ASK FATHER: Can lectors still bless bread?

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

We have lector and acolyte installations today and tomorrow here at the seminary. Some of us got into a debate about whether or not the old provision for lectors to bless bread and acolytes to bless fruit and nuts [So!  You live in California?] was still in effect. Is it?

Sadly, those provisions formerly given to men ordained to the minor orders of acolyte and lector (done away with by Paul VI) do not seem to apply to those currently installed in the ministries of acolyte and lector.

Of course, installed acolytes and lectors, like just about anybody else, can probably use the “blessings” contained in the Book of Blessings, for blessing bread, fruits, and nuts, but since those blessings don’t actually bless anything… but that’s another bento box and I’m being snarky.

Congratulations on making this important step to the priesthood – which, “they” say is not really a step to the priesthood any more, but ….

In any case, congratulations.

Persevere, keep your head down, pray, study, pray some more, smile (but not too much), laugh at the jokes your rector tells, attend all the seminary community events with eager enthusiasm, go to confession, pray some more, and get ordained.

Then you can bless just about anything you want.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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One Comment

  1. Liam says:

    Father, how about seminarians not installed but rather ordained lector and acolyte according to the 62 books in those institutes using those books. Would the old provisions apply to them? They are not clerics until diaconate, but the ordination to minor orders is something materially different than installation into a ministry even if their formal canonical effect is the same.

    [I think the jury is out about them.]

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