PROCLAIMING THE WORD OF GOD - #2

The liturgy of the Word is much more than just the first part of the Sunday Eucharist. When the Word is proclaimed, Christ is present as Holy Wisdom, Teacher, and Lord of our lives. He uses ministers of the Word to unroll the scrolls of the Hebrew or Old Testament to reveal how Jewish ancestors spoke about the coming Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the Prophet of prophets, the Word made flesh for us. The narratives of his birth and life, his preaching and sayings, his parables and healing ministry, his passion and death, his resurrection and ascension, his handing over of the Spirit are powerfully proclaimed. God's design and plan for the salvation of the world is ministered and announced.

We who hear the Word do so with open hearts and attentive ears. We discover that the Word teaches, challenges, edifies, consoles, forgives, reconciles, and encourages us. Most of all, it calls us to conversion and change of heart. The proclamation of the Word then calls for action. We act by voicing words of belief and prayers of intercession.

We offer the holy sacrifice and the great offering of the Eucharist. We give thanks and praise for creation and redemption. We ask the Spirit to transform the bread and the cup and ourselves. What we celebrate is the paschal mystery, the dying and the rising of the Lord and our waiting till he comes again.

This ministry is entrusted to bishops, priests, deacons, lectors, and cantors as a serious and sacred task. This appears to be a simple task: just get up and read the words on the page to us. Not so. The ministry is one of proclamation. This requires skills acquired by training, practice, and dedication. Furthermore, the ministry requires serious study of the Bible prayerful meditation of the Biblical texts.

In his Guide to the Revised Lectionary, Martin Connell comments on the role of scripture in the Churches. He bases his thinking on the writing of Fritz West, a UCC minister. West shows how Catholics and Protestants understand scripture differently and listen to scripture differently. Both see the scriptures as a book. For Protestants the bible is the entire book. For Catholics it is a book of Gospels, lectionary, or missal.

Both traditions use these printed forms of scripture differently. "Holding speech to be primary, the Catholic liturgical paradigm regards lections (readings) to be reconversion of writing back into the oral language from whence it came. The Protestant liturgical paradigm understands lections to be public reading of a printed book and the sermon to be the reconversion of writing into speech. In other words, the Catholic and Protestant liturgical paradigms hold lections to be speech and print (p .64)."

West and Connell are making an immensely important point. Catholics see speech, oral delivery, proclamation as primary. This means that ministers of the Word have to develop speech and oral communication skills. We are not merely reading a text to people who are reading a text. The object of proclamation is to listen, to hear the Word presented and the story proclaimed. The goal is to hear and assimilate the Word, the Word can teach, challenge, edify, console, forgive, reconcile, and encourage the entire assembly. The scriptures are sacred because they are our communal memory.