Are you being fed by the preaching in your parish?

[kage_ar]

Indeed the whole point of giving both the Altar and the Ambo prominent positions was to bring back and re-establish the importance of Jesus being present in his proclaimed Word.
Surely the Mass is a sacrificial rite and we are fed Jesus himself, but we are also to be fed by Jesus in his Word. That is one reason why it is no longer taught that getting to Mass before the Offeratory is enough to meet the Sunday obligation.

As another poster said so well above - preaching ABOUT the Word is not the Word. We are fed by Jesus in His Word - in all the Readings. The homily is not the Food of the Word - it is some extra seasoning.

 

[jc-servant]

Not much nourishment recently.

We used to have a priest who was a former Dominican who could really preach. He was known for training his assistants to preach also. Our visiting priest from Nigeria last year had quite an accent, but man could he preach. Now we get the canned homily from homilies.com or someplace most of the time. In fact, I am now recognizing recycled homilies from the last time the reading came around. It is a shame really. I know that the priests are quite busy, but don’t they continue to study or read something pertinent to their job duties. I’m an attorney and we are required to obtain a certain number of hours of education per year.

 

[jimmie]

4.) “Lay preachers” have never been allowed. If your parish just lost them, then all that time, there was an on-going liturgical abuse.

All I can say - is that I’d rather be the grateful recipient of a liturgical abuse by a talented and hard-working lay preacher than to listen to homilies that are poorly organized, poorly written, poorly delivered, poorly thought out, etc. Perhaps it’s more of an abuse for homilies to be done “on the fly” without prayerful preparation.

 

[jimmie]

As another poster said so well above - preaching ABOUT the Word is not the Word. We are fed by Jesus in His Word - in all the Readings. The homily is not the Food of the Word - it is some extra seasoning.

But I can read the Word ( and do!) on my own and in many settings. But our beautiful liturgies include time to hear the word together, in community, and then we are offered a homily on that word to - and my point is that delivering this homily is a grave responsibility and unfortunately, is not always treated this way based on many of the homilies that I hear.

And I’m not saying that there aren’t good homilists out there - because thank God, there are!

 

[Joannm]

What bothers me are priests who read their homilies from a homily serivce. One of the priests I know who does this on Sundays but not during the week. His weekday homiles may be a bit rough (English is his second language but he speaks it well), but they are very insightful and I always get more out of them than the SUnday ones that he got off an internet site.

 

[bcuster]

Here is another question: Am I preparing for Mass by reading the Scriptures and meditating on them ahead of time? As a baby, my parent’s fed me. As an adult, I am responsible to make sure the food I eat is healthy. Granted, some priests are better preachers than others; however the Holy Spirit is speaking to me at Mass. It is up to me to be listening. When I put the responsibiltiy where it belonged and stopped criticizing the preaching style and content, I found plenty of “food” for my soul.

 

[Matas]

When I put the responsibiltiy where it belonged and stopped criticizing the preaching style and content, I found plenty of “food” for my soul.

I’ve grown in this way too, and I’m getting a bit better at active listening. Unfortunately, when I started practicing active listening, I discovered how lukewarm and indifferent the preaching of our deacons is. Yikes! The priests give good homilys; sometimes even very good ones. But the deacons at our parish…Lord have Mercy on us!

 

[Teakafrog]

When I put the responsibiltiy where it belonged and stopped criticizing the preaching style and content, I found plenty of “food” for my soul.

As our priest often says, “Instead of asking, ‘What am I getting out of mass?’ ask ‘What am I bringing TO mass?’”

We are blessed with a wonderful preacher in our priest. His homilies are relevant and interesting.

Even if they were not, it should not matter. I am there to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, not to be entertained. The readings are given, I should be able to study them and contemplate their meaning myself during the week.

I would rather have an orthodox, reverent mass with a bad homily than a wonderful homily with a mass full of abuses any day.

 

[KatieD]

Our new pastor’s homilies are well thought out, relevant, and last longer than our old pastor’s “read it in three minutes and get out” homilies. Not surprisingly, he is criticized for talking too long. Our deacons are not great homilists - one of them annoyingly gives us his political viewpoint each time he speaks. I try to pray that the Holy Spirit will help me to learn something from each of them. And reading the Scriptures before Mass does help quite a bit.

 

[sphilomena]

Here’s the flaws, in my opinion, of what you just asked:

1.) We do not go to Mass to “fed by the Word”. That is a very evangelical protestant idea. We go to Mass to participate in the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus, and to receive His Body and Blood, on which we are fed.
2.) It doesn’t matter if the priest’s homily is one of the worst ever, as long as he makes an effort to stick to the subject. Even if he does not (and I have been at a couple Masses where the priest tried to incorporate so much information and metaphor into his homily he was “all over the map”), the main function of Mass is the Eucharist, not the Liturgy of the Word.
3.) There is opportunity to study Scripture in adult classes. If your parish does not have one, get together a group and start one. Mass is not the time to go into deep exegesis. The homily has to reach as many people of all ages as much as possible.
4.) “Lay preachers” have never been allowed. If your parish just lost them, then all that time, there was an on-going liturgical abuse.

If your priest is having trouble with his homilies think about giving him a gift subscription to a Catholic magazine or web site that sells homily ideas, and helps priests with writing good homilies.
http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/homiletic.asp

This sums it up well. Not much more to say.

 

[ChemicalBean]

Sorry to the naysayers, but a good homily is crucial.

Yes, we ARE fed by the Liturgy of the Word. The Readings, the Gospel, that is “food.” But in liturgy, a homily is part of the digestive process. Good ones help us “break open” the word and absorb it, like nutrients through the intestine. Poorly planned, rambling, pointless homilies can feel like constipation. Rushed or comedy hour ones…well…I’ll let you imagine how the Word tends to zip right by…

 

[Catholig]

4.) “Lay preachers” have never been allowed. If your parish just lost them, then all that time, there was an on-going liturgical abuse.

All I can say - is that I’d rather be the grateful recipient of a liturgical abuse by a talented and hard-working lay preacher than to listen to homilies that are poorly organized, poorly written, poorly delivered, poorly thought out, etc. Perhaps it’s more of an abuse for homilies to be done “on the fly” without prayerful preparation.

Jimmie,

Liturgical abuses are just that - liturgical abuses. The liturgy isn’t ours to change on a whim - it is God’s. I agree that the people have a place, and that we should be fed with a homily that will enlighten the scripture we have just heard, but if it is at the expense of abusing the liturgy…well I’d rather have a priest simply go up there and say “this is what I got from it” or “this is what struck me”.

Catholig

 

[edward_george]

I don’t go to Mass to be fed by the homily, which is a good thing because my priest’s homilies usually aren’t more than five minutes of fluff. They always make me feel like I just read a chapter from “Chicken Soup for the Soul”.

Scout :tiphat:

This morning, the priest here *did *read from a chapter of Chicken Soup for the Soul…

-ACEGC

 

[Tonks40]

We had Tim Staples come to our parish once to talk at the end of each Mass about his presentation on becoming Catholic on Sunday afternoon. Now, as a former AoG pastor, this man can preach! BUT…he was not a homilist. He knew his place in Mass…he would have plenty of time to preach and teach outside of Mass. We have a wonderful pastor who does a terrific job relating the readings and the teachings of the Church to living in today’s world (which Tim acknowledged gratefully) and we are very blessed in having him at our parish.

 

[masondoggy]

Our Pastor does an excellent job in his homilies of relating the Scripture readings to real life, which is the whole point of the homily. He’s also a very orthodox, “by the book” priest and he doesn’t mess around. Everything in the Parish must run “by the book”.

Just yesterday we got an excellent pro-life homily for respect life month about euthanasia, suffering and illness. Unfortunately, not something Catholics hear much about from the pulpit.

 

[jimmie]

Jimmie,

Liturgical abuses are just that - liturgical abuses. The liturgy isn’t ours to change on a whim - it is God’s. I agree that the people have a place, and that we should be fed with a homily that will enlighten the scripture we have just heard, but if it is at the expense of abusing the liturgy…well I’d rather have a priest simply go up there and say “this is what I got from it” or “this is what struck me”.

Catholig

I just cannot agree! Didn’t Jesus warn us about worrying so much about following the letter of the law and losing the spirit of the law?

 

[drafdog]

Our Chicago suburbanite is definitely incorrect when he contends that we do not attend Mass to be fed by the Word of God. Scripture teaches us that Jesus is the Word, existing from the beginning. We receive Christ both in the Eucharist and in the Scriptures and homiletic commentaries. It is so important that the bishop of my former archdiocese commented on it when the deacon preached at his weekday Mass. He sat during the communion allowing the deacon to distribute Eucharist “so that even if you do not receive Christ through his preaching, you may receive at his hand in the Eucharist.”
Similarly we do violence to Catholic tradition to denigrate lay preachers. We would lose a great deal from our tradition if we lost people like St. Francis of Assisi whose preaching was powerful and brought may to a reawakening of their faith. Francis was never ordained; he was a lay preacher.
My current parish is about to be divided by the establishment of a new parish in a neighboring community. We have currently three or four priests plus a similar number of deacons. The two priests and two deacons whom I hear most frequently at Sunday Mass (the others are hispanic and I have no Espanol) are good preachers with the pastor being the best of the lot. I suspect that it is unfair to the others to be compelled to compete with such excellence, but that’s the way it is.

Matthew

 

[Sr_Sally]

Similarly we do violence to Catholic tradition to denigrate lay preachers. We would lose a great deal from our tradition if we lost people like St. Francis of Assisi whose preaching was powerful and brought may to a reawakening of their faith. Francis was never ordained; he was a lay preacher.

And St Francis did not preach during Mass. He was a street preacher. He did the equivalent of what CA does today with it’s website and pamphlets. He preached to groups outside of a Mass setting–perhaps what we would call Bible studies or adult enrichment events today.

Yes, a good homily is always welcome, but lay preachers during Mass is not the answer.

 

[drafdog]

Please note that I never advocated having lay preachers at Mass, although the evidence indicates that priests do not show very high levels of competence in homiletics. This is most unfortunate given that this is the primary source of Catholic education for adults in the US and in many cases the only source.

Matthew

 

[rwoehmke]

But I can read the Word ( and do!) on my own and in many settings. But our beautiful liturgies include time to hear the word together, in community, and then we are offered a homily on that word to - and my point is that delivering this homily is a grave responsibility and unfortunately, is not always treated this way based on many of the homilies that I hear.!

It is nice to hear the Word in community. The point of moving the Ambo to a place of prominence was because Jesus, the Word. is present in the words of scripture when they are proclaimed aloud. I have heard people say that Jesus is present in the Bible, but I don’t think I was ever taught that. It was presence in the proclamation of the words of scripture. The homily can be good or bad, but I don’t think it is the Word proclaimed. Have I missed something?