Can a Presider Make or Break You?
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Once at a Sunday Mass, I observed the presider looking over his homily notes while the lector was proclaiming. And my first thought was that if a presider gives little attention to the lector, how much of his example rubs off on the assembly?
I often see priests looking unengaged and sometimes even bored with a lector's proclamation. But what a lift it is to see a presider sit up and look up with interest and anticipation as the word of God is proclaimed by a well-prepared lector.
When the presider does this, it signals two things to the assembly: the significance of the word of God in the liturgy, and the significance of the lector, the conduit for God's word.
What about your church? If your priests are engaged and attentive when your lectors proclaim, hats off to them! But if they're not, could you as a concerned lector, lector coordinator or liturgist approach them about it? Perhaps a little guidance from the Holy Spirit could make this challenge a little less daunting.
Few things can get an assembly to rise up and listen to a lector more, than a priest, perhaps through his body language or some gesture of attentiveness, acknowledging that the lector is the focal point of the Mass for that moment; the conduit for the voice of God until the proclamation is finished and the reins are handed back to the presider.
