Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 25, 2013

Reflection on Lectoring

What makes something important to you?

Important enough to talk about with your family or friends?  Important enough to think about when you are alone?  Important enough to make part of your day?  Important enough to make part of your life?

Lectors might do well to ask themselves what makes the Scriptures important to them.  They might also ask why sharing the Scriptures with others is important.

To be effective in their ministry, lectors can read books about lectoring or attend lector workshops.  All of these things can help.

Or lectors can become more effective by prayerfully asking themselves why the Scriptures are important to them and to those who hear them.

It is a process of searching for real meaning that transforms reading into proclaiming.

It is a search for what is important.

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First Reading  -   Isaiah 68: 18-21
A Continuing Conversation

Imagine, for a moment, a conversation between two parishioners standing outside church after this Sunday’s Mass.

Parishioner #1 says, “The first reading sounded like the outline of an epic movie.  People excitedly rushing around on horses and chariots, in carts, and on mules and camels.”

Parishioner #2 says, “They came from places I never even heard of.”

This kind of conversation may or may not occur this Sunday on the street in front of your church.  But, perhaps, a fair question might be: “Why not?’

According to today’s passage from Isaiah, there was a time when people got really excited about the importance of God in their lives, and would travel great distances to “come and see my glory.”

To be effective in proclaiming the Scriptures, lectors must believe that God is still just as important today.  They must believe that the excitement and enthusiasm depicted in today’s first reading is still just as real.  In today’s secular world, the scenes described in Isaiah may sometimes seem like they are buried in antiquity.  However, the essential job of the lector is to keep the conversation going, and to keep the epic story alive. 

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Second Reading  -  Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13
A Best-Selling Message

For everyone who is tempted to think that the Scriptures do little to address current, real-life situations, they would do well to listen carefully to today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews.

Discipline is the message.  It is a practical message that is drawn, in part, from chapter 3 of the Book of Proverbs - a compendium of proven ways to lead a prosperous and productive life. 

The shelves in bookstores are filled with self-help books offering advice on health, careers, family matters and personal fulfillment.  Many are best sellers read avidly by millions of people.

This Sunday, lectors have the opportunity to tell their hearers something that has universal appeal: “God treats you as sons.”   It is a best-selling message appearing in a best-selling book that gets better every time it is read.

© George Fournier, 2013