Doing God's Work Is Not Meant to be Easy
By patgalca
@patgalca (18481)
Orangeville, Ontario
July 22, 2016 1:21pm CST
I am a lector at my church. I am also the Lector Co-ordinator which means I do up the schedules every 3 months and I train new lectors. I also have to find lectors for special masses, which is not always easy.
Before the summer I send out an email to all my lectors and ask them to tell me what vacations they KNOW about so I can do the summer schedule with as minimal conflict as possible. Before I went away for the long weekend there could have been a lector bailing on her reading because her sister was on her deathbed. I managed to make arrangements for someone to cover if that happened.
Her sister passed away this week so I am going to be covering her reading this weekend. This morning, Friday, I got two emails from lectors who can't do their readings this weekend. One of them should have known that awhile ago (because he sings in the choir and our priest won't let someone do double duty at masses) but he waited until the last minute. One day before masses start and I am scrambling to get replacements. Obviously I can't cover because I am already covering for a reader. I've asked one reader if they could cover for the other but am waiting, waiting, waiting for a response. I've also asked my daughter if she could cover. She is at work so hasn't responded yet either.
It's frickin' Friday and I'm scrambling for Saturday and Sunday masses. If I have to, I can do both readings on Saturday but I'm sure I can get a replacement. And if I have to, I will go back in on Sunday and read again to cover the other one. I've done that before. I really shouldn't have to though. Perhaps these people didn't try very hard to get coverage from another lector... so just leave it to me because I'm in charge I guess.
I know God appreciates all that I do for this Ministry, not sure the priest does though.
4 people like this
5 responses
@marsha32 (6631)
• United States
23 Jul 16
You are so right that doing God's work is not always easy!
You train lectors? We just have a sign up sheet, of which several Sunday's are missing readers.
We do have a sheet to help pronounce the harder words. And, it's nice that the church secretary makes sure we get a copy of that week's lessons ahead of time to be able to read through and study before we read.
3 people like this
@patgalca (18481)
• Orangeville, Ontario
23 Jul 16
We have what the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops published, Workbook for Lectors. Every lector gets one so they just have to look in their workbook where words are bolded to show emphasis. There are also notes in the sidebar to indicate how voice should sound and pronunciation of difficult words.
I am not training them to read so much as I am training them on the routine of walking down the aisle in the procession, where to place the book, etc. They are given written guidelines in advance (which I wrote) so we really just do a quick run-through. However, I do listen to them read so I can give them some pointers and tell them, most importantly, read slowly, there is no rush.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (169406)
• United States
23 Jul 16
Some people just figure it is easy to replace them, and it is not true at all. I hope this does not end up burning you out.
2 people like this
@IreneVincent (15960)
• United States
24 Jul 16
@patgalca OK Thanks for letting me know that. I've learned something new.
@DeborahDiane (40843)
• Laguna Woods, California
24 Jul 16
You are probably right ... God knows all, but priests are only human!
