Insipid Homilies

[Will_S]

Those are the types of homilies I don’t like.

A 5 minute homily can be good, and if it’s not good, then at least it’s short. But I prefer the 10-15 minute length in general.

One thing I would like to see is the reintroduction of the Sunday afternoon sermon with a ~1 hour length. In big cities, at least, it seems to me that you could do this in at least one centrally located church. But maybe no one would show up, even with 100,000+ Catholics in the diocese.

 

[GwenL]

Our rector is a terrific homilist. I don’t know how he comes up with powerful, inspiring homilies every day–at daily Mass as well as on Sundays. In fact, he’s so good that I’m recording him and putting the mp3s on a website. Our parishioners who go to a Mass where the other priest or a deacon preaches can get the best of both. The North American Franciscan website is using his homilies for their vocations website.

renocatholicnetwork.com/

 

[Love_Divine]

The tricj for a good sermon (and this can be applied to the homily too) is that it should be short: one image to get attention, one truth explained from the reading, one example from the life and a sentence what people can take home to meditate upon, 5-8 minutes. I learned it in the seminary.

5-8 minutes sounds more like a daily Mass homily than a Sunday Mass homily.

 

[DaveBj]

Given that one of my parish priest watches the Shopping Network every evening (you’d be amazed at how many homilies revolve around what was being sold on the Shopping Network) I have a heard time sympathizing with the busy priest excuse.

snip

Where is a emoticon when we need one?

I had 4 decades or so of experience as a Protestant, and I’m only 6 years old as a Catholic, so my Catholic experience is much more limited, but based on what I have heard, any ordinary, average Protestant pastor can preach rings around 90% of ordained Catholic priests and deacons.

I consider myself fortunate in my current situation. Our parish priest for the past two years has been a retired Army colonel who preaches extemporaneously (i.e., not from a script), and he is go-o-o-od!

 

[Love_Divine]

Where is a emoticon when we need one?

I had 4 decades or so of experience as a Protestant, and I’m only 6 years old as a Catholic, so my Catholic experience is much more limited, but based on what I have heard, any ordinary, average Protestant pastor can preach rings around 90% of ordained Catholic priests and deacons.

I consider myself fortunate in my current situation. Our parish priest for the past two years has been a retired Army colonel who preaches extemporaneously (i.e., not from a script), and he is go-o-o-od!

In all fairness, Protestants’ Sundays seem to revolve around preaching and sermons, whereas Catholic’s Masses revolve around the Eucharist. That said, I’m sure most FSSP priests could outpreach the protestants. Every FSSP priest’s sermon I’ve heard has left me more edified.

 

[Joannm]

The truth is that not all priests have the gift of preaching,but as has beenstated, our Mass is more than preaching. the ability to preach good and inspiriing homilies isn’t one of the requirements to be ordained. Should they strive for it, yes, but not all can do it, it is a gift.

I give talks quite frequently and from my own experience somtimes I find it difficult to be inspiring. I can’t imagine having to come up with something great several times a week. My husband is a deacon and he gets so anxious when called to preach that he has cut down the number of times he does it at mass. Yet he is good in other areas of ministry. A priest however, just can’t say the same thing and cut back his preaching. So sometimes a priest’s homily may not be inspiring. Maybe he had a busy week and could’t focus on writing. Maybe he just had a lot of difficulty with the passage. It happens. But if it happens all the time then perhaps he should look at that.

I know some priests who actually meet with a group of parishioners to talk about his homilies and from whom he gets ideas. There are also homily helps online. Some priests take the easy way out and just read these as their own, but for some, it just gives them the angle they need to make their own words “pop” so to speak.

 

[laszlo]

I consider myself fortunate in my current situation. Our parish priest for the past two years has been a retired Army colonel who preaches extemporaneously (i.e., not from a script), and he is go-o-o-od!

In the good old times old priests made sermon without script. This did not meant extemporaneous speech, in most cases serious preparation preceded the sermon.

 

[jtodisco]

I feel sorry for priests, since they have to come up with some kind of twist on the message of salvation week after week. That must be one of the toughest parts of the job, writing what essentially is a term paper every week, in addition to all their other duties. If Father happens to be droning on and on about something once in awhile, I’m certainly willing to cut him some slack, after all, he’s not up there to be entertaining me. Frankly, I think that most of the time they do a good job.

Odile, you hit the nail on the head. I think we need to be far more patient and far less critical of our priests. This is not to say that we shouldn’t hold them to a high standard, they are priests after all, but I imagine even the best priests have many “off” days when their homilies are not top notch. If nothing else, this helps us to better appreciate the truly well spoken homilies.

 

[odile53]

Thanks for your kind words. But seriously, the purpose of the homily is to educate and elucidate the Word, to clarify and explain key points of doctrine or morals, or to bring to the attention of the faithful pressing matters of interest and need of which they ought to be aware. Father isn’t up there, in other words, to entertain us!

I’m sure that every Catholic who went to high school or college had to suffer through an instructor whose lectures were anesthetizing from time to time. Usually, at Mass, I can listen carefully to the homilist, however droning he can be (he usually loses me quickly if it’s a solicitation for funds, however, I’ll admit that!) Happily, you don’t get too much of that nowadays.

There is, at the Jesuit parish I attend on weekdays a few times a week, a positively brilliant homilist. He is rather elderly, and I believe that he is retired from whatever he did in addition to liturgy and the sacraments. But I’d be willing to bet the rent that he was a professor, possibly at the Jesuit college here. I’d post his name but wouldn’t want to embarrass him. His homilies have me leaning forward on the pew in front of me, and wanting to take notes, they’re that good. He’s certainly not an “inspirational speaker” of the ilk that populates the airwaves. In other words, no showboating. However, his style of delivery would put the showboaters to real shame! He poses more questions than he answers, and forces those of us in the pews who are actually paying attention and interested to think, to go home and grab the relevant scripture to re-read it, and think some more. Plus, he uses inflection in his voice in a talented way to underscore and highlight key concepts. What can I say—the man is a genius, and it’s very clear that he puts a lot of work into those homilies. I’d applaud him if it wasn’t Mass!

But such excellence is a rarity, sadly. That’s why I’m willing to cut the priests some slack. Preparing a real meat and potatoes homily that relates to something clearly, without obscurity, and practicing your delivery sounds like a lot of work to me! I’m glad I don’t have to do it! No wonder some of them fall back on some tried and true formulas! And remember, they have all sorts of pastoral and administrative work to do in addition to this, or at least have to supervise someone else in doing some of it. Yikes!

 

[DaveBj]

In all fairness, Protestants’ Sundays seem to revolve around preaching and sermons, whereas Catholic’s Masses revolve around the Eucharist. That said, I’m sure most FSSP priests could outpreach the protestants. Every FSSP priest’s sermon I’ve heard has left me more edified.

If that is true, then I’ll happily double your on FSSP. I’ve never sat under FSSP preaching, but there’s always a first time.

In the good old times old priests made sermon without script. This did not meant extemporaneous speech, in most cases serious preparation preceded the sermon.

Actually, that is precisely the definition of an extemporaneous speech–a speech prepared in advance and delivered from an outline or notes – I was in the speech club in HS, and extemp was my specialty, not that I was any good at it. I think what you had in mind was impromptu speaking, which is a whole 'nother category. I’m sure our pastor prepares carefully; he does not sound like he is just mounting the ambo and spouting off.

When I was a Protestant, I preached extemporaneously from a 5-7-page outline that had been the result of several hours of study.

 

[LPS]

Sometimes I think we expect priests to be Jesus Christ Himself.

But they are not. Each has his own strengths and gifts and areas of weakness. Some are very gifted at comforting, guiding, speaking, doing, organizing, planning, shepherding … but not all can do all equally well.

Please be charitable and pray for our priests.

 

[Rahn]

In the good old times old priests made sermon without script. This did not meant extemporaneous speech, in most cases serious preparation preceded the sermon.

I agree, and that’s the way it should be today. It is a responsibility for the priest, and they should take it seriously. I’ve heard far too many homiles that sounded like the priest hadn’t heard the readings until they had just been read.

I understand that we all have different gifts, that priests have off days, etc… but I’ve seen far too many priests miss the mark consistently, either from lack of preparation, or by using the homily as a way to push their own agenda.

 

[Bluegoat]

Those are the types of homilies I don’t like.

Me neither. I like a little more meat than that. Surely two or three lessons, the psalms, and perhaps their place in the liturgical season should amount to ten minutes anyway.