Hey, again, friends. In response to some of yous: I do have a high expectation for the homily since it is supposed to be an important part of the Liturgy which is heaven on earth. My expectations are never met lol…I can say that I’ve heard maybe two somewhat decent homilies in the last, roughly, 10 years. So what I’ve gotten used to doing is just rereading and interpreting the Lectionary Texts myself during the time when the priest is making his homily, and, in this way, prepare myself for the Eucharist.
I think the celebrant should focus first on proclaiming the Good News of the Readings, and, only when he has done this to a successful degree, can he then synthesize an approach to this that has in my mind the needs of the Community. And he shouldn’t be blind to the fact as to why we’re all here: to receive the Eucharist and to be the Body of Christ in unity. These are the first and obvious needs of the Community.
The problem is that they allow the Communitiy’s understanding of the Bible to vary…they don’t help it to grow. And, an even more important issue in light of this, we are losing our Identity in Christ, as the Body, more and more, because of this.
Concerning the limited number of priests, and their limited time…all you have to do is to look at the early Church, which was enduring consistent persecution, and look at the high quality of homilies produced at this time. There’s no excuse, really, for priests and bishops nowadays.
The priest should sometimes make us uneasy, but he should do this with the Truth…not watered down half-truths or opinions that make us uneasy because we, all the more, seek the fuller Truth.
Again, giving priests and bishops every benefit of the doubt will never fix the problems nowadays, especially the huge problem of us losing our Identity in the Body. We should call them out. The pharisees attacked Jesus and the Apostles, and the general population, according to some of their ridiculously bad interpretative tradition. But Jesus criticized the leaders of his day more often than they criticized him, and he did so according to the fullness of the Truth. Criticism is not bad. Only unfounded criticism is.
