Bowing to the Lectionary

[mc2e]

I feel sacrilegious in sharing the following but want suggestions. I occasionally must attend a mass away from my home church on Sunday evenings where:

1. there is an exaggerated slow procession of the Lectionary to the ambo before readings,
2. followed by extremely slow readings, … so slow you sometimes forget how sentences began
3. followed by an exaggerated recessional of Lectionary and placement of it on display on the front the ambo,
4. after which the entire congregation bows deeply in adoration toward the Lectionary.

While I adore and love God with all my heart and soul and love the readings, to me, the sequence above, seems like pretentious theatrics on the verge of crossing to idolatrous admiration of an object rather than God’s Word. It is also boring and distracting.

Besides trying to find another church perhaps 20+ miles further away, does anyone have suggestions to help me? Thank you.

 

[LilyM]

I feel like I’m being sacrilegious in sharing the following but want suggestions. I occasionally must attend a mass away from my home church on Sunday evenings where:

1. there is an exaggerated slow procession of the Lectionary to the ambo before readings,
2. followed by extremely slow readings, … so slow you sometimes forget how sentences began
3. followed by an exaggerated recessional of Lectionary and placement of it on display on the front the ambo,
4. after which the entire congregation bows deeply in adoration toward the Lectionary on the ambo.

While I adore and love God with all my heart and soul and love the readings, to me, the sequence above, seems like pretentious theatrics on the verge of crossing to idolatrous admiration of an object rather than God’s Word. It is also boring and distracting.

Besides trying to find another church perhaps 20+ miles further away, does anyone have suggestions to help me? Thank you.

I’ve been to many a Mass where prior to the Gospel reading the Lectionary is incensed, as is the priest reading it.

As long as the congregation doesn’t kneel as they do at the consecration or genuflect as they might to the Tabernacle I think priorities are in order.

 

[mc2e]

Thank you for you thoughts.

 

[BartholomewB]

Surely you don’t mean they do this for all the readings? Only for the Gospel, correct?

 

[Usige]

Is it a procession of the lectionary or the book of the Gospels?

The General Instructions of the Roman Missal is clear that the lectionary is not to be used in procession, but only the Book of the Gospels (GIRM 120 d).

We hold the Book of the Gospels in a higher regard than the lectionary and hence the reason it is carried in procession at the entrance as well as from the altar to the ambo at the Gospel reading. This becomes a little more obvious when you see that a deacon or priest kisses the Book of the Gospels. If a bishop is there, a deacon takes the Book of the Gospels to the bishop for him to kiss. The procession, incensation, and kissing the Book of the Gospels are all signs of reverence. Bowing at it’s presentation would seem to fall in the same vein.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If this is just an “occasionally must attend…on Sunday evenings” then why is it such a big deal?

It’s not your home church, and you’re not experiencing it every day, or every week.

If you “adore and love God with all your heart and soul” then why not just offer up the few minutes you have to spend watching something you think is boring? It falls in the category of “First World Problems” especially when it’s not even happening to you weekly because this isn’t your regular church.

I understand slow readings being annoying as there is one reader at one of the several churches I attend whose slow reading style I don’t enjoy. I offer it up as I am suggesting to you, and the reading doesn’t last more than a couple minutes.