Length of homilies

  • Thread starter Thread starter babochka
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

babochka

Guest
In the past, the Vatican has recommended that homilies be kept to around 8 minutes, based on the idea that 8 minutes is the attention span of most people. Where does this idea come from? Are they not underestimating people? I have a friend, a Wesleyan pastor, who regulary preaches for 40 minutes on a Sunday. His sermons are full of theological depth and real-life application and the people in his church don’t complain about being unable to focus on the last 32 mintues of the sermon. (The service lasts about 90 minutes.) I don’t have much experience with Protestant services, but I understand this is not an unusual length of time for preaching. Some of the homilies of St. John Chrystostom are quite lengthy, yet he is considered to be one of the greatest preachers that the Church has ever produced.

My pastor usually preaches about 20 minutes, and nobody but the kids are squirming for them to be over. On the other hand, I’ve sat through 5 mintue homilies that were excruciating.

Do you think that 8 minutes is about right (assuming high quality)? How long do homilies last in your parish? If you agree that the average attention span won’t tolerate a longer homily, why are Protestants so successful with long sermons?
 
Homilies in my area seem to fall in the 10-12 minute range.

To be honest I think it has nothing to do with attention span, but with shooting to make Mass fit in a 55-70 minute window. Two of the Masses I go to end up having the Angelus bells rang 30 minutes after Mass starts. It is rare for a homily to last more than a minute or two beyond that. If you start with Mass as a fixed time length then the homily is slotted in based on the time left over after all other parts of the Mass.

I have a friend who is a pastor for a non denominational church. He says he is expected to preach for 35-40 minutes. If he dies not preach long enough he has to talk to his bosses (aka the church council) and can be fired. That being said his preaching time includes any readings he selects for that week. They also do not have the Eucharist so it is only through the homily that they are nourished.

I think one difference is that many Protestants make church the center of their Sunday (at least the mornings). Many protestants I know are at church for 2 to 3 hours every Sunday. It seems many Catholics have Mass as one of a dozen things to do on Sunday so longer homilies would interfere with their plans for the day. The other thing in with the rise of the mega parishes you often have 6 or 8+ Masses each Sunday so they might only have time for an hour long Mass to have the time to “turn over” the church for the next Mass.

As for me I would gladly trim the entrance, recessional, and sign of peace to get an additional 5 to 10 minutes for quality homilies.
 
8 minutes? In my usual parish by that point the homily is perhaps only really beginning as the epistle and gospel is likely to have only been explained. All in all it’s the best 30 or so minute lesson one could hope for in a week and Father always seems to know just when he’s “gone on too long.” I am part of I guess one of the few diocesan parishes I know of where a number of us can still often be seen sticking around the place several hours after Mass.
 
babochka said:
In the past, the Vatican has recommended that homilies be kept to around 8 minutes, based on the idea that 8 minutes is the attention span of most people.

Do you think that 8 minutes is about right (assuming high quality)? How long do homilies last in your parish? If you agree that the average attention span won’t tolerate a longer homily, why are Protestants so successful with long sermons?
Click to expand...
I’d not heard of this recommendation from the Vatican. If the priest has prepared then I think a lot can be said in 8 minutes. Our former pastor, Fr Eugene, who has been a seminary professor for many decades. rarely preached for more than 3-5 minutes. I miss his homilies. They were absolutely some of the richest preaching I’ve even been blest to hear. I suspect he could have gone on longer and it still would have been excellent. I think most of the Orthodox homilies I’ve heard were around 10-12 minutes, perhaps longer for someone like Kallistos Ware. 🙂

I’ve been in daily Masses where the homily wasn’t any longer than 5-8 minutes and was inspiring. I’ve been in liturgies East and West where it seemed the priest did no prepare his homily and went on at length without really seeming to relate well to the readings or the Feast.

Isn’t preaching emphasized more in non liturgical Protestant and Evangelical settings where they have only the Word on which to feast? I think that is something we could learn from them, those who are really masters at preaching.
 
I think 8 - 10 mins is about right. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we are not there to listen to a homily or sermon; we are at Mass to receive the Eucharist. A longer homily puts the focus on the priest and not on Jesus, where it belongs.
 
Catholic1954 said:
I think 8 - 10 mins is about right. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we are not there to listen to a homily or sermon; we are at Mass to receive the Eucharist. A longer homily puts the focus on the priest and not on Jesus, where it belongs.
Click to expand...
Tell that to St. John Chrystostom and St. Ambrose, both of whom were known to have very long homilies. I’m not sure how a long, well-crafted homily takes the focus off of Jesus, any more than a 10 minute homily does

. I’m mostly focused on the “its about all we’re capable of paying attention to” argument. Is that valid?
 
Usige said:
Homilies in my area seem to fall in the 10-12 minute range.

To be honest I think it has nothing to do with attention span, but with shooting to make Mass fit in a 55-70 minute window. Two of the Masses I go to end up having the Angelus bells rang 30 minutes after Mass starts. It is rare for a homily to last more than a minute or two beyond that. If you start with Mass as a fixed time length then the homily is slotted in based on the time left over after all other parts of the Mass.

I have a friend who is a pastor for a non denominational church. He says he is expected to preach for 35-40 minutes. If he dies not preach long enough he has to talk to his bosses (aka the church council) and can be fired. That being said his preaching time includes any readings he selects for that week. They also do not have the Eucharist so it is only through the homily that they are nourished.

I think one difference is that many Protestants make church the center of their Sunday (at least the mornings). Many protestants I know are at church for 2 to 3 hours every Sunday. It seems many Catholics have Mass as one of a dozen things to do on Sunday so longer homilies would interfere with their plans for the day. The other thing in with the rise of the mega parishes you often have 6 or 8+ Masses each Sunday so they might only have time for an hour long Mass to have the time to “turn over” the church for the next Mass.

As for me I would gladly trim the entrance, recessional, and sign of peace to get an additional 5 to 10 minutes for quality homilies.
Click to expand...
Every once in a great while I attend a “non-denominational” Protestant fellowship on Sunday evenings as the preaching is absolutely superb as is the weekly potluck. I was joking with the pastor one time about how well he preached.

He looked at me seriously and said “spend 15 hours/week preparing a sermon and you could be just as good.” I suspect most priests do not/cannot spend that much time in preparation.

If this guy preached Masses, they could easily go 90 minutes without feeling “long.”
 
Catholic1954 said:
I think 8 - 10 mins is about right. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we are not there to listen to a homily or sermon; we are at Mass to receive the Eucharist. A longer homily puts the focus on the priest and not on Jesus, where it belongs.
Click to expand...
No. We are at Mass to be present at the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ to His Father which includes ALL of the Mass.

We ARE at Mass to hear God’s word. To hear it preached upon. A longer homily does not put the focus on the priest – at least not if the priest is a good and well prepared preacher.

Limiting Masses to 50-60 minutes is a real problem – but it’s easy so it’s common.

Last Sunday I checked my watch as I was leaving church – the Mass had lasted 49 minutes. I was rather shocked…
 
I figured I should quote a source for the “vatican recommends” statement. I can’t find right now the original article I saw, just plenty of headlines saying “Vatican recommends”, but upon reading the article more closely, it is more like “Vatican official recommends”. Most articles and quotes were in conjunction with the release of this document: onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/HomileticDirectory.pdf This document recommends short homilies.

In addition the recommendation for the 8-minute homily came in a book by Archbishop Nikola Eterovic. catholicnewsagency.com/news/homilies_should_be_no_longer_than_eight_minutes_advises_vatican_prelate/

Sorry for being imprecise. :o

But, my question still remains, and is perhaps expanded. This seems to be a more modern phenomenon, unique to our time in history. Great saints and fathers of the Church were known to have preached for an hour or more. This isn’t a Protestant vs. Catholic thing. The fathers of the Church also had Jesus in the Eucharist and I just don’t buy the argument that Protestants preach more because it is all they have. When did we start to expect short homilies and why? Can we not handle more than 8 minutes?
 
Draper said:
We ARE at Mass to hear God’s word. To hear it preached upon. A longer homily does not put the focus on the priest – at least not if the priest is a good and well prepared preacher.
.
Click to expand...
Right. And in the homiletic directory (onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/HomileticDirectory.pdf) this is made clear. It calls the homily itself an act of worship and emphasizes the “integral bond” between the homily and the Eucharist.
The homily in some sense parallels the distribution of the Lord’s body and blood to the faithful during the Communion rite. In the homily God’s holy word is ‘distributed’ for the nourishment of his people.
Click to expand...
For this reason, a homily is required on Sunday.
 
Homilies here last around 5-15 mins, so in the case in my uncle’s parish. The shortest but precise homily was preached by the Parish Priest of that parish, which lasted around 3 mins.
 
I realize there is a practical “time factor” when masses are scheduled 1:30 hrs apart. But, if a scheduling practicality does not exist, my general opinion is that “the Mass is over when the Mass is over.”

Having grown up in the protestant tradition, revivals, etc., with long sermons, I’m accustomed to lengthy sermons. Well-crafted homilies are well worth the time listening.
 
babochka said:
I figured I should quote a source for the “vatican recommends” statement. I can’t find right now the original article I saw, just plenty of headlines saying “Vatican recommends”, but upon reading the article more closely, it is more like “Vatican official recommends”. Most articles and quotes were in conjunction with the release of this document: onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/HomileticDirectory.pdf This document recommends short homilies.

In addition the recommendation for the 8-minute homily came in a book by Archbishop Nikola Eterovic. catholicnewsagency.com/news/homilies_should_be_no_longer_than_eight_minutes_advises_vatican_prelate/

Sorry for being imprecise. :o

But, my question still remains, and is perhaps expanded. This seems to be a more modern phenomenon, unique to our time in history. Great saints and fathers of the Church were known to have preached for an hour or more. This isn’t a Protestant vs. Catholic thing. The fathers of the Church also had Jesus in the Eucharist and I just don’t buy the argument that Protestants preach more because it is all they have. When did we start to expect short homilies and why? Can we not handle more than 8 minutes?
Click to expand...
Sure we’d love for Father speak more. He us a gifted homilist. But when one of our Deacons who is particularly long winded goes on and on, people shift in their seats.
American Catholics are like most Americans in general: they don’t particularly like being lectured to. Not saying it’s right of course, but try getting those same people into Adult Ed, or Adult Bible study…on a Sunday. Not interested. They DO have that ticker of the “honey-do” list running in their heads. It’s regrettable. They rush off at times.
However, I MUST say…that our pastor’s weekday homilies, which run about 3 minutes…are some of the most uplifting words ever. He has a way of drilling it down to the most important piece of the Gospel, connects it to the other reading or the Psalm, and then wraps it up with an interesting consideration for us personally throughout the day,.
So I don’t think length equates to quality, I’d much rather have quality.
Couple that with the need for several Masses a Sunday in many parishes, and the time constraints would be crazy. In small rural parishes everything happens on Sunday. All the catechesis for children, the RCIA, the various committee meetings, including outreach to the community. Everything tightly scheduled.
 
Catholic1954 said:
I think 8 - 10 mins is about right. Unlike our Protestant brothers and sisters, we are not there to listen to a homily or sermon; we are at Mass to receive the Eucharist. A longer homily puts the focus on the priest and not on Jesus, where it belongs.
Click to expand...
I agree entirely with your starting point about the difference between the Mass and a Protestant service, but even so, I don’t think the homily need necessarily be as short as all that. In a parish where I once lived and attended mass regularly for three or four years, Fr. H’s homily was never less than 15 minutes and sometimes 20 or more. He was a first-rate preacher and the homily was never a minute too long. In contrast, I’ve sometimes sat through ten-minute homilies that were much too long.
 
My philosophy:

A well prepared and well delivered homily can be a taste of heaven and time passes without anyone being conscious of the minutes.

An ill prepared homily delivered poorly is a taste of purgatory and every second is pure torture.

Given any time constraints (Mass schedules, etc.) we should demand and expect from our priests the best prepared and delivered homilies possible.
 
At my home parish, the priest is an inspiring speaker who never uses notes and is faultless in his delivery. He delivers short homilies which are always thought-provoking. I’d rather have that than 20 minutes of listening to a prepared script - although I realise that not everyone has that particular gift.

The priest has a half-hour open-to-all meeting every Saturday lunchtime in the Parish House, to discuss the meaning of the readings for that weekend’s Mass. I think he takes people’s comments from that meeting and tries to reflect them or give further clarification in his homily - a very good idea, IMO.
 
Does anyone have confirmation of the “Vatican” suggestion of 8 minutes? I’d be surprised to find that to be true.
 
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said (I’m paraphrasing), "hat people get more out of talks (he was not speaking specifically of homilies) when he remembered to make the open and closing strong and memorable, and the time in between as short as possible.

😉
 
Many protestant congregations don’t have much in the way of prayer during their services, so the primary focus is on whatever the reverend preaches. His sermon is what keeps people coming back. He doesn’t last long unless he can keep the congregation’s attention.

I have lived all over the U.S. and have found that, for most priests, writing the sermon is not their strong suit. Also, they are so overworked that they have little time to prepare a sermon. Many of the priests I have known over the last 10 years have taken care of 2 parishes. Once mass is over, they are off to another parish to say mass. I think that the recommendation of 8 minutes could be so that the priests don’t feel so much pressure.

I also think I read somewhere that during St. Augustine’s time not all homilies were delivered during mass or sometimes a shorter version was delivered in mass.

When it comes to sermons, I think about the Gettysburg Address. There were people who spoke for two hours and the papers wrote about the speakers’ eloquence. On the other hand, the newspapers ridiculed Abraham Lincoln because his speech was short and simple. I don’t know who all spoke, and I have no clue what they said. I can recite the Gettysburg Address. When I read it for the first time as a young teenager, I was so moved that I had chills all over.

So basically, it’s not the length of the sermon that matters to me. it’s what is said.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top