A general instruction on homilies and a jubilee year dedicated to the art of preaching were two ideas that emerged from the world Synod of Bishops after several prelates voiced a concern regarding the poor quality of sermons.
The theme was addressed Monday by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the archbishop of Quebec and relator-general of the synod on the Word of God, under way in Rome through the end of October.
“Despite […] that the homily was made subject of the [Second Vatican Council], we still feel great lack of satisfaction on the part of many faithful with regard to the ministry of preaching,” said the cardinal.
He said this “lack of satisfaction explains why many Catholics turned toward other groups and religions.”
I tell you, between Hallmark-card-sentiment sermons and those awful, awful hymns, Sunday worship has become an exercise in self-mortification.
Looking in from the outside — mostly from weddings and funerals I’ve attended — I would say that the preaching has been very good, avoiding the sentimental nonsense often found in Protestant contexts.
My sense is that a kind of tacit permission is given to de-emphasize preaching and sermon prep in the RC Church. I am sympathetic there also because the sheer number of services, and size of the congregations and pastoral and sacramental demands, could hardy leave much if any time to prepare.
Preaching was so bad in the Anglican Church that we had the Book of Homilies. Maybe we all ought to have the humility to return to that basic solution for a time.
It can be quite variable. I’m had some very good preachers and a whole lot more pretty dreadful ones.
The trouble with the Catholic church is that there are so few priests that anybody, however mediocre who can stand up and mumble into the microphone will get a job. Thus we have had a series of Vietnamese born, transplanted priests who came over during the fall of Saigon, and who are now in their 80s. They are pleasant, holy men, but their sermons are completely incomprehensible. We also have had a bunch of foreign locums whose English falters and who therefore stick to the briefest message possible so as to not tax their linguistic abilties. Then we have the folks who actually speak English and were trained in the US and therefore figure they need to get in practice throwing their weight around as they are clearly on track to be bishop, there being nobody else. There sermons make us long for the Vietnamese guys.
We have also had some very, very fine priests.
Me, when I find that a priest irritates me, I usually go to the Spanish Mass. That way I can improve my Spanish by reading the translation while listening alone and I am not bothered by the sermon.
One does miss the music and the sermons of the Episcopal church. I do have to say that the only reason the Catholic church has stuck around as long as it has is because it actually is the church Christ founded. Otherwise it would have died of mediocrity a long time ago.
I am in the NW part of the US … the “unchurched” area of our country. The newly “hatched” priests of the last few years have all been exceptional. (My parish is a training parish where the new priest spend at least 2 years with an excellent priest. So we see them come out of the seminary. We also have a new deacon who is an amazing teacher and speaker. I have hope. (Yes, the music still has a long way to go. Simply editing our hymnals would be a great start.)
St. Jude’s in South Florida had a great priest while I was growing up. He used the ‘homily’ time to actually TEACH the Gospel. It was fantastic. I learned so much from him. It was at that time that I had been introduced to the Charismatic Renewal, so I was hungry to learn more of God and His written Word, and he filled that need nicely. Because of him, I almost went into the Catholic priesthood (almost — I knew I wasn’t given the gift of celibacy and would get married one day).
But strangely, the others in the church hated him — or at least his pulpit style. They didn’t want substance from the pulpit, just a short message they could ignore. “He’s too intellectual” they said. And “He should be teaching in a seminary, not in a parish church!”
He left that parish shortly after I left for College, and passed away several years ago.
They had a gift there.
In His Peace
Jim Elliott <><