During the month of May, 31 Legionaries of Christ studying Theology in Rome received the ministry of the Lectorate: a step further towards their priestly ordination. A ministry is a mission exercised on behalf of someone, and in this case, it is Christ who chooses His ministers to proclaim and be custodians of His Word.
The Lector has the ministry of reading the Word of God in liturgical celebrations, but the Church also asks him to “educate in the faith children and adults; prepare them to receive the sacraments worthily, and announce the Good News of Salvation to men who still ignore it.”
The religious come from 12 countries, including three Spaniards: Manuel Frutos, Santiago Vázquez, and Pablo Lorenzo Penalva, as well as Michael Canzian, who did his apostolic practices in Madrid. The communication office of Regnum Christi in Spain recently spoke with them, and they shared, among other things, the responsibility that this step entails: it is not a service to do something “nice,” but “requires having lived the Word of God before, in your heart, in prayer, with the Lord.”
They are four different life experiences that converge in the fundamental: an exciting encounter with Christ. Brother Pablo Lorenzo Penalva is from Barcelona and is 29 years old. He studied at the Royal Monastery School of Santa Isabel and the first times he read at Mass, in the ECYD or in Regnum Christi, “were experiences that helped me say ‘yes’ when I felt His call to follow Him more closely.” On the other hand, Brother Manuel Frutos is a 43-year-old from Murcia who “went from knowing RC to participating in RC, from participating in RC to joining, and then, probably when the Lord had worked quite a bit, I felt a call of radical surrender through the priesthood in the Legion of Christ.”
Brother Michael Canzian is 28 years old and from northeastern Italy. He met the Legionaries thanks to his mother, who invited him to a prayer group: “In this experience, I got rid of the idea that those who prayed were… ‘losers,’ since the happiness I saw in people impressed me a lot.” Later, he met a Spanish Legionary who spoke in ‘Itanhol’: “His homily was brief, fun, and left an impression on me.” And his life changed. Santiago Vázquez is a 26-year-old from Madrid. He met Regnum Christi and the Legionaries at Everest School Monteclaro when he arrived there in 4th grade.
“God, with His Word, sows my land”
To open the conversation, we wanted to reach the brothers’ hearts by asking: “What does receiving this ministry mean to you?” Brother Pablo begins the conversation explaining that “it has been a further step towards priestly ordination. It is a step that demands greater responsibility and with it a desire to be more and better transformed by Christ.” Along the same lines, Brother Michael specifies that “it is an opportunity to internalize what will be fundamental for your life: to let God, with His Word, sow the land of your life, soak it, and fertilize it so that it can bear fruit for the people He puts in your path, so that it becomes a source of seed for others.”
to let God, with His Word, sow the land of your life.
Brother Santiago looks inward: “It is an unmerited gift from God and a strong invitation to continue deepening more and more in study and prayer with the Word of God.” On his part, Brother Manuel highlights another aspect: “The great trust of the Church in granting me a stable sacred and vital ministry within the Christian community: to proclaim the Word of God, a fundamental message for the life of the Church that is the spiritual food of the Eucharistic assembly.”
Christ present in the Eucharist and in the Word
As the conversation continues, this focus has brought up another topic: the importance of proclaiming the Word of God in Mass, a moment that for many seems secondary compared to others like Communion. It is Brother Manuel himself who asks for good Readers in Mass “so that what we read and hear in Scripture is put into practice.” He justifies this with the blessing they received when they were instituted as Readers: “Bless these Readers, that as they proclaim your words of life, they strengthen their faith so they can read with conviction and boldness, and put into practice what they read.”
Brother Michael exclaims that “Mass is a mystery of salvation… and that is precious! Living Mass as a saved, redeemed man, where you feed on the Word of God and the Body of Christ. He is truly present both in the Eucharistic species and in His Word.” He gives us an example to illustrate the value of the readings at Mass: “I was very impressed to see, at the Centro Aletti, by Rupnik, in Rome, the ambo in front of the altar, as if communicating: so one can experience that the Word, the Logos, becomes flesh.” That’s why, “it is important that whoever goes to read is aware that they are proclaiming the Word of God — adds Brother Pablo — and that they proclaim it to an assembly: the better it is proclaimed, the better it will be received.”
The Word affects those who listen to it
The thread of the discussion shifts with this last comment about the apostolic character of the ministry, as Brother Canzian asks us to understand that it is not a service to do something “nice,” but “requires having lived it before, in your heart, in prayer, with the Lord.” And from this experience, the Word becomes evangelizing: “It is a sending to preach the Word of God, which I like to summarize as ‘being a custodian and apostle at the service of the Word.’”
The Lectorate is “the service of lending one’s lips to God so that He can communicate with His people,” affirms Brother Manuel categorically. And to proclaim the Word of God effectively, “the Lector must understand the meaning of the passage, and that what is proclaimed in the readings is meant to affect those who hear it so that they strive to adapt their lives to what is celebrated and, in return, bring to the liturgy everything they do in life.”
The Lectorate is “the service of lending one’s lips to God so that He can communicate with His people.”
Brother Santiago intervenes at this moment to warn that “there is a lack of Readers who prepare children and adults to receive the sacraments worthily — which, as we have seen, is part of the mission of the Lector — and there is a lack of awareness that the ambo is not a piece of furniture that facilitates reading, but the seat of the Word of God, because God does not reside only in the Eucharist, He also resides in His Word, and that is why His Word is alive and effective.”
God does not reside only in the Eucharist, He also resides in His Word, and that is why His Word is alive and effective.
The community must choose those who proclaim the Word
Talking about this service, which is clearly evangelizing, makes sense with seminarians, but a new topic arises in this gathering of young theologians: “What about the laity who also read the Mass readings like you, how do they differ from others?”
Brother Santiago delves into the fundamental: “Every Seminarian or lay Lector must love, know, and deepen in the Word of God, but the seminarian knows that the ministry of the Lectorate is only a tasting, a part of what the gift of the priesthood is. Receiving the Lectorate in a priestly key makes the difference.” Brother Pablo expresses it this way: “In practice, there is no difference, but for us seminarians, it helps to have greater awareness and closer contact with the sacred.” And the person who has the ministry compared to one who does not, adds Brother Michael, is that “the minister has a special and specific blessing to perform it in the name of the Church.”
The seminarian knows that the ministry of the Lectorate is a tasting, a part of what the gift of the priesthood is.
As we are nearing the end, Brother Manuel opens a new perspective: “The liturgical celebration is a sacred action, yes, but not only of the clergy, but of the entire assembly. It is a community action. That’s why it is natural for tasks not proper to ordained ministers to be carried out by lay faithful.” He also clarifies a practice of the Church: “Not everyone can be called to this ministry, so each community must discern those who truly have the gift of this ministry, who are truly qualified and carefully prepared, who are doers of the Word, not just listeners,” he emphasizes. Therefore, “the difference is not so much in the state of life, whether lay or consecrated, but in the specific vocation within the community to bring the Word of God to others,” he concludes.
