This Sunday's reading was made for me. I don't mean the meaning, necessarily, I mean the fun I'm going to have proclaiming it. It just screams out drama. Drama queens can have a field day. And it's nice and short, so the dramatic impact isn't diluted with distractions. Budda Bing, Budda Bang.
Look at Isaiah 49: 14-15. Two lines--that's all. And they need to be proclaimed with "jazz," because they haven't been heard from the altar in twenty years. The Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A, occurs this year for the first time since 1990 because Easter is the last Sunday in April and counting backward from that date until Ash Wednesday leaves eight Sundays between the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Lent.
The instructions in my Lector Workbook, (Ehle, Mary A. and Margaret Nutting Ralph, Workbook for Lectors, Gospel Readers, and Proclaimers of the Word) direct the Lector to take her time. Speak slowly with warmth and affection. Pause between the lines. Make eye contact.
Is there an academy award for Lectors? Of course not, I know it's not about me. It's just that I love God and could talk about Him all day, because I think about Him all the time. When I have the opportunity to tell people about Him, I take it. And it's God's inspired words. What more could a lover want?
I have to show the love that God has for His people. Tenderness must ooze from my speech. We have an intimate relationship with God, so that has to come across.
If I can't do this, then this Reading's connection to the Gospel isn't grasped. God loves us more than a mother does her child. God's love is unconditional. (Read that last sentence again.) And I'll repeat it again, God's love is unconditional. We humans may say we love unconditionally, but I think it's humanly impossible. But not for God.
And because He loves us so completely, He will provide us with even more than we need.
St. Catherine of Siena in Letter T316 says, "He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely."
Look at Isaiah 49: 14-15. Two lines--that's all. And they need to be proclaimed with "jazz," because they haven't been heard from the altar in twenty years. The Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A, occurs this year for the first time since 1990 because Easter is the last Sunday in April and counting backward from that date until Ash Wednesday leaves eight Sundays between the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Lent.
The instructions in my Lector Workbook, (Ehle, Mary A. and Margaret Nutting Ralph, Workbook for Lectors, Gospel Readers, and Proclaimers of the Word) direct the Lector to take her time. Speak slowly with warmth and affection. Pause between the lines. Make eye contact.
Is there an academy award for Lectors? Of course not, I know it's not about me. It's just that I love God and could talk about Him all day, because I think about Him all the time. When I have the opportunity to tell people about Him, I take it. And it's God's inspired words. What more could a lover want?
I have to show the love that God has for His people. Tenderness must ooze from my speech. We have an intimate relationship with God, so that has to come across.
If I can't do this, then this Reading's connection to the Gospel isn't grasped. God loves us more than a mother does her child. God's love is unconditional. (Read that last sentence again.) And I'll repeat it again, God's love is unconditional. We humans may say we love unconditionally, but I think it's humanly impossible. But not for God.
And because He loves us so completely, He will provide us with even more than we need.
St. Catherine of Siena in Letter T316 says, "He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely."
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