THE HOMILY AND THE HOMILIST
Part I
The ancient Greeks taught that a
successful speech should be a balanced combine of “logos”, “pathos” and
“ethos”. “Logos” is the intellectual content of the message. “Pathos” refers to
the emotions aroused that motivate the listeners to accept the message. And
“Ethos” is the moral of the story, the behaviour or decision that the speaker
urges on the audience as the fruit of the message.
LOGOS: The liturgical readings of the Mass provide the matter
for the logos or the content of the message. The homilist chooses the passage
most suited to the congregation’s needs, bearing in mind that our “Logos” is
Jesus Christ, the true Son of God and son of man, who communicates his
supernatural life through his humanity. Jesus is far more than an ethicist or
politician or academician. Thus the homily is not a performance by a moral or
spiritual super-Christian whose virtuosity mutates into moral or cultural
condescension. Rather, it is a humble and prayerful effort to articulate the
truth and allow it to stand equally against congregation and preacher. The
truth challenges us to engage with the flawed and failed human beings that we
actually are. To be real and to reveal the person that God and sees and calls
and chooses and loves. Failing to draw on the wellsprings of faith, the homily
will urge substitutes for it in the form of trivial and reasonable codes of
conduct or shrill advocacy of absolutes and platitudes for individuals and
society.
Pre-Vatican II sermons
were not scriptural. In those days the biblical heritage was transmitted
through, all but hidden in, the Church’s doctrine. The preacher didn’t need to
wrestle with the text; that had been done for him. A personal experience of the
Word was lost in such an approach. Everyone knows the difference between seeing
a Harry Potter movie and merely reading a review of it. An experience of the
symbol is life transforming; an explanation is not.
Transformation
happens when Scripture and the Church’s understanding of it take possession of
the preacher and the preached to in their contemporary situation. The Christian
community’s understanding of divine revelation has no still point. You don’t
have it all when you close your last book in the seminary – that’s just the
beginning.
Study, contemplation and experience
are the three main requirements for good homilies. His own experience of God,
of his people, and of life in general will make the priest a mature and
relevant speaker, conscious that the material of his sermon is all around him.
Preaching is somewhat like holding the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in
the other.
PATHOS We
homilists mount the podium with as much imagination as a bombay duck or hilsa
fish ! What we need is a story to help
us make sense of our conundrums of conscience. We need a narrative that is
sustaining as it is tragic, but which gives the push in the direction of
virtuous options. Far from being a churchy computer ready with a recital of
statistics or dry scholarly quotes, the priest in the pulpit is a symbol, a
sign that says more than words can express, a very icon, indeed, opening the
way to God. What one learns from the Bible is that one must constantly engage
with the values of the time, that the Christian must proceed in the world in a
human way without losing the sense of the mystery within. We depend on the
Bible for the great formative stories of who we are, the world, and the purpose
of the human community.
Stories drawn from everyday life grip the
people’s imagination, hold their attention, touch their feelings, and make it
easier for them to remember what was said long after the preaching is finished.
The narratives of Jesus’ infancy, ministry and passion are themselves powerful
motivations for the listeners. So also are the stories that reveal Christ’s
compassion. St. Paul noted that the power of the Cross stood at the centre of
his preaching: “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus
Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2,2).
ETHOS Ethos
deals with the desired Christian attitude or conduct that Jesus asks of us in
this homily. To achieve this, the homilist can be evocative, provocative, or
plainly logical. Much depends on how the homily was developed, the preacher’s
temperament, the need of the worshippers, and the features of the situation.
Jesus, teacher par excellence, used such approaches to elicit faith
conversion from his hearers. His stories and parables challenged their moral
presuppositions and offered paradigms for faithful living. The Good Samaritan
story left the wonderstruck listener figuring out the answer for himself. His
“woes” and “hard sayings” served as provocation, and his Sermon on the Mount
and Last Supper discourse were confrontal, plain and directive. Thus the
preacher, who is in touch with reality, will avoid hectoring and self-righteous
admonitions and doomsday warnings. Rather, framed as summons in a spirit of
faith, his crisp and sturdy moral challenges will compliment the dignity of the
faith listeners. “The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away
saying, not ‘What a lovely sermon,’ but, ‘I will do something!’” (St. Francis
De Sales)
Preaching – II
GOOD HABITS - GOOD
METHOD
Part II
The best preparation for
the weekly homily is Christian living.
The preacher who is charitable, generous, kind, thoughtful, prayerful,
loyal to the Church and ever in touch with Christ, and willing to go out of his
way for others will carry those qualities with him to the lectern. Listening to
the stories and questions of his people will help him understand the issues
that affect them. His homily can be a moment of saving grace as he celebrates
the spiritual growth of his people, calls the unreconciled to forgiveness, and
invites the sinful to conversion. The homilist who reserves some quiet time for
himself to relate to Jesus each day will have a way of keeping the intractable
human problems he deals with within a faith perspective. If he has acquired the
(heaven-blessed) habit of reading, especially biography and history, he can
rely on a reserve of illustrative material for homilies as well as a fund of
fresh ideas for his ministry. Faith competence allied to intellectual alertness
serves the preaching ministry well.
Preaching is hard work;
it never gets easier. No amount of gimmicks or Internet surfing serve as
surrogates for sitting down and deciding what one is going to say. Tuesday,
before the following weekend, is not too soon to project what one wants to talk
about. The parish council may help the priest, but in the last instance his
work is a lonely one - alone with God and the pell mell of his
thoughts, and never without the people in his heart. He must make up his mind,
pick the point, or central thrust, and develop it.
The first point is to
have only one point. A rifle shot pierces more surely than buckshot. The
speaker who tries to be all things to all people at every homily winds up being
nobody to anybody. Disciplined attachment to the one-point homily partly
accounts for the panache and conviction that hearers look for in a sermon.
Driving home a point is the point! Naturally, there can be subdivisions, examples
and applications, but they must be strung together to provide robust service to
the point at hand.
"Digressionitis" is the malignant malaria ("bad
air", read "gas") of all preachers, the merciful antidote to
which is "one point brevity". If a ten minute homily is too long, and
five minutes too short, then for the good of all one could settle for a seven
minute expose.
One way to test what the
homilist really wants to say is to notice what is in the last paragraph of his
text. The bottom line conveys what he wanted to say in the first place. After
observing what he put at the end, he could take a look at the often tortuous
route that led to the conclusion. It may occasionally be necessary to
"slay your darlings": those smart asides, compelling anecdotes, spot
Bible quotes, slivers of ancient wisdom, etc., that one had fondly banked up
for a fitting moment, because they have nothing to do with the point, and it
would be artificial to strain a connection. It may pain the homilist to discard
those glinting gimmicks, but the homily will be healthier and the audience
heartier for the pruning.
PERSON
vs. FUNCTION
Clothed
in vestments and stationed at the lectern, the homilist can become all role and
no person. His diction is marked (marred) by affectation, strange voice
cadences and a brittle vocabulary. He resorts to theatrics, bombast and
contrived emotion. The role suffocates the person. He has forgotten that the
role should mean witnessing to the faith of the Church, not losing his personal
identity, or assuming one, like the Nutty Professor. He allows those to whom he
ministers to see who he really is, not some image of who they think he should
be. Good preaching begins the day the preacher's real self does the talking,
which means taking the Christ who is in his heart and offering him to the
waiting assembly. He looks into the eyes of his people, reads their reactions,
and lets their faces and feelings teach him. He engages in a communion of
persons, reaching out in love for one another in the mystery of Christ. People
do not listen to preaching, they listen to witness. If they happen to listen to
preaching it is because the preacher is a witness. Vacuous preaching comes out
of the mouth of a man who doesn't believe what he is saying. Practising the
message here means trying to live up to Christ's demands, even if one is
constantly muddling through. After all, the preacher is, like the rest, a
pilgrim, not a saint. The key to being a faith witness is staying the course
with loyalty, even if it turns out to be a long haul. Parishioners know the
difference. They can tell when the preacher is working at his faith and when he
is not. People today are not willing to accept bad preaching. They react more
vocally and more publicly than our ancestors did, and justifiably so. Hopefully
their reactions will force priests to re-evaluate their priorities.
Tongue happy homilists
tell good stories and sound verbal trumpets and drums as they arrive at their
stirring conclusions. They speak with the tongue of angels. But if they have
not faith and love, they have fed God's people with nothing, only nourished
their own egos. People need the bread of honesty, not the stone of misleading
enchantment. The other sort of preacher takes refuge in being "too
busy", and yet another who is plain lazy. They wait until Saturday to put
a few frantic thoughts together and absolve themselves by a complacent
reference to their week's worth of good works. Preachers are not immune to
sloth. The lazy words they distribute at liturgies do more than bore the
people. Their listless homilies offend the community of believers. Christ asked
them to feed the multitudes, but they fail to bestir themselves to do it. The
bread of the preached Word should be so tasty as to entice the people to
partake of the Bread of the Table. The preacher is enabled to bring Christ's
Gospel of Salvation and the Kingdom of love, justice and mercy to their
personal and professional lives, their neighbourhood and to the world itself.
St. Paul once
said, "I am eager to preach the Gospel" (Rom 1, 15). When we feel
like that we know that God will bless our preaching ministry.
GOOD HABITS - GOOD
METHOD
The best
preparation for the weekly homily is Christian living. The preacher who is charitable, generous,
kind, thoughtful, prayerful, loyal to the Church and ever in touch with Christ,
and willing to go out of his way for others will carry those qualities with him
to the lectern. Listening to the stories and questions of his people will help
him understand the issues that affect them. His homily can be a moment of
saving grace as he celebrates the spiritual growth of his people, calls the
unreconciled to forgiveness, and invites the sinful to conversion. The homilist
who reserves some quiet time for himself to relate to Jesus each day will have
a way of keeping the intractable human problems he deals with within a faith
perspective. If he has acquired the (heaven-blessed) habit of reading, especially
biography and history, he can rely on a reserve of illustrative material for
homilies as well as a fund of fresh ideas for his ministry. Faith competence
allied to intellectual alertness serves the preaching ministry well.
Preaching
is hard work; it never gets easier. No amount of gimmicks or internet surfing
serve as surrogates for sitting down and deciding what one is going to say.
Tuesday, before the following weekend, is not too soon to project what one
wants to talk about. The parish council may help the priest, but in the last
instance his work is a lonely one - alone with God and the pell mell of his
thoughts, and never without the people in his heart. He must make up his mind,
pick the point, or central thrust, and develop it.
The first
point is to have only one point. A rifle shot pierces more surely than
buckshot. The speaker who tries to be all things to all people at every homily
winds up being nobody to anybody. Disciplined attachment to the one-point
homily partly accounts for the panache and conviction that hearers look for in
a sermon. Driving home a point is the point! Naturally, there can be
subdivisions, examples and applications, but they must be strung together to
provide robust service to the point at hand.
“Digressionitis” is the malignant malaria (“bad air”, read “gas”) of all
preachers, the merciful antidote to which is “one point brevity”
One way to test
what the homilist really wants to say is to notice what is in the last
paragraph of his text. The bottom line conveys what he wanted to say in the
first place. After observing what he put at the end, he could take a look at
the often tortuous route that led to the conclusion. It may occasionally be
necessary to “slay your darlings”: those
smart asides, compelling anecdotes, spot Bible quotes, slivers of ancient
wisdom, etc., that one had fondly banked up for a fitting moment, because they
have nothing to do with the point, and it would be artificial to strain a
connection. It may pain the homilist to discard those glinting gimmicks, but
the homily will be healthier and the audience heartier for the pruning.
PERSON vs. FUNCTION
Clothed in vestments and stationed at the
lectern, the homilist can become all role and no person. His diction is marked
(marred) by affectation, strange voice cadences and a brittle vocabulary. He
resorts to theatrics, bombast and contrived emotion. The role suffocates the
person. He has forgotten that the role should mean witnessing to the faith of
the Church, not losing his personal identity, or assuming one, like the Nutty
Professor. He allows those to whom he ministers to see who he really is, not
some image of who they think he should be. Good preaching begins the day the
preacher’s real self does the talking, which means taking the Christ who is in
his heart and offering him to the waiting assembly. He looks into the eyes of
his people, reads their reactions, and lets their faces and feelings teach him.
He engages in a communion of persons, reaching out in love for one another in
the mystery of Christ. People do not listen to preaching, they listen to
witness. If they happen to listen to preaching it is because the preacher is a
witness. Vacuous preaching comes out of the mouth of a man who doesn’t believe
what he is saying. Practising the message here means trying to live up to
Christ’s demands, even if one is constantly muddling through. After all, the
preacher is, like the rest, a pilgrim, not a saint. The key to being a faith
witness is staying the course with loyalty, even if it turns out to be a long
haul. Parishioners know the difference. They can tell when the preacher is
working at his faith and when he is not. People today are not willing to accept
bad preaching. They react more vocally and more publicly than our ancestors
did, and justifiably so. Hopefully their reactions will force priests to
re-evaluate their priorities.
Tongue
happy homilists tell good stories and sound verbal trumpets and drums as they
arrive at their stirring conclusions. They speak with the tongue of angels. But
if they have not faith and love, they have fed God’s people with nothing, only
nourished their own egos. People need the bread of honesty, not the stone of
misleading enchantment. The other sort of preacher takes refuge in being “too
busy”, and yet another who is plain lazy. They wait until Saturday to put a few
frantic thoughts together and absolve themselves by a complacent reference to
their week’s worth of good works. Preachers are not immune to sloth. The lazy
words they distribute at liturgies do more than bore the people. Their listless
homilies offend the community of believers. Christ asked them to feed the
multitudes, but they fail to bestir themselves to do it. The bread of the
preached Word should be so tasty as to entice the people to partake of the
Bread of the Table. The preacher is enabled to bring Christ’s Gospel of
Salvation and the Kingdom of love, justice and mercy to their personal and
professional lives, their neighbourhood and to the world itself.
St.
Paul once said, “I am eager to preach the Gospel” (Rom 1, 15). When we feel
like that we know that God will bless our preaching ministry.
Preaching Profit:
Three small boys were bragging
about their dads. The first boy said, “My dad writes a few short lines on
paper, calls it a poem, sends it away and gets ten dollars for it.”
“My dad,” said the second, “makes dots on a
piece of paper, calls it a song, sends it away and gets twenty-five dollars for
it.”
“That’s nothing,” declared the third boy.
“My father writes a sermon on a sheet of paper, gets up in the pulpit and reads
it, and it takes four men to bring in the money!”
