challenge if the assembly had to be familiar with ancient kings and their hard-to-pronounce names.  So, if a story of foreign intrigue should fail to resonate with the people, what message will move and inspire them?

The answer rests, in part, with the hearer, on his or her life experiences, and in the way the Holy Spirit moves in his or her heart.  The answer also rests with the lector and with his or her genuine appreciation for the power of the words and their meaning.

There are many words and phrases in this reading that have the power to inspire.  If lectors discover what genuinely moves them, they can have confidence that the Holy Spirit will help their hearers do the same.

Perhaps God’s ancient promise about his spoken word taken from today’s first reading still applies, “As I, the Lord, have spoken so will I do.”

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Second Reading - 2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Home

Home is a place of comfort, a place of security, a place to which we are drawn.

In today’s second Scripture passage, home is found in two places: “at home in the body,” and “leave the body and go home to the Lord.”  For most of us, making the transition from one home to the next is a scary thing.

Children leave home to start their own homes, knowing that the move is inevitable and proper.  Christians know that their earthly lives inevitably lead to their heavenly home, while still striving to make the most of their home on earth. 

Courage is required whenever we move from one home to the next.  Although we can make all sorts of preparations to ease the transition and lower our fears, the most important source of courage is faith.  As Paul wisely says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.