I was at a confirmation Mass recently in a diocese that does not follow the “restored order” of confirmation before first communion, so the vast majority of confirmandi were teenagers. Now, this parish has a reputation for catechesis, liturgy, music, and preaching of a specially high order. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to see the ministry of lector assigned to a couple of the teens.
Maybe you have encountered something like this yourself at confirmations or even first communions—the deputizing of kids for lectoring and other liturgical ministries. What do you make of that? Me, I think this is a disedifying practice, for three reasons.
1. Most children and teenagers are just no good at reading at Mass. If you’re someone who doesn’t think any lay person should read at Mass, go ahead and keep scrolling. Okay. If you’re still here: proclaiming the written word in a liturgy is an art and a skill. It requires practice and it requires maturity.
Shoot, many adult lectors do not perform their office particularly well. They are too theatrical or too monotonous. They do not sufficiently work through the complex sentence structures of the epistles or the unfamiliar names and diction of the Old Testament to make the meaning of the passages ring clear to the congregation. They are not practiced in modulating pace, volume, emphasis, and other aspects of their delivery—everything that makes up the skill set of any orator and, when combined with humble prayerfulness, of a lector.
As the General Instruction of the Roman Missal puts it, the lector must be “truly suited” to proclaiming the readings, so that the assembled faithful “may conceive in their hearts a sweet and living affection for the Sacred Scripture” (101).
If lots of adults who get regular practice at the ambo fail to do justice to this sacred task, how much less can we expect a child, on average, to do so in his first shot at it? Diminishing the proclaimed word so that young people can feel a little more special on their special day is a bad tradeoff.
2. It encourages a false sense of liturgical participation. I have been a volunteer in parishes that presented liturgical ministries like a college jobs fair. Check out the catalogue of all the cool things you can do at Mass to be an “active participant”! At a confirmation, especially—already often treated as a coming-of-age ceremony, a Catholic bar mitzvah—handing out liturgical roles to the initiates similarly confirms the notion that adult Catholicism means getting out of the pews and doing something at Mass.
But of course, active participation in the liturgy means consciously and intentionally uniting ourselves with the action of the Mass—in its prayers, postures, and songs, and especially through intentionally joining the priest in offering to the Father the saving sacrifice of Christ. Should not a confirmation or first communion Mass be ordered first to fostering in young people that truest sense of participation?
3. It creates a hierarchy among the sacrament recipients. Instead of encouraging solidarity among first communicants or confirmandi by emphasizing their shared experience, giving ministries to a choice few stratifies them. The boys and girls chosen to read (or sing or bring up the gifts or work the collection baskets) may not-unjustly feel they have been allotted the greater portion. The other kids are just getting the sacrament; the selected few are getting the sacrament and a special part in the performance.
This has the potential to create resentment for the other kids—perhaps even discouragement at not being holy or good enough to be a featured Mass-goer—and also to inhibit the “chosen” kids’ reception of the sacrament with due humility and focused reflection.
So, on their first communion or confirmation day, let the children come unto the Lord and let that be enough, say I. And let competent lay ministers do their part to serve the beauty, intelligibility, and smooth functioning of the Mass.