Paul Inwood
For many years I have been convinced that an essential attribute for all liturgical ministers is the ability to be aware of what is going on around you in the celebrating community. It is an ability that does not necessarily come naturally.
As individuals, we tend to become closed in on our own selves and our own “needs” or on our ministerial tasks in the course of a celebration. We say to ourselves, “I am praying” or “I am listening” or “I need to pray”, or “I need to be fed” or “I must concentrate on doing this”. We become so focused on “getting grace” for ourselves that we forget to look outside ourselves. And yet when we celebrate liturgy we are, or should be, part of a community.
One of the difficulties associated with being in a liturgical assembly is that we do not always realize that a true assembly is not a collection of individual “I”s who happen to be in the same room, ostensibly doing the same thing at the same time, but rather a corporate “We”, a true body — indeed the Body of Christ, made incarnate in this time and this place, gathered together to worship. That is the difference between personal, individual prayer and the Church’s communal worship. In liturgy, the ideal is that we do things together, as one.
Without a recognition of the celebrating body, it is in turn difficult to be aware of what is going on in that body at any given moment. The sort of questions we need to have in our minds constantly are “How are we doing?” “Where are people at this moment?” “What are we feeling right now?”
I said that this is not something that comes naturally to everyone. It is not something that you can buy on Amazon. And yet I believe it is possible to train oneself to be aware of what is going on in the celebrating community. We do this by consciously stepping outside ourselves and what we think we need, and instead concentrating on the others who surround us.
It’s something that applies to all liturgical ministers, whether priests or servers or musicians or readers or commissioned ministers of Communion or welcomers. While in the course of carrying out our ministry we need to be aware at all times of what is going on in the assembly that is celebrating. And this does not apply just to liturgical ministers with specific roles in the celebration. Members of the assembly are themselves liturgical ministers, and indeed the assembly ministers to itself by the way in which it behaves and by the way it pays attention to its members.
It goes beyond the actual performance of tasks in the liturgy and situates those tasks in a context of human beings who may be in a variety of different moods and may to a greater or lesser extent be ready to celebrate together.
Sometimes this sense of awareness will consist of anticipating what will happen — or not. It can be a little like mind-reading. A good accompanist will always be trying to anticipate what the soloist is going to do next. When I’m playing for a choir rehearsal, in a sense I am directing the rehearsal myself, in my head, and so I can be ready for whatever the director is going to ask. I am alert, I am listening, I am on the qui vive. A minister of Communion who is awake will realize when someone is about to drop the host that he or she has just placed in the other person’s hand. The MC will be ready when the server goes off in the wrong direction.
Sometimes it will be trying to discern how people are feeling at a particular moment in time. A good presider or homilist should ask himself “Can I sense when people are switching off, and further words are useless if not counter-productive?” “Can I sense when people are engaged or on board, or just tolerating what is going on?” Or even “Do I realize when people are cringing at what has just been said or done?” A reader may ask “Are people actually listening to this?” “Am I succeeding in communicating God’s Word at this moment?” A cantor or music director should be able to sense when the music is lifting people up, enthusing them, or when it is depressing them or even boring them.
Sometimes it will be an awareness of what things look like. This can include body language, processional movement and much else, in addition to how things or people are positioned and arranged, what they are wearing, how the lighting is, etc. Sometimes it will be an awareness of what things sound like: how people’s voices come across, whether they can be heard clearly, whether the music is appropriate for the moment or for the people celebrating …
It can also derive from an awareness of what other liturgical ministers are doing. GIRM 111 talks about harmony among all those involved in the preparation of a celebration, and this implies collaborative working. I often say to liturgical ministers that they need to know as much as possible about each other’s ministry in order both to be effective in their own ministry and to support each other more effectively. An intimate knowledge of what is involved in carrying out the different ministries can assist everyone in working and praying more cohesively as a body when it comes to celebration.
My shorthand expression for all this is that we all have, or can have, “liturgical antennae”, and those antennae need to be up and receiving messages at all times if we are to be truly effective as liturgical ministers. Yes, it’s easy to drift off into one’s own prayerful reverie. Being open to what is happening around you, on the other hand, certainly requires constant concentration. It’s hard work, but a true ars celebrandi demands nothing less.