Why does the RCC have this "rule"?

[TheosisM]

I just saw the following question/answer in the “ask an appologist” section. I was wondering exactly why this is taught by the RCC.

Question: Who can read the Gospel durring Mass?
Answer:Hi,

At Mass the Gospel may be read by a bishop, priest or deacon ONLY!

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

Why can’t anyone read the word of God?
Annie

Annie,

As others have already stated, in the Mass of Paul VI (the “ordinary form” of the Mass in the Roman Catholic church, the liturgy that you’d most likely see if you walked into a random Roman Catholic parish), a lay minister, called a “lector” or “reader” will read the first two readings from the Bible. As to why only a bishop, priest, or deacon may read from the Gospels at Mass, the “General Instruction of the Roman Missal” (GIRM) answers this nicely:

"The liturgy itself inculcates the great reverence to be shown
toward the reading of the gospel, setting it off from the other
readings by special marks of honor. A special minister is appointed
to proclaim it and prepares himself by a blessing or prayer. The
people, who by their acclamations acknowledge and confess Christ
present and speaking to them, stand as they listen to it. Marks of
reverence are given to the Book of the Gospels itself. "

You may notice that in all of the ancient Churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, etc., there is a special reverence shown towards the reading of the Gospels in our services, and the important message contained in them. We stand for them. Candles may be around the minister reading, symbolizing Jesus Christ, the light of the world. The words may be sung, instead of simply read. And of course an ordained minister is the normal person to proclaim the Gospels. All of this (including only having ordained ministers read the Gospels) is done to “set it off from the other readings by special marks of honor”.

 

[KathleenGee]

Yes, the ordained are representing Christ.

About Strawberry Jam’s comment on more rules…they came about because people misunderstood actions at the liturgy…

The work of inculturation means to go into a new culture and find common ground of meanings, symbols, images to communicate the same message of Christ…different strokes for different folks…

But then you also need to bring the gift of culture of the new people back into the universal Church…and then more misunderstandings happen…until rites are defined…so I can go into any parish in the world…see obvious differences of small traditions that fit their culture that could be expressed in some place at the Mass, usually at the gathering, but in all the actions, gestures, movements, I am hearing the same message.

This also explains why in dealing with the practices of Catholicism, you pretty much have to locate the country and even the region before answering. It is also why our organization is so large…it is universal and 2,000 years old with alot of baggage but also always open to renewal. The Church is continually critiquing itself and the many changes we have endured the past 40 years or so have been pretty upsetting to people who were not used to change…the Novos Ordo, the liturgy returned to the vernacular and local people was tremendous work and only now are we coming full circle to connect the Latin, old Mass if you want to call it, recovered back with Novos Ordo. For example, the Latin Mass was never intended to be stopped, and if anything to continue to have atleast one Latin Mass on the weekend for those who preferred it.

The Liturgy Department is a very vast and complex entity dealing with history, anthropology, the ethnicity of all the various peoples throughout the world, the rites…we have 22 rites of different cultures of Masses all connected within our church.

So, you have how many billion Catholics…we all have to be on the same page, and the only way to keep us connected to the same message is rules. But that is the work of ecclesiastics…it is better to spend your time on the fruit of liturgy and leave the work to whom it was meant for.

 

[KathleenGee]

Gabriel12,

Another excellent post and orthodox post in answering ‘the rule’. People should read it more to heart…your addition of St. John’s…‘consecrated in the truth’…is a passage we all need to remember for our clergy…

Merry Christmas!

 

[djeter]

here’s a good article on the subject:

newadvent.org/cathen/06659a.htm

Might be a “good article” but pretty much unreadable due to formatting issues. I would never recommend a New Advent article on the internet unless you have preformatted it for others.

dj

 

[poetryforjesus]

It is very important to read the Bible worthily in the right spirit. It is very easy to read the Bible in irreverent ways. That’s why the person reading the Bible publicly must be consecrated in some way and have the right spirit of God. Otherwise they would profane the Word of God and do damage to those who are hearing it.

 

[pismopal]

There is even more to this than they are letting on.
They even stand for the Gospel. Yes, they pay such close attention they actually get up and stand before it is read, and while it is read.
You may wonder why there is such a rule for this. Wonder no longer. Go and see it for yourself and you may find even more rules they follow that will lead to more questions.

Speaking of " that will lead to more questions"…I have one already. What is your point here?..it has a mocking tone to it but maybe you can clear that up.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Speaking of " that will lead to more questions"…I have one already. What is your point here?..it has a mocking tone to it but maybe you can clear that up.

I’m most certianly not mocking the Holy Mass, or any aspect of it. What should be noticed in my post is an attempt to provoke the interest of the non catholic to attend the Holy Mass to see it for themselves. I know I had more questions after regular attendance.

 

[StrawberryJam]

When the Priest goes to the ambo for the Gospel reading, we stand in attentive reverence. Why? Because of the unique presence of Christ in the proclamation of the Gospel. We believe that Christ “is present in his word, since it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the church” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, #7). You may want to ask also why we genuflect or bow to the Altar before getting to our seats. This is our sign of respect to our loving God who is present in the Tabernacle.
God bless.

I happen to be in awe by the reverence at Holy Mass and Divine liturgy both. It is very hard for me to go to a non catholic church and feel that same awe. I have no problem with the traditions and customs and rituals that the ancient church practices to this day. The orderliness of it reminds me of Paul’s warning that there be orderliness in worship. Researching all the parts of the Mass is interesting, and I had a lot of help with this from Rolltide who gave me in depth explainations and taught me more than I would have learned on my own. I appreciate your reply, and hope you understand I was simply trying to make the point that one should really go see it for themselves, and they will have more questions.
Even after regular attendance, I still have questions.

 

[KathleenGee]

StrawberryJam,

Sweet name, and thanks for clarifying…Glad you are going…

Do you know the first degree of theology is to approach study prayerfully? Your searching is a form of prayer…I will pray for you this Christmas…

Kathleen

 

[pismopal]

I’m most certianly not mocking the Holy Mass, or any aspect of it. What should be noticed in my post is an attempt to provoke the interest of the non catholic to attend the Holy Mass to see it for themselves. I know I had more questions after regular attendance.

Thanks…Merry Christmas…or happy whatever

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

Gabriel12,

Another excellent post and orthodox post in answering ‘the rule’. People should read it more to heart…your addition of St. John’s…‘consecrated in the truth’…is a passage we all need to remember for our clergy…

Merry Christmas!

God bless you, and thank you, KathleenGee and have a joyous “Christ-Mass” celebration.

I love the way our ECF St. Irenaeus traced his own apostolic succession to the orginal Apostle St.John through his (St.John’s) disciple ST.Polycarp and writes with Apostolic authority from antiquity to “All” Christians to hear the following quote from ST. Irenaeus (125–202 a.d).

]"Therefore, one must listen carefully to the presbyters in the church, the ones who have received their succession from the apostles, as we have shown, and who have obtained, together with the succesion of the episcopacy, the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. Others, however, who draw back from the original succession and assemble wherever they please, must be looked upon with suspicion; they should be regarded as heretics pursuing perverse ideas, or as schismatics, puffed up and self-pleasing"…(Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.26.2, quoted in Froehlich 45.)

The Liturgy is the memory of the Church lived out today and made present in every age from the Apostolic Traditions. If one recalls the Apostles reading from the Old Testament, then Orally teaching the eyewitness accounts of Jesus before they wrote the New Testament, from their teaching offices. In the first 400 years of Christianity no one had a complete cannonized bible yet to read from. Most common folk could not read nor could afford a bible.

The early Christians did not read the bible, **their faith was transposed by hearing and hearing the Word of God in liturgy which gave them the Apostolic Faith **from an Apostolic teaching office, which is still practiced today by a Priest, Deacon or Bishop. Without an Apostolic teaching office, all others are heretics, puffed up in self pride, and should be looked upon with suspicion, so "says " St. Irenaeus.

 

[KathleenGee]

Hi Gabriel…

Very Merry Christmas to you…what is your catechetical background? You draw on various sources.

Drawing on various sources to make a point is pretty much where we Catholics are in living out our faith.

What I mean by that, we attend liturgy, hear the Word of God pertaining to the topic or theme of the day, the season of the year, we get a history lesson…(.always within the apostolic tradition which is the best place to be in this age of controversy)…and we have our morality.

Catholicism is wholistic…but the different parts are fed by different disciplines within their own congregations. It takes the average person like myself a long time to discover my own faith.

Then you have these genius converts that get it right away.

So if you ask me a question, I would have to question back in what context do you mean that? I am living my faith from the sacraments, doctrine and morality all interconnected but to ask about one, then you go into just that area…and it is huge.

Yes, Gabriel12, I ended up in my classes taking liturgy and it has become my favorite. I have a book I never had time to get into. Now my youngest is starting college so I am finally beginning catechesis. Anyway, the sister who heads liturgy at the diocese gave me this book when I returned home to care for family…‘From Age to Age’, by Edward Foley.

Our faith revolves around the liturgy. In this book it stated how the earliest Christians went to the syngagues with the Jews, but in time they split apart, and around 80 AD the Jews wrote a malediction against them so they went and formed their own Jewish Christian synagogues…in the meantime the faith was going out into Rome and Asia Minor.

Yes, St. Ireneas…spelling off…I love the liturgy of St. James and went to a Maronite church so many years ago and heard the Liturgy of st. John the Evangelist for the Eucharistic prayer.

If I were to catechize in my parish, I would love to focus on the liturgy. Dr Hahn was on Mike Aquilina’s show and said the ancient Jews centered their faith around the liturgy. But we Western Catholics tend to go through all the other disciplines first before finally coming to settle with the liturgy. I want to get the DVD. He was talking about the image of the stone altar that came with Abraham and then at the beginning of Saul…how it reappears throughout the Old Testament…and how we continue…

Yes, I would like to put a course together to turn things around, go back to liturgy and reflect on Scripture. Hebrew Catholics have a series you can download/audio on Israel and the Church…and have studies on the liturgy. They had a great response from people on Catholic Answers here.

A man came on the site yesterday or so saying it is the Hebrews who had the faith, who kept the faith…and maybe that is why the site is called Hebrew Catholics and not Jewish Catholic…

I think we are coming now to the ingrafting of Hebrew and Catholics on liturgy and a new understanding of our church in recovering images they are showing us in OT that are precursors to the Catholic Church.

God bless you!
Kathleen