Dear Online Reader / Saggart Parishioner,
The 'About Me' notice on the home page of this
blog (bottom, right sidebar) will tell you who the writer of this letter is. And
we can call this letter a first, since I've never before written one to you!
As well as looking after the parish blog (from
2010 to 2022 the official parish website), I also organise readers for the
Sunday Mass in Saggart, a task I inherited from Liam Roche in 2017. I
volunteered to read in St Mary's two years after my arrival in Saggart (1995), spurred
on to do so when I saw, to my amazement, that the only readers appeared to be
Liam and two girl altar servers. As I look round now over thirty years
later, I can say, 'Big improvement, certainly' but will quickly add, ‘still, a
bit of a crunch point again as regards readers'.
Naturally, a place changes considerably in many respects
over a period of thirty years. Saggart has grown bigger and now has a very diverse
population, in terms of geographical and linguistic background. This is seen in the
attendance at Sunday Mass. All of us, don’t we, whether well settled or recent
parishioners, wish to be part of, and help in some way to build up, the local
(parish) community. Such building up will depend on what we feel we have to
offer, in the hope that it will be gratefully received.
Which brings me to reading at Mass. What we have
to offer depends on our talents. Each person has talents that s/he can offer to
society (cf 'charisms' in St Paul, 1 Cor. 12). For example, a person with a
fine singing voice will soon find an outlet and a welcome for that talent. A
fine speaking voice may also be seen as a gift to be offered to society. As a
teacher of English for forty years I very quickly noticed which students I
could rely on to read well in class, i.e. out loud and clear. We can all agree,
then, that a class ‒ or, in church, a congregation, ‒ calls for a good speaker,
good in the sense of natural talent and appropriate training. So, right attitude, yes, of course, but also
good public-speaking ability. (For more on this subject, see the post of 9th March 2024 here).
If you feel you could offer your services as reader (‘Minister of the Word’ or ‘Lector’), then please contact me at donalpmcmahon@gmail.com. Just in case the above seems to you to be setting the bar too high, let me add that myself and my wife Mary, also a Saggart reader, will be very happy to provide some training, if needed (see the blog notice here). There is also the possibility of gaining experience by sharing the Prayers of the Faithful with one of the official readers.
I wish you a very Happy, Healthy and Fruitful New
Year ‒ fruitful possibly now too in the area of reading at Mass.
Thank you,
Donal McMahon.
