To Proclaim the Word of God

Praised be Jesus! Today, my patronal feast day, I took one more step along the path to ordination as a priest. I wrote and sent to my Archbishop my formal petition to be installed as a Lector. If His Excellency accepts my petition, then I will be “installed” at a Mass with my classmates on November 15th—the commemoration of All Carmelite Souls.

In a way, installation as a Lector is the first official recognition on the part of the Church of a candidate for Holy Orders. In the olden days, before Vatican II, there were 7 minor orders which a man would receive successively each year throughout his formation:

When a candidate was accepted into the seminary, he would receive “tonsure” (clipping of a lock of his hair), which marked his entrance into the clerical state. However, Pope Paul VI eliminated first tonsure and the minor orders of porter and exorcist, as well as the subdiaconate, with his apostolic letter Ministeria quaedam in 1972. The remaining minor orders of lector and acolyte were renamed “ministries,” in part to better express the fact that, with the elimination of the rite of tonsure, those who receive these ministries remain laymen. (Entrance into the clerical state now takes place with ordination to the diaconate.)

Thus there are now 4 “steps,” with associated liturgical rites, on this staircase: institution first as a lector, then an acolyte, and ordination first as a deacon, then a priest!

Please pray for me, that I “may be faithful to the work entrusted to [me], proclaim Christ to the world, and so give glory to our Father in heaven” (De institutione lectoris, 4).

My petition:

21 September 2018
Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist

Your Excellency,

In accordance with Canon 1035, §1, of the Code of Canon Law, which requires those seeking Holy Orders to have received the Ministry of Lector and to have exercised that ministry for a suitable period of time, I do hereby petition to be installed in the Ministry of Lector.

I am aware of the responsibilities of the ministry I am requesting, namely, to proclaim the Word of God with reverence, attention, and devotion in the Sacred Liturgy. I therefore promise to meditate daily on Sacred Scripture, “that Christ, by faith, may dwell in my heart” (Oratio ante S. Scripturae Lectionis).

Furthermore, I resolve to make every effort and employ all suitable means to acquire that living love and knowledge of Scripture which will make me a more perfect disciple of the Lord. I firmly intend to exercise this ministry in faithful service to God and the Church, for the glory of the Blessed Trinity and the salvation of sinners, of whom I am the first.

I make this request for installation in the Ministry of Lector freely and in my own hand.

With all filial devotion, I am

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Matthew Knight