Share the Word
Ways to present the readings
Proverbs 8.1-4,22-31
The Book of Proverbs personifies Wisdom as a woman. She comes to us and welcomes us. She offers knowledge and seeks to encourage her listener to turn away from evil. Her words are a poem that speak truth to the hearer then and now.
The reader should ideally be an older woman. She could be dressed in a cape or shawl, and standing against the backdrop of a city – a silhouette perhaps. Alternatively, you could use two female readers, one old and one younger, to emphasise that the Wisdom here is both ancient and contemporary.
John 16.12-15
The reader brings out a large book, for example an encyclopaedia – but not a Bible. Make a dust cover for it with the title in large letters: ‘Life, the universe and everything’. Explain that this book is a handbook of life and living, and you will now read it all out loud so that people can understand how to live and what life is all about. As you open the book to read, the Gospel reader – suitably primed – interrupts and starts reading the John passage. At the end of the reading, discard your large book and pick up a Bible instead.
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