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Sample Formation Session

Lectors
Recommended Resource: A Well-Trained Tongue by Aelred Rosser

I. Welcome & Introductions

II. Opening Prayer

(Include an effective proclamation of a scripture passage as a part of the prayer.)

III. Presentation I: Who is the Lector? Characteristics & Spirituality of the

Lector
(Review Handout A)

IV. Presentation II: Effective Proclamation Skills

A. Begin with a discussion of the proclamation of scripture in the Opening Prayer.

Invite the participants to share their ideas on what makes an effective
proclamation.
B. Review Handout B: Proclamation Tips and Techniques
Provide the participants with an overview of:
1. breath control
2. variation in melody, speed, volume, etc.
3. stage fright

IV. Presentation III: Overview of the Lectionary and the Liturgical Year
(See sections 4 & 5 of A Well-Trained Tongue.)

V. Presentation IV: Steps to Effective Preparation for Ministry of the Word

(Refer to Section 6 of A Well-Trained Tongue for more information and ideas.)
Review the 12 Steps to Effective Preparation for Ministry of the Word – Handout C.

VI. Presentation V: References to the Liturgy of the Word in the General Instruction
of the Roman Missal:

A. Before Mass, the Lectionary is placed on the ambo since it is not carried in
procession. (118b, 120d) If the Book of the Gospels is used after the second
reading, the Lectionary is removed and placed on an appropriate shelf or table.
B. The Book of the Gospels is carried in procession, slightly elevated, and placed on
the altar. (120d, 122) It is not carried out at the end of Mass. (BCL, Bishop’s
Committee on the Liturgy Newsletter, XXXVI, No. 22)

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 C. If the tabernacle is in the sanctuary, the priest and ministers, not carrying sacred
items, genuflect to it when arriving at the sanctuary and at the end of Mass, but
not during Mass. They make a profound bow to the altar. (274) Therefore, when
reaching the altar, deacons/lectors carrying the Book of the Gospels omit the sign
of reverence to the altar (and tabernacle if applicable). (173, 274)
D. The Word is always proclaimed from the ambo. (58) It is preferable that
different readers proclaim the first and second readings but each reading is
proclaimed by a single reader except the Passion. (109)
E. Any sort of haste that hinders recollection must be avoided. (56) Periods of
silence are appropriate before the readings, after the first and second reading and
after the homily.
F. It is preferable that the Psalm be sung from the ambo. (61) Songs or hymns may
not be used in place of the Psalm. (61) At the Gospel the procession with the
book can include the censer and ministers with candles. (133)
G. When there is a deacon, he normally announces the intentions of the Prayer of the
Faithful (177), or a cantor, lector or one of the lay faithful may do so. (71) The
assembly responds with an invocation or with silence. (71)

VII. Summary of Guidelines and Procedures for Ministers of the Word

(Review Handout D)

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Adapted from materials prepared by the Office of Worship, Diocese of Green Bay. Used with permission.

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 Handout A
Who Is the Lector?
Characteristics and Spirituality of the Lector

I. The role of the lector at its most basic level is to take the Word of God, stored
temporarily on the printed page in the lectionary, and to make it a spoken and living
Word of God.

A. God’s Word is not just a set of statements -- it is multi-layered revelation of God.

B. Before the Word was written down, it was preached.

C. God is still revealing God’s self to us through these very same words of scripture.
The liturgy documents remind us that Christ is just as present in the Word that is
proclaimed as he is in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.

D. It is important for us as lectors to be people of the Word -- to see how this Word
applies to our own lives. (We can’t effectively proclaim a message that we don’t
understand.)

E. The call to the ministry of lector is a call to conversion. How is my life changing
because of the scriptures and because of this ministry?

F. The spirituality of the lector begins with baptism. My gifts belong to the
community that calls them forth. We are servants to the community.

G. What is the relationship between my daily life and my ministry as reader? Does it
make any difference outside the church doors?

Our ministry must reach outside of ourselves. We need to be proclaimers of the

Good News wherever we go.

The most important thing to remember, is that we don’t do any of this alone. This is God’s work
we are about. There comes a point where we let go and let the Spirit work through us.

The Lector’s Prayer:

“The Lord be in my mind, on my lips and in my heart that I may worthily proclaim the words of
salvation.”

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 Handout B
Proclamation Tips and Techniques

1. Preparation
a. Arrive at the church at least 15 minutes before Mass begins.
b. Familiarize yourself with the microphone. Is it on?
c. Check Lectionary pages for your readings.
d. Any difficult words?
e. Pray

2. How to Handle Nervousness

a. Above all, admit to being nervous. Honest admission of your nervousness lessens
its power over you.
b. Realize that nervousness is usually undetectable by the assembly.
c. Prepare adequately. Preparation is the best deterrent for last-minute panic.
d. Arrive early. Getting to church with no time to spare is unsettling for you and the
other ministers.
e. Do some deep breathing before you start the proclamation.
f. Calmly offer your proclamation as a gift of love to the assembly.
g. A way to control shaking is to hold the Lectionary in your hands during the
proclamation.
h. If you make a mistake . . .
 If the mistake has not altered the meaning of the text, relax and continue.
 If the mistake has altered the meaning of the text, relax and re-read that
section. Do not offer an apology.

3. Your Body Speaks

a. Walking and Standing.
Walk with purpose. Stand with feet planted firmly on the floor.
b. Carrying the Book of the Gospels.
Hold the book so that you are comfortable.
c. The correct place for proclamation.
The unity of the Liturgy of the Word clearly demands that the first two
readings and the Gospel are all done from the same lectern. Proclaim
from a large, dignified Lectionary, not a flimsy paperback.

4. Volume
a. Project your voice.

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 Do not rely on the microphone system. Get familiar with the mike system in your
church. Arrange to have a practice session with another lector. Turn off the
system. Take turns doing the following exercise. One of you stands in the back
of the church, the other at the lectern. The lector at the lectern repeats each
sentence with greater voice projection until he or she can be easily heard by the
one in the rear of the church. In all likelihood, you’ll need that level of projection
when the church is full of people at the Sunday liturgy.

b. Volume is more than just loud or soft. It is also pitch and variety.

c. The following text is good for practicing volume. The tone of your voice should
echo the “weight” of the occasion and the text itself. The exultation in
Zephaniah’s voice calls from the reader something more than a storyteller’s tone.
But notice that in the second paragraph, the mood changes. You will want to not
read the whole reading with the same tone.

Zephaniah 3:14-18a

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion: shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
He has turned away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.

On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:

Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who give victory;
He will renew you in his love;
the Lord, your God, will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival.

5. Enunciation
a. Exaggerate
b. Watch final consonants
c. Guard against lazy lips and lazy tongue
 Be aware that your diction in ordinary conversation probably falls short of
what you need for proclamation.

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  Use a tape recorder during practice to discover which sounds you tend to slur.
Do you say “Peter and Paul” or “Peter n Paul”? Are you saying “lent” or
“lend”?
 Diction exercises:
Say B D F L M P T V rapidly and distinctly.
Say this phrase: “Use the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue.”

d. Read the following passage aloud, paying particular attention to how you are
forming the words. Do this several times. The goal of improved articulation is to
sound natural and clear to your audience.

Luke 11:14

Jesus was praying in a certain place,

and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray,
as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

‘Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.

6. Faith Conviction
a. Express your feelings in public.
b. Proclaim with enthusiasm, conviction, interpretation, and present the invitation to
celebrate Eucharist. Is your “The Word of the Lord” an expression of faith or a
sigh of relief?

7. Pace
a. Read slowly. Consciously slow down from the very beginning.
b. Vary the rate.
c. Some texts require a slower proclamation simply because they are dense in
meaning. Others are particularly solemn or particularly brief. A very brief
reading must be proclaimed slowly, lest it be over before the hearers had a chance
to focus on it. Still other readings can profit from a degree of briskness. Consider
the following passage, the second reading on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Year
A. It is one of the briefest readings in the entire lectionary. It should take

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 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

A reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

Brothers and Sisters,

put things in order, listen to my appeal,
agree with none another,
live in peace;
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with all of you.

The Word of the Lord.

8. Pausing
a. The challenge of effective pausing is learning not to fear silence. We as a society
tend to not like silence and a lector oftentimes believes they are doing well when
there is a steady flow of sound. To be an effective lector, there must be
appropriate silence in the midst of the sound.
b. Consider the following reading from Isaiah. This exhortation in its fervor
rephrases itself, introduces new images, asks rhetorical questions, and so forth.
Without careful pausing, the text could sound like a jumble of thoughts and be
difficult to follow. The following pausing suggests one possible approach.

A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah

Everyone who thirsts, come to the water: (medium pause) and you
that have no money, come (brief pause) buy and eat! (long pause)
Come, (brief pause) buy wine and milk without money and
without price. (long pause)

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 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread (brief
pause) and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (medium
pause) Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, (brief pause)
delight yourselves in rich food. (long pause)

Incline your ear, and come to me; (brief pause) listen, so that you
may live. (medium pause) I will make with you an everlasting
covenant, (medium pause) my steadfast, sure love for David.

9. Eye Contact.
a. Pauses and eye contact go hand-in-hand and need to be planned.
b. Pauses and eye contact at the end of a thought give the assembly time to grasp the
concept.
c. How often should you make eye contact?
-- No hard and fast rule; a few times during the reading should be sufficient.
-- Dangers are either none or too many.
-- A good place to start is after “A reading from . . .” and just before
concluding with “The Word of the Lord”.
d. After each reading, pause with your head bowed. Your bowed head gently invites
the assembly to reflect on the Word just proclaimed.

10. Effective Breathing

a. We have been breathing all of our lives, but many of us do not know how to
breathe effectively for public speaking.
b. Breathing exercise:
Here is a simple exercise that will increase breath control by increasing your lung
capacity and strengthening the abdominal wall.

 Stand comfortably erect, with good but relaxed posture.

 Breathe in slowly through your mouth on the count of four (one Mississippi, two
Mississippi, etc.) The idea is to draw a full, deep breath. The intake of breath
should be completely silent; if you can hear it, you are breathing in too quickly.
Be careful not to raise your shoulders or to exert any effort trying to expand your
chest. And let the abdominal muscles relax completely. You should see some
outward movement of both chest and belly.
 Now you are going to exhale slowly on the count of eight (one Mississippi, etc.).
Exhale through the teeth, making a hissing sound (ssssssss). The sound should be
very soft on the count of one and as loud as possible on the count of eight as you
try to empty your lungs completely. During exhalation, conserve your air as you
consciously but gently pull the abdomen to support a steady outflow. The
contraction of these muscles will increase as your volume increases. Once again,
be very careful not to involve the chest, shoulder, neck or throat muscles. Do not

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  The exercise adds four counts to each subsequent exhalation:
Breathe in quietly through the mouth; four counts.
Breathe out hissing, soft to loud; eight counts.
Breathe in quietly through the mouth; four counts.
Breathe out hissing, soft to loud; twelve counts.
. . . and so on.
 Caution!! You may find yourself getting lightheaded rather quickly. Don’t push
yourself too hard; your ability will increase with practice

c. The following passage will challenge and develop effective breath control.
Remember to use your full proclamation voice when reading and to employ the
fullest range of focal variety. Do not continue reading after all but a fraction of
your breath is gone and your voice begins to sound shaky or pinched. The point
is to sustain the natural, full sound as long as you can.

Exodus 19:16

On the morning of the third day

there was thunder and lightning,
as well as a thick cloud on the mountain,
and a blast of a trumpet so loud
that all the people who were in the camp trembled.
d. The following passage is not meant to be proclaimed on just one breath. But it is
a good exercise. Passages like these often suffer from a choppy delivery. See
how fluid you can make them by using good breath control.

Proverbs 8:27-31

When he established the heavens, I was there,

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

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 Handout C
Steps to Effective Preparation
for Ministry of the Word
1. Keep company with the Scriptures on a regular basis through a small group or private
study with resources.

2. Pray. Visualize the particular assembly of whom you are a part. Ask God to touch
their hearts. Be a witness to God’s Word. Let the Spirit of God be upon you.

3. A week ahead, survey all of the readings for the Mass. Connect ideas or focus on the
Gospel and Old Testament reading.

4. Read your text silently several times, getting a sense of the pace and flow.

5. Identify the type of passage you are to read, e.g. a story, a prophecy, a parable, a witty
saying, an instruction, a song or poetry.

6. Consider: What is the meaning of the passage? Where is the climax? What is the
tone and spirit: comforting, warning, informing, intimate?

7. Check pronunciations and words of emphasis. Decide important phrases or words to

emphasize. (Verbs are a good choice.) See the Workbook for Lectors for suggestions
(Liturgy Training Publications).

8. Use effective communication skills of rate, pausing, articulation, tone quality. Plan
and practice where to make eye contact.

9. Practice reading aloud. Several times! Read to another person or tape recorder for
feedback.

10. Pray again for personal growth through the specific Scriptures you will be
proclaiming and for your ministry as reader of the Word of God. What is its meaning
in your own life? Thank God for this privilege. Praise God’s faithful love
communicated to us through these Scriptures.

11. Enter into the spirit and message of the season of the church year and/or the feast.

12. Before Mass, check the lectionary and the sound system. Then during the Liturgy of
the Word, approach the ambo reverently. Look at the assembly in a friendly manner
before beginning and as you announce the reading.

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 Handout D
Summary of the Guidelines and Procedures
For Ministers of the Word

SPIRITUALITY

Effective lectors are reverent, confident and preparation. The lector places the Lectionary
deliberate. They continue to pray, develop on the ambo. Check the microphone and the
and nourish their own spirituality. When place of seating. Lectors ask the celebrant
proclaiming the Scriptures, their love and faith about the procedure for the entrance and the
are evident to the hearers of the Word. Their recessional.
lives change because they are constantly
converted and motivated by the Word of God. PRESENCE

PROCESSIONS Liturgy is one integral action – it functions

like a symphony. Those who are in leadership
The deacon or lector carries the Book of the roles in liturgical worship should be present
Gospels and follows the servers and cross from the beginning of Mass to the end. Come
bearer in procession. The book is carried with early to prepare and to pray. Inner quiet and
the binding to the right, with both hands and composure will convey prayerfulness and the
few inches away from the breast, not held Spirit of God.
aloft like a banner. Lectors do not bow when
holding the book. The Gospel Book is placed PARTICIPATION
on the altar during the procession. The
Lectionary is placed on the ambo before Mass. Liturgy is a celebration, a ritual prayer of the
Lectors read from the Lectionary – not from a assembly with the leadership of the celebrant
missalette or a sheet of paper. After the and the liturgical ministers. The focus is on
second reading, the lector places the expressing and celebrating the immediate faith
Lectionary on a shelf or a stand. Do not carry experience of all present. Those in liturgical
out the Lectionary or the Book of the Gospels leadership enhance this experience with full,
in the recessional. The Books are always active and conscious participation. Dignified
handled with reverence and honor. and restrained participation shows an alert
awareness of the significance of ritual
worship.
COMMUNICATION
ATTIRE
Lectors communicate with the assembly in
nonverbal ways – body language, dress, Lectors carefully choose their attire for
posture, attitude, etc. Dress simply and move simplicity and appropriateness. On festive
with a demeanor of honor and reverence. occasions all liturgical ministers may wear an
alb or consider appropriate clothing with the
PREPARATION OF THE LECTIONARY color and spirit of the season or feast.

Lectors review the Lectionary before Mass,

noting the markers, the page, and the reading.
This is important if another book is used in

Formation Session for Lectors 11

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Formation Session for Lectors 12