September 21, 2014
Reflection on Lectoring
Sometimes you do things because you have to. You have to mow your lawn. You have to get enough exercise. You have to go to work. Sometimes these very necessary activities can
feel like burdensome chores.
Sometimes you do things because you want to achieve a
desired outcome. You want to have pride
in your lawn. You want to feel healthy
and keep yourself fit. You want to earn enough
money to pay the bills.
There is another way to think about why we do things. Sometimes we do things simply for their own
sake. Not because a neat lawn will earn us
the approval of our neighbors. Not
because exercise produces better health than sitting on the couch. But simply because we want to something for
its own sake.
When you enjoy what you are doing, when you immerse
yourself totally in an activity, there is a greater likelihood that it will be
done with passion and with genuine commitment.
The same can be said for lectoring.
People at Mass can sense how a lector approaches his or
her ministry. They can see whether the
readings are proclaimed with passion and commitment. They can see whether there is joy. They can see whether your sharing of the
Scriptures is performed for its own sake -
which is the real reason God called you to be a lector.
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First Reading - Isaiah 55:6-9
The Challenge of Trust
There is no need to rely on trust when you know something
for certain. Drop a ball from a building,
and it will fall. Touch a hot stove, and
you will feel pain. In these instances,
there is no need to rely on trust to determine the outcome. You already know for certain.
While they were in captivity in Babylon, the Jews had a
good reason to be uncertain about their future and had a great need for trust. The Northern Kingdom of Israel, which had
been part of David’s kingdom, had disappeared over a hundred years before. Then in 587 B.C. Solomon’s temple in
Jerusalem was destroyed, and their homeland was turned to ashes. It was hard for the Jews to feel certain
about anything. It was also hard to put trust
in a better future, especially since their current situation was their own
fault. They knew that their infidelity was
the cause of their problems.
In the midst of these uncertainties, Isaiah had the
difficult job of helping the Jews trust that God had not forgotten them,
especially when he says, “Yes, in joy you
shall go forth, in peace you shall be brought home” (c. 55:12). In today’s first reading taken from the same
chapter, Isaiah also adds an important caveat.
He advises against trying to triangulate God’s thoughts in order to
figure out for certain how everything will work out, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above
your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
Trust and hope are essential components of our
relationship with God. We trust that
salvation is what he intends for us.
With trust and hope, accompanied by humility, we reflect on the first
verse of today’s reading, “Seek the Lord
while he may be found, call him while he is near.”
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Second Reading - Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a
Choosing Life or Death
“And
I do not know which I shall choose.” In today’s second reading Paul is talking
about life and death - his own life and death.
He says either one will be fine with him.
How can a real, flesh-and-blood person be on the fence when
thinking about the possibility of his life or death? Perhaps it is because Paul was accustomed to
the idea of dying. In Damascus, the
first place he visited after his conversion, the Jews conspired to kill
him. By jumping over the city wall Paul
escaped to Jerusalem, only to find that his life was again imperiled by another
plot to kill him. Throughout Paul’s missionary
journeys, living on the edge became a regular part of his life.
Perhaps Paul became inured to the dangers. Or, perhaps, Christ had become an integral part
of Paul’s very being, “Christ will be
magnified in my body.”
You can read in Chapter 11 of Second Corinthians about his
“numerous brushes with death” which
included several beatings and stonings and being shipwrecked three times. Few people, yesterday or today, live Paul’s extraordinary
kind of life.
The challenge for the
rest of us is to recognize that it is God who determines our span of life. And it is God who calls us to do something useful
with the time he gives us.
© George Fournier, 2014
