Before the first reading:

Luke's history of the early church begins with a foreshadowing of its ending, people of all nations and races hearing the mighty acts of God.

After the psalm, before the second reading, if from 1 Corinthians:

Paul describes a church diverse in its members and their gifts, united in one Spirit, united as one body.

After the psalm, before the second reading, if from Romans:

Saint Paul teaches that God's spirit empowers us to transcend a futile, outdated, rules-based way to trying to win God's favor.

After the psalm, before the second reading, if from Galatians:

Some who misunderstood the gospel argueed that Christians had to observe the old laws of Moses. Paul insists that is not so, and that the way of God's Spirit leads to love, joy, peace and many other goods.

Before the gospel acclamation if gospel is from John 20:

With the image of Jesus' breath, John reassures anxious disciples that they can always count on the Spirit of Jesus.

Before the gospel acclamation if gospel is from John 15:

For a community anxious about persecution and members tempted to abandon Jesus, John reassures that Jesus wants his followers always to have the Spirit from his Father.

Before the gospel acclamation if gospel is from John 14:

For a community anxious about persecution and members tempted to abandon Jesus, John reassures them that the Spirit will always enable them to stay faithful to Jesus

Acts 2:1-11

Proclaiming It: The lector ought to sound more than a little amazed at the description of the extraordinary events:

• strong, driving wind,
• tongues of fire,
• being filled with the Holy Spirit, and
• speaking in different languages

The amazement should be even more evident in the lector's report of the bystanders' reaction, "How does each of us hear them in his native language?"

Given the two radical changes described above, and how they influenced Saint Luke, Father Roger Karban writes of the Pentecost event, "There's no gentle dove here, hovering peacefully over the community. The Spirit's arrival is accompanied by the disturbing images of wind, noise and fire." All the more reason to let your proclamation be emphatic and dramatic.

Pronouncing the Words: Proclaimers of this passage can lose themselves in the pronunciations of the place names at the end. Learn and/or decide now how you're going to say all those difficult words. In the past, I have minimized the importance of exactly correct pronunciation of Biblical names, in favor of confident pronunciation. I have reconsidered. Of course it's bad to insult the intelligence of those listening by delivering an unprepared reading; that's obvious when one stumbles over strange names as if seeing them for the first time. But confident, uninformed pronunciation is worse. It amounts to bluffing. The bluff is immediately exposed to anyone who knows a correct pronunciation or can deduce one. To those, the bluff says "I don't think you're smart enough to know how this should be pronounced." The ethics of poker should not dictate the aesthetics of worship. To hear acceptable pronunciations of these names, click here (corrected June 5, 2019).

Even more important is how you proclaim the final line, "yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

Here are words you'll find in the reading (in the NAB translation common in U.S. Catholic congregations) that you don't use in everyday conversation. If you're at all unsure of the pronunciation of any word, decide now how you're going to say it Sunday. These come from BibleWorkshop

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13

Proclaiming It: The latter sentences of the reading, therefore, deserve clear and emphatic proclamation. I would say slowly and deliberately the phrase "so also Christ," then pause for just one beat. Make your listeners say "What?"

So why does Paul care so much about the Corinthians' use of the spiritual gifts? It's his goals: The unification of the church by the humbling of all members, the squelching of their rivalries, and the re-direction of their efforts to mutual service and mission. Understand that, and make them your own goals, and you'll proclaim the reading properly.

Romans 8:8-17 (Optional)

Proclaiming It: The heavy theology here puts the lector in a demanding situation. What would have to happen to enable a lector to get this teaching across to a congregation? A steady, gradual teaching effort, of several weeks, by the preachers, lectors, liturgists and the parish's adult education team could accomplish it. In the absence of that, let the lector emphasize the various contrasts in the ways Paul describes life in the flesh versus life in the spirit. A listener might not know why the Apostle was so emphatic, but may get the idea that there's a right way to be right with God, and one or more wrong ways to try it. If that causes even a little self-scrutiny by some worshippers, your proclamation will not have been in vain.