What we think is the right road
The goal of a homily is to entertain people, it should be brief, and it should be free from annoying or unsettling content. The best homilies today feature humor, props and ploys to ensure that people pay attention. Rather than "fire and brimstone" sermonizing, the homily should make people feel good. After all, the collection basket is passed soon after the homily, and the collection is thus a financial referendum on the homily's popularity.
But it's the wrong road
The Church exists for three paramount reasons: to glorify God, to save our souls, and to make us saints. Bland homilies are moral failures. The Old Testament Book of Lamentations excoriates such feckless preaching: "Their preaching deceived you by never exposing your sin. They made you think you did not need to repent" (2:14; also see Ez 33:7-9).
St. Paul tells us how vitally important it is for us to call out to Our Lord, but plaintively asks: "How can they call out to Him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed?" (Romans 10:14).
Of course, not every priest is a famous preacher like St. John Chrysostom or Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Still, homilies can be well prepared, practiced and effectively presented. There is a classic difference between a homily, normally based on the Scriptures proclaimed at a particular Mass, and a sermon, a moral message not necessarily specifically related to the Scripture readings of the day.
Whether delivering homily or sermon, the priest's first duty, after offering the Sacrifice of the Mass, is preaching. That means hours of preparation for what is often a 10-minute or less talk.
Preparation, practice and preparation are necessary but insufficient. They mean nothing if the preacher is unorthodox or even rude (see 2 Tim 2:24). In Brian J. Gail's novel "Fatherless," a good priest constantly "pulls his punches" in his, well, entertaining homilies – until it finally dawns on him that his key preaching responsibility lay in the hard sayings, precisely about those matters which may make us uncomfortable. After all, the prophets comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.
In Gail's novel, the priest comes to realize that he had not been preaching the difficult issues "because I was afraid my parishioners would turn against me." But he realized that if he continued to preach bland homilies, "God would hold me responsible for their sins ... He would also hold me accountable for every time one of my parishioners, after committing one of these serious sins, ate and drank unworthily – lacerating His Sacred Body all over again."
Some years ago when I was at Mass in another diocese, the first reading concerned the fire of Jeremiah: "My message is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces" (23:29). The priest's homily that day concerned the next parish ice cream social. I whispered to my wife: "The fire of Jeremiah had been extinguished by ice cream."
The desire to be liked or appreciated is natural. There are times, though, to resist that desire. The good teacher makes academic demands on students; the good coach sets high goals for his athletes; and the good preacher shines the light of faith into areas we find uncomfortable or difficult. No preacher should ever love "the approval of men rather than the approval of God" (John 12:43; also see Gal 1:10, 1 Thess 2:4). This is exactly is what is done when the emphasis is on bland homilies which are full of entertainment but empty of "parrhesia," or boldness in speaking.
We live at a time and in a place of moral chaos. Too often our thoughts, words and deeds are influenced by confusion. Too often we slip into the darkness of what is wrong rather than live in the light of what is right. As Gail points out in his book, we all need fathers – and by "fathers" he means preachers who speak the truth. He means priests whose homilies are powerful witnesses to Christian truth in a society that too often rejects the Gospel.
In a brilliant 1917 encyclical, Pope Benedict XV write: "Therefore it is clear how unworthy of commendation are those preachers who are afraid to touch upon certain points of Christian doctrine lest they should give their hearers offense." The pope, even in the midst of World War I, blamed ineffective preaching by priests for the decline in morals and civilization's backsliding into paganism. Pope Benedict XV died in 1922; what would he say about today's triumphant paganism and the preaching which ought to combat it?
Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.
My friend attended a class on life after a divorce. She is Catholic, someone who loves the faith and simply wants to heal and be whole for Christ and His Church. She lives in fidelity to the faith she has received.
Her counselor suggested that she attend a post-divorce class at a non-denominational church in the area. My friend went once, but she didn't go back. Why? On the night of the first class, she walked down the hall and read the signs on the doors as she looked for the class. The sign on one door read "Decluttering Catholicism."
It felt like a punch in the stomach, she said. And the one thought she had was how much she loves her faith – and how little the members of this faith community probably understand about the Catholic faith she holds so dear. She kept on walking and eventually found the class on divorce, but the blow against her faith and her Church stayed with her.
When she shared the story with me, I felt her anguish.
I do not want to declutter any part of this beautiful faith. It is a treasure. And nobody throws open the Kingdom's treasure chests in order to toss out all that is beautiful and precious.
Nobody raids the coffers in order to cast the treasures aside.
How precious the intercession of saints. How dear the gift of the Blessed Mother. How sacred the chrism, the bells, the incense that rises to the heavens. How lovely the holy cards and statues and icons. Mosaics. Stained glass. Sculptures. Paintings. Paten. Chalice. Ciborium.
How holy the Body of Our Lord. The Most Precious Blood.
How full of grace the sacraments, the open door to the Confessional, the steps that lead down the aisle to the Eucharistic Lord of Life.
How healing the touch of Christ through the hands of the priest, the anointing of the bishop, the blessing that comes down to us through the pope, through St. Peter and apostolic succession.
How sweet the feel of smooth rosary beads, the voices of those beside me praying, the cares and intercessions lifted by each one kneeling. What joy is found in the holy water font, the cool water touching the forehead, the smell of chrism on a baby's head. What a treasure the family baptismal gown, a grandmother's prayer book with its weathered pages.
What meaning comes with the flowing stream of the liturgical calendar, the readings each day and each hour, the colors, the altar, the tabernacle and lit candle.
The Stations line the walls. The kneelers wait to be lowered. The book is opened and ready.
No, do not declutter my precious faith. Do not reduce it to something too small. Do not suggest that it is better to have a faith that is summed up in five bullet points and one passage from Scripture. I need it all. I thirst for these streams of running water. It is life, it is strength, it is all a venue for grace.
One would never enter a king's palace in order to declutter the rooms and toss out the treasures. And so it is with the faith. It is a sacred deposit worthy of keeping, worthy to be passed down to our children. It is rich, so very rich, and the divine life infuses all of it.
No,you cannot purge the holy, beautiful, precious of all that serves to bring us into the most holy, the most beautiful, the most precious. It is a treasure worthy of our treasuring.
Denise Bossert is a Catholic columnist and author who blogs at www.denisebossert.com.