Passion Reading on Palm Sunday

[kpajem]

The reading of the Passion in Church today, at all Masses, split the reading up in a way I’ve never heard before. Instead of the priest taking the role of Christ, then someone taking the Narrators part and the concregation doing the crowd part, the reading was instead done by person ‘A’ taking the first 10 paragraphs, person ‘B’ taking the next 10 and the priest taking the next 10. 10 is only a guess, but you get the idea. They cycled thru the reading like that. Of course it turned out that the 2 lay people doing the readings took several things that would normally have been done by the priest. The congregation did not participate.
This is not the first time at this church that an unconventional presentation of the Passion Gospel has been done.
All in all it bothers me. Am I being too critical?

Thanks

Mark

 

[CatholicZ09]

The way my church did it was one lay person was the narrator and another lay person was the voice. Then, the presider was Christ.

The way your parish did it makes it confusing. I’d bring it up to whoever thought it was a brilliant idea to do that.

 

[utah_rose]

That sounds really strange. In our Church, the deacon did the Narrative, our Priest took the role of Jesus, and another lector did another voice, but the parishioners did the crowd.

I’ve never heard of it done the way you described, because since we the sinners were responsible for Jesus being crucified, that is why the crowd portion should always be the parishioners, unless for some reason your diocese does it that way.

 

[momor]

At my church one lector read the entire narrative. Kind of wierd and I’m sure not litugically proper but he did an excellent job and the entire congregation seemed rapt.

 

[KCT]

The presider read the parts of Christ, a man was the narrator and a woman read the parts of Peter and the other non- crowd parts.

It bugs me to have a woman reading Peter’s words.

 

[benedictgal]

My pastor has done this for years at our parish, which is really bad. This is what Paschale Solemnitatis states:

1. The passion narrative occupies a special place. It should be sung or read in the traditional way, that is, by three persons who take the part of Christ, the narrator, and the people. The passion is proclaimed by deacons or priests, or by lay readers. In the latter case, the part of the Christ should be reserved to the priest.

I am, for the nth time, going to send this citation to my pastor and hope he will take heart and not do this anymore. It is frustrating. At least, when the associate pastor celebrated Mass today, we did the Passion in the traditional format listed by PS.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

The reading of the Passion in Church today, at all Masses, split the reading up in a way I’ve never heard before. Instead of the priest taking the role of Christ, then someone taking the Narrators part and the concregation doing the crowd part, the reading was instead done by person ‘A’ taking the first 10 paragraphs, person ‘B’ taking the next 10 and the priest taking the next 10. 10 is only a guess, but you get the idea. They cycled thru the reading like that. Of course it turned out that the 2 lay people doing the readings took several things that would normally have been done by the priest. The congregation did not participate.
This is not the first time at this church that an unconventional presentation of the Passion Gospel has been done.
All in all it bothers me. Am I being too critical?

Thanks

Mark

No your not being too critical. When this method is used the priest/celebrant is required to read the parts quoting Christ.

 

[JerrySeibert]

NO! You are not being to critical. It is the duty and honor of a Priest or Deacon only to read the words of Christ during the celebration of any Mass. I have never heard of anyone other than a Priest or Deacon ever quoting Christ in any celebration. Especially Palm Sunday, for Christ knew why he was going there.
Such a shame. As so many people use the Lenten time of year to reafirm the faith that some may have lost. Issues like this I feel keep some from “Going back” to the Church.

 

[Phemie]

I don’t know how Lectionaries are set up in other countries but ours has two versions of each Passion, a script version (N-J-S) and a read-through version.

It sounds as though your parish used the read-through version and just divided it up so that nobody would get bored with one voice.

Our old Lectionary used to split the Passion into N-J-S1-S2&S3. I’m happy with the new set up that allows us to listen without waiting for our chance to jump in with a response.

 

[pnewton]

NO! You are not being to critical. It is the duty and honor of a Priest or Deacon only to read the words of Christ during the celebration of any Mass. I have never heard of anyone other than a Priest or Deacon ever quoting Christ in any celebration.

It does take place though. The Psalm this Sunday was “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?” The Gospel Acclaimation is often the voice of Christ.

 

[Chatter163]

The presider read the parts of Christ, a man was the narrator and a woman read the parts of Peter and the other non- crowd parts.

It bugs me to have a woman reading Peter’s words.

I’ll go with that, if you’ll go with the fact that it bugs me to see priests called presiders.

 

[japhy]

the reading was instead done by person ‘A’ taking the first 10 paragraphs, person ‘B’ taking the next 10 and the priest taking the next 10. … The congregation did not participate.

My previous parish read the Passion this way, and I am not a fan of it.

 

[Dylpickleh8]

This sunday, The Priest did Christ’s part, laypeople did the Narrator and Voice, and the Congregation did the Crowd.

This was unusual, because, Usually, The Priest does Christ, The Deacon does the Narration, the Congregation does the Crowd, and a Layperson does the voice.