Friday, April 15, 2011

Lectors: prepare ahead of time!

This delightful anecdote is from Paul Ford (around the 27-minute mark of the first video on this page).



Readers should never pretend to wing it.  The worst example I can give you:  the feast of Corpus Christi, the reader, a very talented actor in the parish, an Irishman, flew into the sacristy and said "What's the reading today?" They showed it to him, he looked it over, okay.  1st Corinthians.  [He said:] "The bread that we break is not the body of Christ. The cup that we bless is not the blood of Christ."

From across the church, I cupped my hands and I said, "Is it not!  Is it not!"  And when he said, "The word of the Lord," I said "It is not!"

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