The Role of the Ministry of Lector and Acolyte in the Context of the Instruction for Parishes in the Service of Evangelisation (June 29, 2020) and the Letter Spiritus Domini (January 10, 2021)

Abstract

The principal weight of the Church’s responsibility for evangelization rests on the parish. However, the pastoral practice shows that there is no sufficient principle to organize the missionary life of the parish as a community of communities. This frequently leads to confusion in a multitude of activities, which contributes to the failure of the parish to fulfill its principal evangelizing mission. Firstly, the article shows how the introduction of ministries of lector and acolyte into the life of the parish may help revitalize the basic functions of the parish, which are: martyrdom, liturgy, and diakonia. Men and women who discovered their specific vocation to the ministry of lector and acolyte may become pillars of concrete parish groups and apostolic work realized in the parish. It is closely related to a proper understanding of the ecclesial dimension of each of these ministries. In view of the above, the article presents pastoral inspirations of the Instruction of the Congregation for the Clergy The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community in the Service of the Evangelising Mission of the Church, and the indications of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Spiritus Domini. Secondly, the text presents the liturgical ministries in the light of the hierarchical, charismatic, and spousal dimension of the mystery of the Church. The final part of the article describes the pastoral dimension of these ministries in realizing the evangelizing mission of the Church.