Parish renewal begins when readers of the World proclaim it in the conviction that God is speaking. Then congregations sit up and listen.

God is speaking, but in far too many churches he is not being heard. Where the proclamation of the Word on Sunday is perfunctory, flat and uninvolving, the congregation takes refuge in missalettes and missals, and follows the text there. Most of those who act as readers seem unaware that God communicates through them during the Liturgy of the Word. Or, if they are aware, they do not act as if they believe it. So the assembly does not believe it either. Nobody believes it. The Word falls on stony ground.

Worse, it is lay people who are failing most seriously. Of the three readings which are assigned, two are reserved for lay readers; then the presiding priest or deacon reads the Gospel. The proclamation of the Word, in other words, is a two-thirds lay activity. Through these lay people, God speaks a living, active word which even if it is heard for the thousandth time should sound as new as when it was first proclaimed.

Church documents ? the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the General Instruction on the Roman Missal, and the General Introduction to the Lectionary ? all make this clear: when the Word of God is announced, we receive in the Spirit the grace to take that same Word into the world as witnesses to the truth.

Why do people not believe this? First, readers do not understand their ministry; second, the assembly is unaware of its responsibilities during the Liturgy of the Word.

People offer themselves to read, but in many parishes lack any guidance about their role or suggestions about how they should approach it. They volunteer; their names go on a rota; but usually that is as far as preparation for their ministry goes. Most readers base their ideas about what to do on what they have seen done by others. For some, this means no discernible preparation at all: how else to explain a reader going to the ambo, dressed for a winter storm, and reading in a monotone a passage for the wrong Sunday. And she did not notice! I do not think she meant to do the job badly: she did what she thought was needed ? articulation of the passage, preparation optional ? and did not know anything different was required. This happens because very few are aware of the guidelines contained in the General Introduction to the Lectionary.

Readers should understand that God speaks through them; that God actually uses the reader?s voice to communicate with his gathered people. This startling idea takes a little while to register; once it does, the reader stands up straighter, which in turn makes the congregation sit up. Once they are convinced that God is communicating with his people through them, the readers begin to prepare better. They spend time trying to understand the meaning and context of the assigned passage, to find ways to bring it alive, to pray with the text and rehearse it aloud often in advance of Sunday.

Then the reader needs to know that he or she is not reading at all, but proclaiming. This is an oral, not a written, tradition. The Word is ?alive and active? ? in a voice; in space; at this moment; in this place. Training in public speaking and voice projection may certainly help, but it is prayer that enables a reader by the grace of the Spirit to stand before the assembly strong and confident in the Lord, and to deliver a proclamation that is powerful and convincing.

The assembly also needs to understand its role during the Liturgy of the Word. In many churches, the people put their heads in their missalettes, which keeps them from hearing the Word as it is spoken ? a bad habit peculiar to the Catholic Church and one it needs to shake off. Missalettes may be helpful as study aids, for reading Scripture before and after the Sunday celebration, or for visitors unfamiliar with Catholic rites. But used during the Liturgy of the Word, they sit like a great wall of ice between the reader and the assembly.

In fact, the congregation?s role should be anything but passive. It is the assembly itself that celebrates the liturgy: the presiding minister leads in the place of Christ as head, while the people are the Body of Christ. According to the General Introduction to the Lectionary, the assembly is to listen, because the Word of God continues to come to the faithful by hearing. When they hear, the introduction goes on, they ?receive the power to respond? to the Word of God ?actively with full faith, hope and charity through prayer and self-giving, and not only during Mass but in their entire Christian life?.

This last sentence gives us the key. During the Liturgy of the Word, when the whole assembly (including the president and all others who have a ministerial role) is actively listening to God, a profound silence supervenes, a stillness which is conducive to meditation on the word spoken and received.

I remember experiencing this at Mass in Yaba, Nigeria. The reading ? from Isaiah chapter 5, when the prophet sings of his friend?s love of his vineyard ? had been given in English first. But when a woman stood to give it in Yoruba, the whole assembly of around 300 people was held spellbound. Whether or not we understood Yoruba, we were gripped by the poetry of her delivery and her total conviction. When she had finished, we were wrapped in a silence deeper than I had ever known, absorbing the message. Whenever I hear that passage now, I think of that reader and remember the sorrow and disappointment she conveyed. I have been hoping to encourage this quality of proclamation ever since.

Listening is hard work at first, for both reader and assembly, but gradually a listening silence becomes the norm.

In the Acts of the Apostles where the first Christian communities are described, we hear of an authentic pattern of renewal which should be repeated every Sunday. The faithful gather to listen to Scripture, discuss the disciples? experience of Jesus, break bread and share his cup in his memory, and go forth, reinvigorated, to spread the Gospel.

Renewal of the life in our churches must start with the Liturgy of the Word. One of the best consequences of the courses for readers which I run has been that some of them return to their parishes to set up Scripture study groups in which they learn to read, listen, and pray over the stories that they will proclaim. This can be the beginning of a tide which rises and lifts all boats.

When there is a group working devotedly to improve the conduct of their ministry, the quality of the proclamations will improve. This takes on greater importance for those communities where regular Sunday Mass becomes irregular because of the shortage of priests. When the proclamations are delivered with conviction and grace in the Spirit, then faith becomes new and urgent; the assembly hears them as if for the first time; and transformation can begin. People who assemble for worship begin to come in the expectation that God is going to speak.

And he does. The difference is, this time he finds us on the edge of our seats.

Marian Tolley runs courses on proclamation of Scripture in Wrexham diocese. She is the author of Handbook for Readers (Decani Books).

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