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ialsop
Guest
That is ridiculous.
Sermons need not be entertaining, only true. And we have also a problem of untruthful sermons we need to deal with first.
Seriously. The Mass is not entertainment.
IMHO anyways.
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SAVINGRACE
Guest
That’s fine however I don’t go to Mass to be entertained. We must maintain respect and decorum in the house of the Lord. I don’t care for loud animated preaching, I want to hear the message not focus on the speaker.
Having said that, I feel this could assist in making sermons less boring. When Pope Francis ordained 19 priests a few weeks ago at the Vatican, he told them to make sure “that your homilies are not boring.”
The commentator said it’s an effort at improving “good preaching”, that should not be the goal, the goal is for “correct teaching”.
Joel Osteen and Swaggart may be entertaining, even comical at times but their TEACHINGS ARE INCORRECT.
Having said that, I feel this could assist in making sermons less boring. When Pope Francis ordained 19 priests a few weeks ago at the Vatican, he told them to make sure “that your homilies are not boring.”
The commentator said it’s an effort at improving “good preaching”, that should not be the goal, the goal is for “correct teaching”.
Joel Osteen and Swaggart may be entertaining, even comical at times but their TEACHINGS ARE INCORRECT.
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Brendan
Guest
Good preaching is correct teaching that is listened to.
I didn’t see in the article where the stated goal was to be entertaining. I DID see where it was stated that to avoid boring.
What is wrong with a homily that is interesting.
I also saw where they worked on pitch variation and tonal inflection. I see nothing wrong with that, rather, the opposite, I would think.
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Gorgias
Guest
From the article: “The seminarians are taught how to project, how to control tempo, and how to master timing in order to deliver a Biblical truth or a laugh line. … ‘They need to attain vocal variety — in pitch, in volume, in speech and in emphasis,’ Beer said. ‘You are charismatically commanding them vocally. Your voice has to envelop them, otherwise you’ll never control a congregation.’”
That is ridiculous.
Seriously. The Mass is not entertainment.
That doesn’t sound like ‘entertainment,’ but just good speaking style.
The most ‘true’ yet monotonic sermon will not be heard by the preacher’s congregation; the more engaging the style, the more likely the congregation will be able to hear and digest the message.
Read some of the Church Fathers’ sermons – they’re much more dense in content than what we get these days, it’s true – but they’re also masterpieces of style. And, just from the way they’re written, one can get a sense of the way that the speakers preached them. If you think Chrysostom was called the ‘golden tongue’ only because of content, then you’re missing an important piece of the puzzle. More to the point, you’re forgetting that there was much less in the way of ‘entertainment’ in the days before mass media; preaching was one way that people were ‘entertained’…
Apples and oranges. The article is talking about seminarians in training, not existing preachers.
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Havard
Guest
Enunciation, tempo, emphasis, volume cotnrol, etc. are basic skills for public speaking. In the course of a 5-to-7-year formation, investing three weeks in a public speaking workshop is not going to make a lick of difference in terms of a priest’s orthodoxy.
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SAVINGRACE
Guest
Read my ENTIRE post again please.
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ialsop
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I see no problem with what they are learning. That is all very good and useful.
I just dont see why it is…in some ways…being treated like a priority.
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Beautiful
Guest
Sermons need not be entertaining, only true.
Seriously. The Mass is not entertainment.
/QUOTE]
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JimG
Guest
Priests must spend a good part of their life doing public speaking. I’ve heard some homilies which made good points, but were spoken so softly and with so little emphasis that they just went over everyone’s head. So yes, speaking skill is important. Fulton Sheen spent a good deal of time practicing his speaking.
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CJsmommy
Guest
For some people an interesting/entertaining homily might be a “hook” to get them to stay, and into the faith. My husband, for instance, is willing to come to Mass with me, but finds it “boring”.
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KD8TZC
Guest
Personally, I think this is great. I have seen new priests and older priests who just read their homily (or have it memorized) and just say it in a very monotone and robotic voice… I did everything in my power to ensure that I never went back to mass when those priests were saying mass.
I’m not looking for laughs or giggles at mass, but making the homily come alive I think is a great thing. The best sermons that I have heard have been from bishops, priests and deacons who could do that and help me consume the homily and take it home with me.
I’m not looking for laughs or giggles at mass, but making the homily come alive I think is a great thing. The best sermons that I have heard have been from bishops, priests and deacons who could do that and help me consume the homily and take it home with me.
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exnihilo
Guest
I agree. Good speaking is like playing music well. You can play all the notes as written but what you play may not be musical.
I’ve heard people say regarding sermons one problem is that today people use microphones and amplification. The amplification helps in some ways. But you also lose something.
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Tigg
Guest
We have “readers” in our diocese, too. If a homilist cannot speak from the heart with conviction, where is the credibility of the message?
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zz912
Guest
Certainly the homily shouldn’t be about entertainment, but this sounds like good skills to give to the future priests.
Public speaking isn’t something that is easy to acquire for most people. It’s very difficult. The more practice and work you put into it, the better you become. The more tools priests have to proclaiming the Gospel, the better.
I would also wish that they would give them a course in proper homilies. Homilies generally should be to the point, with three or possibly four main points. And they shouldn’t meander. If you have 2-3 really good points, hit on them, speak on them well, and end the homily. There’s no time requirement that you have to fill 15-20 minutes. If you get your message across in 10, fine. No need to add a bunch of filler and fluff.
And priests/deacons should seriously change up the focus of their homilies. Too many homilies are fluff filled tomes about how to live out the Christian life, by being nice and loving to all. That’s great, but they never teach WHAT and WHY we believe what we do. Too many priests don’t realize how ignorant the congregation is. They assume the people in the pews actually know the faith, and that’s just not the case.
Priests should go back to the basics and teach the WHAT of the faith. Have crash courses in the Catholic faith because the majority of those in the pews don’t know it. Many made macaroni pictures and saint posters in Confirmation classes instead of learning the faith. And it shows.
Public speaking isn’t something that is easy to acquire for most people. It’s very difficult. The more practice and work you put into it, the better you become. The more tools priests have to proclaiming the Gospel, the better.
I would also wish that they would give them a course in proper homilies. Homilies generally should be to the point, with three or possibly four main points. And they shouldn’t meander. If you have 2-3 really good points, hit on them, speak on them well, and end the homily. There’s no time requirement that you have to fill 15-20 minutes. If you get your message across in 10, fine. No need to add a bunch of filler and fluff.
And priests/deacons should seriously change up the focus of their homilies. Too many homilies are fluff filled tomes about how to live out the Christian life, by being nice and loving to all. That’s great, but they never teach WHAT and WHY we believe what we do. Too many priests don’t realize how ignorant the congregation is. They assume the people in the pews actually know the faith, and that’s just not the case.
Priests should go back to the basics and teach the WHAT of the faith. Have crash courses in the Catholic faith because the majority of those in the pews don’t know it. Many made macaroni pictures and saint posters in Confirmation classes instead of learning the faith. And it shows.
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Flecth_F_Fletch
Guest
When will Catholics realize you can’t out-Protestant the Protestants???
They HAVE to do what they do better, because they lack the essential core of the ultimate religious experience, the Eucharist, and they have been doing it since the Reformation.
Without the frills and huzzahs, what else would their be?
This is not to demean a moving Protestant celebration, but simply put, Catholics need to do a better job of being authentically Catholic and stop trying to impress parishioners into staying.
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ialsop
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SAVINGRACE
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MissRose73
Guest
Pope Francis’s advice to the seminarians is good about making homilies not boring.
My interpretation is that is in the tone and volume plus content that can either make people pay attention or not. My parish priest’s homilies I can say the time he has been there are not boring at all as you actually learn something from the scriptures that are read that day plus he knows how to keep your attention. I’ve been to some parishes as a visitor, some priests are monotone which can cause some people to be bored & perhaps not pay full attention. Some places, the priests are on the borderline of yelling at people which isn’t good either.
My interpretation is that is in the tone and volume plus content that can either make people pay attention or not. My parish priest’s homilies I can say the time he has been there are not boring at all as you actually learn something from the scriptures that are read that day plus he knows how to keep your attention. I’ve been to some parishes as a visitor, some priests are monotone which can cause some people to be bored & perhaps not pay full attention. Some places, the priests are on the borderline of yelling at people which isn’t good either.
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Gorgias
Guest
Actually, they do. Courses in homiletics cover delivery, content, style, etc.
The challenge, though, is that it’s really difficult to write a tight, concise, impactful speech. It cuts across a variety of skill sets: mastery of Scripture, understanding of Catholic doctrine, grasp of current events (global, national, local), recognition of the needs of the parish community, ability to write an ‘essay’ in a form meant for oral delivery, and the ability to actually deliver the speech effectively. And, let’s not forget that public speaking isn’t everyone’s forte. Some priests are great public speakers; others awesome counselors or confessors; some are administrators and organizers. Not all have the gift of preaching effectively.
The problem is that one man’s ‘fluff’ is another man’s ‘dynamic speaking style’.
A couple of decades ago, the USCCB published Fulfilled in your Hearing, a document on the Sunday homily. In it, they stated “the liturgical gathering is not primarily an educational assembly. Rather the homily is preached so that a community of believers who have gathered to celebrate the liturgy may do so more deeply and more fully.” More recent commentators have suggested that one goal of this document was to move Catholic preachers away from sermons that were primarily lectures (on theology or doctrine, for example) and toward homilies that were an integral part of the liturgical act of the Mass, bringing the context of the readings into people’s lives. However, it would seem that, for some, this suggestion was interpreted as “don’t catechize in your homilies.”
More recently, the USCCB published Preaching the Mystery of Faith. In it, they state: “[c]ertainly, doctrine is not meant to be propounded in a homily in the way that it might unfold in a theology classroom or a lecture for an academic audience or even a catechism lesson. The homily is integral to the liturgical act of the Eucharist, and the language and spirit of the homily should fit that context.”
I disagree. I think priests are generally aware of the lack of knowledge, and are very frustrated by it.
But here’s the thing: imagine you’ve signed up for a class, because you really need to learn the subject matter. You get to the first class, and the teacher says, “welcome! Here’s what we’re going to do this semester: we’re only going to meet once a week. Oh, and when we do, I’m only going to teach for ten minutes or less. After all, I only want to give you two or three points, and then I need to stop – no need to go on for twenty minutes when ten will do! And, there’s no Q&A in this class – I teach and you listen, period! Oh, and by the way, please bring your young children to class – I’m sure your ability to listen and absorb the material will only be enhanced by the antics of your children and the children of your classmates!”
Let me ask you: how much do you really think you’re going to learn – in less than ten minutes, without the opportunity to ask questions for clarification, and with distractions (and often, with poor acoustics)?
Clearly, there are opportunities to teach – doctrine, Scriptural interpretation, morality – in a homily. However, it’s unrealistic to expect that attendance at Sunday Mass is the proper forum for learning one’s faith. Bolstering it? Sure. Reminding us of it and reviewing it? Absolutely. But teaching it, so that folks who do not know their faith will learn it from this context exclusively? No way.
I absolutely agree! But, the homily is not the place for that kind of ‘course’. At the very least, it’s an absolutely impossible task. Imagine yourself as a teacher, and your class demographics cover every age range (children to teens to adults to seniors), every level of knowledge (from ‘none’ to ‘advanced’), and every level of interest in the subject (again, from ‘none’ to ‘passionate’). Can you imagine the difficulties in crafting a message that will cut across all these groups and provide each of them with at least one scrap of an idea that they can take home?
Catholics should go back to the basics and learn the WHAT of their faith. It doesn’t take a priest for a person to get on the internet, or buy a book, or listen to a lecture on-line or on DVD. And yes, when there are opportunities, priests who are talented teachers should offer catechetical classes. But, Catholics should – and must – take the initiative for learning the faith themselves, and in a context outside of Mass.
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