We've all heard people say, "Each time I read the same Scripture, I always get something new from it." Dig for that something new. Then convey its freshness from the depths of your heart.

To succeed at any endeavor, we need to visualize our success in advance: a corner hi-rise office, promotion, sale of a business, running a marathon, etc. And for lectors, this exercise can also bear fruit.

If we get too familiar with a reading where we feel we've "got it" and no longer need to study it, we risk proclaiming from the top of our heads instead of the depth of our hearts, and lose our listeners.

In their book, Rebuilding Your Message, the authors note how St. Paul knew that the words he spoke were not where his message started, but with a demonstration of the Spirit; a wordless revealing of the way God was working in his life.

If you’re planning a lector meeting soon, do a little research first, talk with several lectors face to face and get a good feel for their sentiments and areas of need. Then put something together . . . just for them.

One of the most striking examples of the ultimate lector is from the Book of Nehemiah, describing how the prophet Ezra's deep knowledge and dedication to the Torah resulted in a delivery so powerful that he captured the full attention of the people,

Search “Public Scripture Reading” online, and you’ll find concerns about the lack of attention to it in non-Catholic services. But one way for non-Catholic preachers to better appreciate the value of public scripture reading their services is to visit a Catholic Mass.

Is the lector ministry in your parish or diocese set up for a fixed number of years? I hope not. To decide who goes out based on their time in service is short-sighted, especially among the best lectors who make an impact on their listeners.

As we look out over our listeners, we should always ask ourselves, “What am I'm telling them about myself before I even say a word? What fruits of the Holy Spirit are shining through in me?

Unlike the quality and professionalism parishes demand from their musicians or cantors, few make similar demands on their lectors, leaving them on their own to find sources of self-development and enrichment.

Just as pro athletes fall into slumps, writers get writer's block, and our many great prophets had their dry spells, so does the lector hit these walls.

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we hear the code in The Beatitudes he sets for being invited into God’s kingdom and sharing in his divine happiness for all eternity. And though the qualities he lays out may be a challenge for us to live by in our modern-day culture, he is speaking to us now in the very same way he spoke to his followers back then.

When we maintain our readiness for Christ’s return by living according to his will, we can “prevent” him from saying to us, “I never knew you.” Call it preventive maintenance of our relationship with him. 

We are all hybrid humans living on a right-to-left or “sheep-to-goat” scale. As we grow in our faith and love for Christ, we start to become more selfless and giving toward others, and less selfish or “goat-like.” We begin to live more on the right side of the scale of inhabitants who will be welcomed into God's kingdom.  

When we serve in too many different ministries at a time, nobody's lovin' it more but Satan, because we have less time to zero in on the one important thing God may be calling us to do. If certain ministries are interfering with us where our true passions are, we're being lead by Satan's "Plan B." 

We can all recover from past mistakes. In Jane Fonda’s 2011 TED Talk, "Life’s Third Act," she stressed the need to review and study your first two acts of your life; to circle back to your young life and relive it on your terms today; to free yourself from your past and become the person you wished you would have been back then.

Though we’re not likely to ever see the face of our God in this life, his image can be found in our neighbor, the God we CAN see. We may have to dig a little sometimes to turn up that “God part” of a friend, neighbor or co-worker, but with a little loving effort it’s all doable and our discovery of it can be  a joyous experience.

Most of my past life was dominated by what St. Paul said in 1 Timothy 6: 7-10— Those who want to be rich fall into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction.

My college teacher of a salesmanship class once said, “The strongest human motivation is the desire to be superior. Play to that emotion as a salesperson and you’ll always have a job.” We see this emotion being played day in and out in our advertising and merchandising circles. And if we’re naive enough to judge our superiority or equality by the hollow gauge of what we show on our backs or in our driveways, then we (literally) pay the price.

In a parish ministry of thirty-some lectors, I observed a typical bell curve pattern where a very few at the beginning were great proclaimers, another few at the far end were terrible, and all the others fell somewhere in between.