Wrestling with Words
I’d like to wrestle with liturgical preaching for a moment. To be clear - my thoughts are not complete. As I struggle through this, I hope to hear from you so that I (and maybe others) can have a more meaningful impact in our ministry.
I want to examine liturgical preaching (that is, the homily - specifically, the Sunday homily) because it plays an incredibly important role in the lives of Mass-goers each week. While it is certainly not the most important part of the Mass, the homily can be the only moment of evangelization, catechesis, or spiritual formation that many in the pews have heard since the previous Sunday. Because this point in the Mass may be the only opportunity to help those who hear it to come to a deeper understanding and experience of the faith, the homily can become a serious point of contention.
I’m sure most reading this have either heard the criticisms of others or have made the criticisms themselves over problematic preaching. I am not referring to poor planning, structure, and execution of the homily, but the content of the homily itself. As the Catholic infrastructure in the United States continues to deteriorate and we find the cultural milieu to be increasingly antagonistic towards Catholic anthropology and morality, it is common to hear more criticisms raised against “cowardly” homilies that are afraid to talk about the “hard topics.” We hear of a need for priests to preach “bold” homilies that will call out the sins of our day for what they truly are.
The logic of the criticism seems to be: if we do not preach about X, then no one will know it is wrong, eventually leading to more and more people to accept worldly standards as true.
Honestly, I completely agree with this.
If we do not preach the Gospel, who will? Who else has been entrusted to make disciples if not the Church?
A problem arises, however, when a shift is made from proclaiming the Gospel to instead becoming hyper-focused on particular moral issues. My concern is not really that certain topics need to be preached on, but more importantly how these topics are preached on.
I suppose this gets us into the main point of this reflection. As streaming, video outlets, and podcasts are now widely available, I think some see their work through these mediums as no different than what the priest does in his homily during the Mass. Those with YouTube channels or podcasts may think, “I have a platform where I speak to many people and I can easily talk about challenging topics, why can’t the priest do the same in his homily?” Is the priest afraid?
To be clear, liturgical preaching and having a social media or broadcasting platform differ in many ways. Typically, those with any kind of social media or YouTube following garner some kind of community with similar interests, backgrounds, or world views. While there can certainly be parishes that have mostly homogenous cultural norms, many parishes do not. Week after week you may find men and women with radically different views on politics, economics, or even entertainment happily sitting side by side with one another, all in need of hearing the scriptures broken open for them in a way that draws them into closer union with God.
This once again returns us to the how of preaching. If a priest were to treat the homily as a “platform,” this would undoubtedly divide a parish community or would lead to a cult of personality forming around the priest. Conference speakers or those giving parish missions can use a short period to exhort and challenge those hearing them, but those preaching to the same community week after week, month after month, year after year have to keep in mind and weigh the long term implications of each homily. This obviously does not mean that challenging and hard topics cannot be addressed, but pastors do not have the luxury of dropping moral exhortation bombs and then leaving town. Any challenging words ought to come with a commitment to true accompaniment and desire to be with those moving through a conversion of heart.
It seems that there is a desire to associate “bold” preaching with blunt preaching. The caveat to do it “charitably” is always offered, but really, what does this mean? I can preach at length about the intrinsic evil of abortion, but what if a woman desperate for healing from her own abortion happened to find her way into the pews that day? Am I being “bold” when I speak on evils and have no concern for those who struggle with these crosses daily? Will my preaching be “bold” enough if I feed some kind of pharisaical desire to condemn? Is the cost of saying what is True always at the expense of those who are weak?
It seems like we need a better way to address the how of preaching.
Pope Francis offers some helpful thoughts in Evangelii Gaudium that may help us form at least the beginning of a framework for preaching Truth into messy situations.
He tells us, “The homily is the touchstone for judging a pastor’s closeness and ability to communicate to his people.” (135) The better a pastor knows the true needs of his people, the better homilies he will give. To jump back to Pope Benedict XVI, in Dogma and Preaching, he says, “The crisis in Christian preaching, which we have experienced in growing proportions for a century, is based in no small part on the fact that the Christian answers have ignored man’s questions; they were and remain right, but because they were not developed from and within the question, they remained ineffective. Hence to question along with man who seeks is an indispensable part of preaching itself, because only in this way can the Word [Wort] become an answer [Ant-wort].” (77)
Both pontiffs speak to how incredibly important it is to know the hearts of those who hear our preaching. If we want our preaching to be effective and address moral questions and speak to moral evils, we have to do so in a way that stirs questions within those who hear us and is able to preach what is True into those questions. It is not enough to simply talk about Catholic moral teaching. In order for hearts to truly be changed, our preaching must come from a place of truly knowing the questions already in their hearts or finding ways to stimulate new questions within them.
Returning to Pope Francis, It is worthy remembering that “the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the eucharistic assembly, is not so much a time for meditation and catechesis as a dialogue between God and his people, a dialogue in which the great deeds of salvation are proclaimed and the demands of the covenant are continually restated” (137). Here, Francis is citing John Paul II’s Dies Domini to recognize that the priest is meant to be a bridge between God and the congregation. If our preaching devolves into only moralistic messages, we have lost the point of the homily. Francis continues in the same paragraph, “The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren.” In preaching, we recognize not only where God is active and working in the lives of our people, but also the places where there are walls or obstacles that need to be addressed. However, these walls and obstacles must be seen within the framework of guiding, “the assembly, and the preacher, to a life-changing communion with Christ in the Eucharist. This means that the words of the preacher must be measured, so that the Lord, more than his minister, will be the centre of attention.” (138)
One of my favorite images that Francis gives us in addressing the how of preaching comes in paragraph 139, as he says, “It reminds us that the Church is a mother, and that she preaches in the same way that a mother speaks to her child, knowing that the child trusts that what she is teaching is for his or her benefit, for children know that they are loved. Moreover, a good mother can recognize everything that God is bringing about in her children, she listens to their concerns and learns from them. The spirit of love which reigns in a family guides both mother and child in their conversations; therein they teach and learn, experience correction and grow in appreciation of what is good. Something similar happens in a homily. The same Spirit who inspired the Gospels and who acts in the Church also inspires the preacher to hear the faith of the God’s people and to find the right way to preach at each Eucharist. Christian preaching thus finds in the heart of people and their culture a source of living water, which helps the preacher to know what must be said and how to say it. Just as all of us like to be spoken to in our mother tongue, so too in the faith we like to be spoken to in our “mother culture,” our native language (cf. 2 Macc 7:21, 27), and our heart is better disposed to listen. This language is a kind of music which inspires encouragement, strength and enthusiasm.”
Looking to Paul VI, Pope Francis speaks directly to what I’m wrestling with in this reflection, “Some people think they can be good preachers because they know what ought to be said, but they pay no attention to how it should be said, that is, the concrete way of constructing a sermon. They complain when people do not listen to or appreciate them, but perhaps they have never taken the trouble to find the proper way of presenting their message. Let us remember that “the obvious importance of the content of evangelization must not overshadow the importance of its ways and means.” (156)
While this section of his exhortation holds many more important points for reflection in preaching, I want to offer one last point, “Another feature of a good homily is that it is positive. It is not so much concerned with pointing out what shouldn’t be done, but with suggesting what we can do better. In any case, if it does draw attention to something negative, it will also attempt to point to a positive and attractive value, lest it remain mired in complaints, laments, criticisms and reproaches. Positive preaching always offers hope, points to the future, does not leave us trapped in negativity.” (159) It can be so easy to become fixated on all of the negative things around us. It seems counter productive to add negativity onto negativity. I think it can be more helpful to point towards the direction we ought to be going rather than highlight all that is wrong in the world. This “positive preaching” of Pope Francis is not meant to sweep significant issues away or ignore them, but it shows that fundamentally, the homily equips us with an awareness of how God’s grace can work in our lives, bringing meaning, direction, and purpose. When we preach with our proper end in sight (eternity with God), it frames even the difficult topics with a sense of hope rather than dread and despair.
I think that those of us deeply immersed in the life of the Church forget that for many, going to a Mass is a once a week experience. The drama, scandal, and intrigue of the Church that is so loud on social media is completely irrelevant to many who fill the pews each weekend. Those of us that are deeply immersed in ecclesial culture (lay or clerical) may be able to easily talk about problems in the Church in Germany, Vatican finances, or what one bishop may have said to another, but for many in the once-a-week crowd - these stories are completely unknown. What can feel like the most important crisis in the Church for some may be completely irrelevant to many others. Moral issues in our culture can sometimes feel the same way. This does not mean that they do not need to be addressed, but perhaps points to the reality that they need to be addressed in a way that actually bears fruit.
One of the greatest pieces of advice that I received in seminary about preaching came in the form of one question - did you love them? After I finished the homily, could I walk away knowing that I loved my people. Sometimes this love can be challenging, other times consoling, but ultimately, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”