Preaching

[docmattc]

In his 'Parish Practice' article in this week's Tablet, Nicholas Henshall asserts: "Preaching is at a low ebb in our culture. Many congregations have ceased to expect good preaching altogether"

Is this true?

I'll start the ball rolling by simply saying that, if I have spoken to my brother over the phone on a Saturday evening after he has been to Mass, I will know what homily I will hear on a Sunday morning. It appears our different priests, in different dioceses, both take their homilies verbatim from the same book or website every week.

I'd be delighted to hear that many places have high quality, uplifting and challenging homilies.

[Nick Baty]

If I attend our middle-sized church on a Saturday evening, I hear the PP's sermon for the first time. By the time he gets to our smallest church at 11.45am on Sunday, he will be delivering the same sermon for the third (sometimes fourth) time so it's much slicker. But I've noticed that, between Saturday evening and late Sunday morning the material will have changed – same theme and several similar phrases but different illustrative examples. It could be that it has developed over three (or four) deliveries or it could be that he changes the material to suit the different congregations. The thing that impresses me most is the fact that he never uses any notes and maintains eye contact with his listeners throughout.

[FrGareth]

I expect to preach a decent sermon every weekend! And I've only once lifted something wholesale from a resource (because the one that caught my eye was so good I just couldn't improve on it for that weekend.)

I often look at Susan Sayers "All Age Homilies" for weekends when the children aren't out at children's liturgy - sometimes there's a useful idea there to get me started.

The great enemy is adequate preparation time! In a one-priest parish with additional chaplaincy responsibilities, I have yet to find a way to stop the doorbell and phone happening during the office hours I would like to use for planning. Frequently, 2 pm pm a Saturday finds me locked in the Church, with 3 hours of undistracted time to come up with something in time for the evening Mass!

FrGareth

[gwyn]

Fr. G.

I attended St. D's for Mass one Sunday last summer. Your homily was beautifully delivered and the content excellent.

Back to the plot.

[NorthernTenor]

I feel that less tends to more when it comes to homilies. In our culture it's increasingly difficult to hold attention for long with the spoken word. It's unfair to expect all priests to excel at production and delivery of a long, well-structured and interesting homily. Perhaps more fundamentally, I feel that all but the best long homilies on the appropriate occasions are out of balance with the rest of the liturgy, in much the same way as the programming of a Haydn Mass by the average parish choir. A homily that is short and to the point would address all these problems.

Perhaps the newly ordained should be licensed for homilies of no more than three minutes. This could be subject to annual review by a mixed panel of clergy and laity, who would be permitted to add half a minute to the allowance. Equally, accumulated time could be deducted for boredom, confusion and other problems. When an allowance reaches fives minutes, the reviews might become triennial. I suggested this scheme over drinks with two friends who are priests (both of them give excellent homilies). They looked at me as if I'd had one scotch too many.