Proclaiming and listening
“Stop Reading and Start Proclaiming” is the title of a new book designed to help those charged with the ministry of announcing the scriptures in the liturgical assembly. It is a helpful book, dispelling any notion that those called to this ministry (which includes cantors and preachers as well as lectors) that they are simply “doing the readings” but rather that they are the living voice of the Risen One who continues to speak to his church, just as he did when he gave his first homily in the synagogue at Nazareth, which we read at the beginning of this Year of Luke. On that day, Jesus announced his own mission - to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord. To proclaim! The word of Jesus is alive and active.
When the reader reaches the lectern in the liturgical celebration, he or she opens the Book and engages in an act of vitality—announcing the history of salvation from the Old Testament through to the resurrection, ascension and glorification of the Lord and the life of the Spirit in his church. This term to proclaim expresses surely, the interior attitude of the one who stands at the lectern.
The context of our liturgical celebration is such that the reader is not merely communicating some information. The word is proclaimed because it is God who makes an appeal to the human heart in this action, calling the heart to conversion. As the booklet prepared for the visit of Pope Benedict puts it, heart speaks unto heart.
To proclaim the scriptures is to cry out to the world a sense of life, a cry arising from the very soul, of the one who stands at the lectern, one who is anchored in the Truth, who senses the urgent need to convey that truth to every brother and sister present in this assembly. The tone of voice will reveal the profound conviction of the word in the lector. He or she is a herald of Christ, announcing that the joyful promises long awaited now are fulfilled in the one whose name means “God saves” (Jesus).
The one who proclaims addresses those who are listening. Listening in the liturgy is far from being a passive act; it is a conscious decision of participation. Indeed, listening is the fundamental posture of the disciple. Engaged listening is a deliberate act ; it is really an expression of life itself, of the desire to communicate with others. Perhaps you could go as far as to say that the person who does not know how to listen, or does not love to listen, lives only superficially.
Sometimes in scripture we hear the word from God like this: “Listen Israel” or “Hear the word of the Lord”. When the Presider initiates the Liturgy of the Word at the great Easter Vigil, he calls the assembly to listen attentively to the story of salvation. The posture of listening is then part of a way of life for the believer, expressing a thirst for God, and a love for his word.
Were God never to respond to that longing, what a void there would in our heart and in our community! But God does respond! He guarantees that whenever we listen together he will speak his undying word of grace and life. The Lord loves a listening heart! Listening in the liturgical assembly is an act of faith in the God who has liberated us from endless death and who introduces us to a living communion that will endure for ever. It places us before the gaze of the Master who communicates his divine mysteries to us so willingly.
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