What's with Readers doing real time politically correct substitutions of God's Word?

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Edward_H

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Why do some people feel compelled to change the word of God when they are “readers” at Mass?

I regularly hear substitutions…“His will” becomes “God’s will…”…Father becomes God, but it goes beyond that…“living beings” becomes “living things”.

On whose authority do they change the Word of God for everyone at Mass?

The poor priests may suspect it, but most aren’t using a hand missal…

It’s their cunning disobedience at MASS that saddens me.
 
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I see it as my parish, which is fairly orthodox. We have a lot of Masses on Sunday and it seems to be just 2 or 3 people.

If you don’t follow with a hand missal you might not notice. But I do use a hand missal, and I do notice.
 
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Are you sure it’s not just an honest mistake? As a former Lector myself, I’d trip over the words and make accidental “substitutions”. I was told so long as it wasn’t a major speaking error (“For God so HATED the world”, as an example), to just roll with it.
 
Edward_H said:
living beings” becomes “living things”.
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Why would they change that?

Regardless, this is an abuse which must be corrected.

If the readers cannot read without changing the text, they need to be fired and new readers trained.
 
No, the substitutions are all in one direction…there are some misses where some people mistakenly try to maintain eye contact, as if they’re giving a speech, and they miss words, but there is a theme to these mistakes that I am noticing…it’s the gender neutral, minimize mention of sin…skipping of whole subphrases that’s worrisome.
 
Trees aren’t beings. Beings have rational souls.
 
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I am a reader. I read what is im front of me. I would never ad lib a change on purpose. I can’t imagine any of the readers I know doing it either.

If this is something that is intentional, I would be surprised that a priest did not stop it. I would always give the benefit of the doubt first, but if it continues to happen that person would find themselves off the schedule.
 
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Have you let the pastor know that you are scandalized by the wanton disregard for the Scriptural text as presented in the Lectionary?
 
Oh yes…he’s a great pastor with a million other issues. I’ve pointed it out to the fellow who coordinates the readers and he sends out reminders…

but they re-volunteer, and up they go, and they change again. And the poor fellow who coordinates can’t be at all Masses.

I just can’t imagine who has the temerity to do this at Mass!!!
 
Edward_H said:
I just can’t imagine who has the temerity to do this at Mass!!!
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I certainly feel your frustration - I’m a stickler for liturgical purity and following the rubrics to a T.

Try to just ignore it and say a prayer is my best advice.
 
Edward_H said:
I regularly hear substitutions…“His will” becomes “God’s will…”…Father becomes God, but it goes beyond that…“living beings” becomes “living things”.
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Are you sure you are following along in the right translation? Definitely double check.

I was told, as a youth in the mid and late 1960’s, that the priest was definitely NOT permitted to recite any of the prayers or readings from memory ( and I think this would go for readers too). It was definitely considered a significant infraction for a priest to just recite anythng, the “our father” , or another prayer in the mass he said a thousand times from memory. That’s why they have the different prayers on the altar ready to be read.

These folks are “readers”, and that’s what they are charged to do.
 
Yes, I take my hand missal and compare it to the “Roman Missal” (the big book) and verify.
 
Yes I checked every word; my hand muscle versus the Roman missile he was using;this fellow inserts all the time
 
Historically there have been two reasons for chanted readings. One, in the era before sound amplification, it was so the sound would travel better. But the other one, was so that the text would not be coloured by the reader’s prejudices. The emphases would be where the melodies put them, not where the reader wants them.

I guess you could still change the words with chanted readings, but I’ll bet that concentrating on getting the chanting right would give the reader far less opportunity to think about what substitutions to make.

Bring back chanted readings! Actually, at the abbey where I go to Mass, all readings are chanted whether for the Mass or Divine Office. Even the refectory readings are chanted (recto-tono, also recto-tono for the long Vigils readings).
 
Are the readers using the correct book? Sometimes the reading don’t match up to the missal as they’re using either an outdated lectionary or it’s taken directly from a Bible which is not the one specified for use.
 
At the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic community I attend part-time, the readings are chanted.

At my full-time ordinariate parish, the prophecy and epistle are not, but the deacon chants the Gospel. Every few years, the reader might have a tongue slip, but never of the kind the OP is referring to. I have noticed at most two or three tongue ties by either the deacon or lay reader in the eleven years I have been at my parish, never intentional substitutions.
 
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This sort of illustrates why I haven’t volunteered to become a reader, not because I would want to “modernize” the language (we have a parish that’s pretty much by the book, and I thank God for that), but because every now and then there is a passage that I know from my own Bible study to be incorrectly translated, and I would not be able to legally correct it on the fly.

D
 
When the monks reading have a slip of the tongue, after they go back to their stall they kneel for a few moments to make satisfaction. They also do this when they err when chanting psalms at the Divine Office. The exception: if the reader is also an acolyte at the Mass, and is wearing his white alb, he doesn’t have to kneel if he slips up because it will get the alb dirty 😃

Almost all of monastic life is a “liturgy” of sorts, something I’ve come to appreciate while volunteering at the abbey library.
 
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