When a lector finishes the reading in Mass, parishioners don’t typically clap or cry. Then again, Ryan Rohrich isn’t your typical lector.
Because while the 29-year-old may be sharing Scripture, he can’t actually see it. He’s blind.
“I’m grateful to be proclaiming the word of God,” said Rohrich, a parishioner of St. John of God Church in Norwalk. “In those moments I feel his presence with me.
“I am more than my disability.”
Rohrich wasn’t born blind but lost his sight due to a cancerous brain tumor a decade ago. But that hasn’t dampened his desire to serve his parish and beyond. Every day, he dons his dark sunglasses, grabs his cane, and goes where “God leads.”