Proclaiming the Scriptures
from a book entitled “A Handbook for
Lectors” written by William M. Carr
and published in
This
was written in the 1960s, when most church buildings still had altar rails and
virtually all Ministers of the Word were men – women were not allowed in
the sanctuary during the Liturgy.
If you have a great deal of
humility and a terrific sense of humour, you should try someday to eavesdrop on
a group of young people discussing the liturgy in their parish. Teenagers have
names for everything and they are usually quite adept at the science of
classification. “The strangler”, “the mugger”,
“the dancer”, “the scratcher”, “the smotherer” and “the dash-expert” are a
few of the names that I have heard to describe the posture and appearance of
lectors.
“The
dancer” waltzes breezily into the sanctuary and up to the lectern
swinging his arms and giving the impression that everyone should grab his partner
and get into the twist of things. “The dash-expert” always seems to
be in an ordeal by fire: the distance from sacristy to altar rail seems strewn
with hot coals, and he dashes across the sanctuary to get to the lectern with a
minimum of pain. “The mugger” gives the appearance of a hardened
pugilist, cautious, cagey, head-tucked and formidably frowning, and ready to
challenge any member of the congregation. “The strangler” grabs the
microphone and chokes it to death. (The strangler may simply be handing onto
the mike for dear life, in which case the name is a misnomer.)
“The smotherer”, on the other hand, does not choke the
mike; he hovers over it, mouth almost touching it, moving from side to side
around the mike in crouched position as if the public address system is
incapable of capturing his words unless he blows them right into the tube. Akin
to the smotherer is the “hunchback” who
constantly crouches over that awesome instrument of amplification.
“The
scratcher” comes in a variety of species. One type may habitually scratch
the back of his head, his cheek, or his neck. Another kind is subdivided into
the sub-species of “glasses-pusher”; he must push his glasses up on
his nose at fifteen second intervals (time him some day!). There is also the sub-species of “chin-rubber” and
“ear-reamer”, whose functions are obvious.
There are,
of course many other categories of posture faults. There is the lector who
hangs onto the edge of the lectern as if he were going to collapse otherwise.
There is the person who keeps time by shifting his weight from one side to the
other in constant cadence, ten seconds on the right leg, ten seconds on the
left, until the congregation is hypnotised.
Some lectors
are like scared rabbits who never look at the congregation; they eyes are
always buried in the book. Others sometimes glance up like guilty children to
see if the congregation is still there.
The point is, of course, that the congregation sees everything,
even those things a lector tries his best to hide. He must be extremely careful
not to have habits which will interfere with his communication of the message.
A lector may have great devotion to God’s Word, and he may have an
excellent speaking voice. But if he is an addict of annoying personal habits,
his message will be lost. If the manner or medium is the message, then an
annoying manner will be a negative message.
A lector
should not become morbidly self-conscious, but an awareness of his posture and
speech and appearance is essential to a man who will stand before God’s
people to proclaim God’s Word. The key to good posture and appearance is
“dignified naturalness”. A lector who has annoying personal habits
does not want to go to the opposite extreme and appear as stiff and stilted as
a Prussian soldier. Our age likes integrity and naturalness; a person should
appear to be what he really is. The lector is a man, and he should appear as a
man, as one taken from among the congregation but nevertheless one who
compositely represents the congregation and mediates God’s message to
them.
At the lectern, the lector should have a natural
posture. He may rest his hands on the lectern if he wishes, but he should never
grab or grasp the microphone or the lectern. The microphone faults described
above should be studiously avoided.