Sugar Coated Preaching
Tag: Preaching
Fr. Michael’s Preaching
As many of you know, I spent about a year and a half living in Seattle. During that time, I attended the Byzantine parish of St. John Crysostom.
There were many things I loved about that parish, but one of my favourites was the preaching of the pastor, Fr. Michael Mandelas. It is no surprise, therefore, that I was delighted to discover that some of Fr. Michael’s homilies are being recorded and uploaded to Soundcloud:
While this is great, personally I consume most of my audio through the Podcast app on my iPhone. Fortunately, Soundcloud exposes the RSS feed for their channels:
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:301561424/sounds.rss
Happy listening 🙂
Wise Words on Wednesday: Homily
Homily means ‘dialogue’ – it should create a dialogue between the Gospel and a person’s life, so that we can insert our lives into the Gospel, and that includes being disturbed and challenged by the Gospel. If a homily doesn’t do this, it’s not a homily.
– Fr Gabriel OSB
Sitting down with a Jehovah’s Witness
So, as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) scheduled to visit my home. I had already received two rounds of visits from them but had not yet managed to get them across my threshold. However, on their previous visit they had promised that next time they would have time to come in and have a proper chat.
I had received my first visit about a month earlier when two female JWs had called. During our discussion on the doorstep, I had spoken a little bit about my reversion to Catholicism and about how the question of the canon had played an important part in my return, being rather unimpressed with the various Protestant explanations as to the Bible’s Table Of Contents. Since JWs are distinctly set apart from Protestants, I asked the ladies on my doorstep how they would justify the contents of the Biblical canon. They had no explanation, but said that they would find out and get back to me.
Several weeks later, two gentlemen rang my doorbell, saying that they had heard from their associates that I was interested in knowing about the “hidden” books of the Bible. I explained that my question was not about the deuterocanon/apocrypha per se, but rather about the Biblical canon as a whole. How did they know the right books were in the Bible? How did they know that there were no wrong ones included and no books missed out? Unfortunately, they said that they didn’t have time to talk with me there and then, but they booked an appointment for the following week.
In today’s blog post I’d like to explain what happened on this next visit and the rather interesting turn of events towards the end…
The View From The Pew
The homily given by the priest during the Catholic liturgy is incredibly important. Unfortunately, the homily is often one of the primary topics about which Catholics (and particularly former Catholics) complain.
“The ministry of the Word…among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place…is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture”
– Dei Verbum, 24
Unfortunately, it is often said that the homily is often unintelligible, boring, uninspiring and unrelated to real life.
Our priests certainly have a challenging task assigned to them. They should therefore receive our support and constant prayers. We should listen carefully to each homily, attentive to what God wishes to teach us, each one of us, through His minister. When I returned to the Church, I was often humbled by listening to a homily and being shocked by the gold that was there for the taking, if only I had ears to hear.
However, in today’s post I would like to do something a little brave and suggest some practical ways in which the typical liturgical homily could be enhanced. I know I’m in a bit over my head here. I am not a priest, nor have I been trained in homiletics, but as a Catholic layman, over the course of my life thus far, I have heard over 2,000 homilies. So, for what it is worth, drawing upon my experiences from my side of the pulpit, here are my top ten suggestions for the preachers of the Word…
Catholics Come Home: Part 2
Yesterday I began of my “Catholics Come Home” blog series. I spoke about my faith journey from childhood through to my university years. Today I’d like to pick up the story again…
The Wilderness Years: Suddenly Alone
The story ended yesterday with my final months at university. I was part of a strong community and I was growing in my faith. Things were good.
However, after university, things did not go so well. I moved to a new town for work and, although I did not move far away, I had virtually no contact with anyone from either the Chaplaincy or from Verbum Dei. In fact, during the months which followed, only one person took the time to reach out to me from my university years. I felt rather abandoned. It felt like I was out of sight, and therefore out of mind. Those months were particularly trying for me since, soon after moving to this new town, my employer went bankrupt, leaving me unemployed.
I did not fare any better in parish life. After experiencing the welcoming communities of Verbum Dei and my University Chaplaincy, I was reintroduced to the more typical Catholic parish life. Each Sunday I rose early and walked a long way through the cold to Mass. Upon arrival, I was greeted by no one. The music was abysmal and the preaching was utterly uninspiring. Honestly, I felt I could have done a better job. There were no parish groups for me to join. There was nobody of my own age. There was no coffee after Mass and no real socializing of which to speak. I was just another anonymous parishioner who slipped in, heard Mass and then slipped back out. I had no personal contact at that parish whatsoever.
Friday Frivolity: Turn to your neighbour
On the occasions I visit a non-Catholic congregation I always seem to end up getting a preacher who tells me to turn to my neighbour and say stuff. Well, it turns out that this presentation technique really annoys Michael Joiner too…