We need to stop complaining about "bad homilies"

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philipl said:
Who are you to judge me? Why do you only take a small part of what I wrote. I live far away from a church and due to a major injury I can not drive that distance.
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Well, she judged the situation you describe (not you) as a sad case because you explained why “even if the church was next door I doubt I would go to mass any more…The message that too many priest have started to give is wrong.”

It is sad that you live too far to make it to Mass but it is even sadder that you say you believe it wouldn’t be worth it to go even if you could. It is sad that you say this because you are too upset about political creep to look past it to what the Holy Mass really is even when the accidentals are at their worst.

You may not be culpable, but that is still, objectively speaking, a really sad situation.
 
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Heard a great homily just this past Sunday from an FSSP priest. Real strong in moral theology. Protestant sermons don’t come close.
 
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There was a movie back in the mid-1980s titled Mass Appeal. It contrasted an idealist young priest novice and a veteran priest who liked being a popular priest and gave entertaining sermons. See the movie.
 
Never saw it but I just read the plot summary of that film. Hmmmmm…
 
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There IS a difference between knowing/assessing a homily is bad, and complaining a homily is bad.
 
It all begins with interior complaint.

We have to work at even that, energetically and cheerfully.
 
Of course. I didn’t mean anything else.
In fact the interior complaint is the more important aspect.
 
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In fact this reminds me of the gospel story about the two sons. One who said it but didn’t do and one who didn’t say it but did do.

So one who simply assessed verbally how a homily is bad but interiorly is grateful is obviously better than someone who keeps quiet but internally unhappy about how bad the homily is.

I guess this was my main point in my original post. Not everyone who verbalises how a homily is bad necessarily is complaining. Complaining comes from the heart. It’s the internal that matters. I often discuss with my family how good or bad the homily is but I’m not really complaining. I’m simply intellectually assessing. I’m of course grateful for the priest effort and also will take what is good from the homily.
 
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The homily is but one part of the Mass to me, and it’s kind of a value-add, something to hopefully help others get more out of the readings. If the priest misses the mark, so it goes. Priests are people too, they have good days and bad days. If you need a better explanation of the readings, there are many places to find it, what with the internet and all.

Shift your focus to the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

I will say, the one thing that does get under my skin is when a priest repeats things many many times during his homilies. But then I remember maybe not everyone goes to the same church or same mass (and sees the same priest most weeks) and hasn’t heard a certain portion. It’s not about me. And again, see above, focus on the Eucharist.
 
I hate it when our reader tries a british accent it annoys me! It sounds soo forced and distracting she’s not even british!
 
Well I certainly haven’t been to all of them. Just…enough.
 
Agreed. My problem with boring homilies especially if it is incoherent, repetitive and poor delivery, I tend to veer away and shut off. It however, is very rare. There is always something worth listening no matter how little that we can take back from the homilies, simply because we are listening to Christ breaking the word.
 
We need to complain less in general. But there really are bad homilies. There really are ill prepared homilists. Not every homily has to be great but if a particular homilist has poor homilies every time he should look to improve.

We should also remember that just because a particular homily does nothing for us doesn’t mean it wasn’t perfect for someone else. There can be a lot of ego and selfishness in judging homilies.

Better homilies would be good for the Church, especially since this is the only instruction on the Faith some get. But ultimately we don’t go primarily for the homily.
 
I imagine then you do a great job of it, preparing for the reading as well as reading it. God bless.
 
Preaching is hard work. It certainly would be a good spiritual discipline for us to be charitable even if we didn’t care for a particular homily.
 
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