1.28.25 The Theology and the Art of Preaching, Clergy of the Diocese of Tulsa
en
January 28, 2025

In this enlightening episode from the podcast series dedicated to the clergy of the Diocese of Tulsa, the discussion revolves around the theology and art of sacred preaching, emphasizing the importance of effective communication in sharing the Catholic faith. This summary highlights the core insights and practical applications discussed by the speakers, including lessons from historical figures like St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and teachings from Pope Francis.
The Need for a Revival in Preaching
- Quality of Catholic Homilies: The episode opens with a recognition of a pressing issue—many congregants express dissatisfaction with homilies. This disconnect has led some to leave the Catholic Church seeking better preaching elsewhere.
- Call to Action: The speaker passionately advocates for a revival in preaching, suggesting that Catholic priests and deacons should strive to be the most effective communicators, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The Theology of Preaching
- Understanding the Word: The discussion establishes that theology should be practical. Preaching is not merely a theoretical exercise but an essential part of spiritual life where the Holy Spirit guides the proclamation of God's Word.
- The Role of Tradition: Citing historians and theologians like Pope Benedict and Scott Hahn, the speaker emphasizes the historical significance of preaching and its ability to inspire believers to seek the sacraments with genuine longing.
Insights from St. Augustine
- Preaching as Interpretation: St. Augustine, regarded as one of the greatest preachers, viewed preaching as an opportunity to interpret and teach Holy Scriptures effectively. His emphasis on the interior action of the Holy Spirit working on the listener highlights the transformative power of the sermon.
- Preparation through Prayer: Augustine stresses the need for preachers to pray for themselves and those who will hear them, asserting that effective preaching cannot happen without spiritual preparation.
- Wisdom Over Eloquence: He argues that the primary condition for preaching is wisdom derived from a relationship with Christ. Eloquence is secondary and should serve to convey truth rather than merely entertain.
Contributions of St. Thomas Aquinas
- The Preacher as Instrument: St. Thomas emphasized that preaching is one of the noblest functions within the Church, grounded in virtue and a genuine commitment to share God’s message.
- Scriptural Foundation: His sermons were deeply rooted in Scripture, utilizing it as the backbone of his teachings, demonstrating how modern preaching should prioritize the Word of God.
- Holiness and Study: Thomas stresses that a preacher must be a person of study and virtue to effectively lead others toward salvation.
Practical Applications in Contemporary Preaching
Pope Francis' Vision: Pope Francis reiterates the importance of preaching, describing it as an integral part of the Eucharistic celebration. He calls for homilies that ignite hearts and inspire conversion rather than mere entertainment.
- Elements of Effective Preaching:
- Preparation: Well-prepared sermons reflect the preacher's commitment and care for the congregation.
- Clarity and Simplicity: Language should be accessible, avoiding unnecessary complexity that may alienate listeners.
- Relevance: Preaching must connect with the everyday lives of parishioners, guiding them to actionable steps in faith.
- Authenticity: Preachers are called to be credible witnesses whose lives reflect the teachings of Christ.
- Elements of Effective Preaching:
Joy in Proclamation: The ultimate goal of preaching should be to spread a message of love and hope, making God’s truth beautiful and inviting for all. This involves a focus on the positive aspects of faith, emphasizing growth and support rather than condemnation.
Conclusion
The episode culminates in a call for clergy to embrace a renewed approach to preaching—one that emphasizes the power of God’s Word, the importance of preparation, and the necessity of heartfelt communication. By learning from Augustine, Aquinas, and the current papal mission, today's priests are encouraged to become effective bearers of the Gospel, lighting a path of transformation for their congregations.
Was this summary helpful?
It's good to be back in Tulsa. I was here for those of you who were older a decade ago, 2015, for a Clergy days. I think we were doing something, I hope for instance, and I can't quite remember, but almost exactly 10 years ago, because I do remember on the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, doing a lot on St. Paul, and today,
on the day which we celebrate really the 800th birthday of St. Thomas Fine and said look forward to doing a little bit on St. Thomas with you to celebrate this feast. I've been asked to give two talks today. The first is going to be the theology and art of sacred preaching. I'd like to make it practical, but theology is always meant to be practical. It's always meant to really overflow with our life, not just remain something theoretical.
That's where we're going to be going. But we need a huge revival in our preaching. We as Catholic priests and deacons ought to be the best speakers in the world. We've got the Holy Spirit on our side. We've got the best message of all time. And yet, everybody complains about our preaching. People are leaving the Catholic Church to become Protestants because a lot of the times
We do not preach well enough. It's the shame of the Catholic Church. But it's also the opportunity of the Catholic Church. So I'm always super excited whenever I have a chance to speak about the revival of preaching.
Pope Francis is often to cry to quality of Catholic homelies. By the way, these slides are at Catholicreaching.com. You don't have to take notes. I speak like in the Winglander of Two Fast or whatever else. You've got them there, likewise, for any of the quotations you would like to use. But Pope Francis is often to cry to quality of Catholic homelies a couple years ago. He said, please, but homelies, they're a disaster.
Pope Benedict's prior to it in a little bit more of a diplomatic way, so that given the importance of the word God, the quality of homilies needs to be improved. Understand it. See, Vernon and his Sienna, Scott Hahn always loves to mention this, but in the 14th century, he was given a counterfactual. If you could only have one generation of solid preaching and no access to the Sabbath,
or universal access to the sacraments, but no more bad preaching, which would you take? And without any deliberation said, that one's easy. And of course, everybody was expecting to say, give me the sacraments. Give me that intimate means and sign of communion with the Lord. But He said, give me the preaching. Because after that generation, the people would be salivating for the sacraments.
But if all they have is access to the sacraments with no or bad preaching, at the end of the generation will be taking the sentence for granted. And to a large degree, that has been the experience of many of us in our lifetime. We need, for example, in the National University of Revival for us to really focus on preaching in such a way that people are going to be starving for what's on the Lord's divine menu.
A little bit of the theology, just at a quick and high level. But Benedict said in his beautiful book, Feast of Fate, he published in 1982, that when we understand God as logos, it's not just as we translated at the beginning of Prologo St. John, word, logos is much broader than just word. Logos, if you were to talk to agree more than two thousand years ago, first thing would have been conversation.
It's a call of God. Logos means God is conversation. That God is an eternal trial law, we could call it. Not about he is not, but expressions, but a person. And God, the Blessed Trinity, seeks to bring us into that eternal trial law.
He gave two pages about the whole sort of formal structure of prayer, which is kind of awesome as we think about prayer and teach others of prayer. The God is a conversation, how do we enter that conversation? Humanity enters the conversation in the incarnation. How do you deny it for us? We enter through baptism and the sacrament of life, and where does that take place?
It takes place in the church. That's the whole purpose of the church, this Christ's body, to be the means by which we're all able, somehow mysteriously, to enter into the Trinity. Our humanity is somehow entered into the Trinity because of the economy. And then the whole work of the church. So this is where everything starts. We're called to enter into the Trinity. And through words, we're able to enter into the Logos.
Sacred preaching is meant to be a cooperation with the Holy Spirit with whom we give, as Jesus said, joint witness. You and the Holy Spirit came down not as I called eyeballs, not as tempted here in the armpits with the strong driving wind in the upper room. He came down with his tongues of fire, tongues to speak, fire to speak with passion, art.
Jesus told us, don't worry about what you're going to say, because the spirit of your Father will teach you in that moment what to say. And that's just not when we're dragged between civil and religious authorities. Preaching, as St. Paul was telling us this Sunday in the Tistle,
prophecy or actualizing the Word of God together with the Charism of teaching, the prophecy in teaching is preaching. And it's one of the charismatic gifts that the Holy Spirit pours on out. And by our sacred ordination, we have been given that Charism. Jesus puts words on His first priest's lips. He gives us a message for us.
The kingdom of God is a hand. The kingdom of God is God, has been in love to stress. We're announcing that God is a leader in inviting us into his life. His first words were repent for the kingdom of God's death. And hence, at his ascension, in his valedictory, he sent out the first preacher to proclaim a baptismal repent for the previous ascents. There's a content there.
And Jesus himself gives us a model of preaching. He is the tableau gloss, the very word of God. It by his example he shows us how to do it. We're not going to do a whole thing on Jesus preaching. But the way that he uses images, the way that he uses discourses, the way that he sometimes corrects, a lot of the times he solves, we could have the whole semester just on what Jesus himself teaches us.
I'd like to consider the theology preaching and putting in an action by focusing on three figures to vote today. Because I think that they're very rich in the way that they make the theology pretty practical. The first is St. Augustine, the greatest preacher of the history in the West. Second would be today's hagiological honoree. St. Thomas Aquinas. You know, we're finishing really kind of today.
the Domestic Triennial. In 2023, in July, we celebrated the 700th anniversary of his canonization. Last year, Mark VII, we celebrated the 750th anniversary of his death and birth into eternal life. And we don't know exactly which day of the year he was born. And for that reason, today on his feast day, which is the day in which he was
translated and interred into wounds, which is where his relics are today. On January 28th, we're marking the 800th anniversary of his birth, as if today were his 800th birthday. So it's an opportunity, since here at Coma Clasia, to see what St. Thomas himself will teach us about the theology of preaching and how to do it well. And then I want to speak about the Holy Father, who has given us in
and Jelly Gautam, the greatest primer on preaching that the church has ever produced. There have been other difficulties in preaching. But Pope Francis there gave us something I think very practical when we resynthesize what he gives. And so that's the journey for this morning. Let's turn this in, Augustine. He's one of the only fathers to leave us a systematic treatise on sacred preaching.
And it really is worth reading, not just because there's so much substance in it, but even in translation, it's incredibly eloquent. It's his day, Drina Cristiano, the Christian teaching, in which he focused three books on the content of sacred preaching, the Word of God, and he wrote these right after he had become a bishop soon after his conversion in the 390s.
And then finally he was able to return after all of his pastoral work, which kept him with the widows and the orphans and everything else. So what he really kind of wanted to do, all the rhetorical training he had got in Carthage and in Milan and Rome, for which he was known during his lifetime as the greatest rederician alive. He wanted to teach others, bishops and priests, how to preach better.
And so that's book four, which is relatively brief. It's on the method of preaching. We'll focus briefly on some of what he says in this great, patristic must read. We'll focus on what he said happens when we preach. This is part of the theology of preaching. What the content of what we say should be, and then
what eloquence involves, how to say it in the least unworthy way of the splendor that's contained in the truth. In preaching, synagostin emphasized, God is acting and he acts in two ways. The first he acts extrinsically on the outside through the preacher. He moves us. We're supposed to be passing on his word.
But then in the more important part, he's working on the inside on the listener. And we've all had that experience, right? Father, I can't thank you enough for your omele. What you said here really touched me and maybe it was the thing that we just extemporized at that point and added in on thinking that we're going to add it. Or sometimes we never said anything in any nearby zip code.
But they heard it, anyway, and it shows that the Holy Spirit was really working on the inside. Because the interior action is always key to proof of preaching. We could have Archbishop Pope J. Sheen, by predecessor, for 16 years, as the director of the Society of Proclamation, faith in the US. We could have him and all his eloquence here.
But if somebody's got one of the first three soil samples, Jesus describes in the parable of Zoroth Sea, it might have no impact at all. The most important part of preaching is what the Holy Spirit is doing into us, interiorly in those who are listening. And therefore the most important things in Augustine said, a preacher can do is pray for himself and pray for those who are going to hear him.
He states and data between the Christiana. It's more than the piety of prayer. It is more the piety of prayer than the ready facility of orders that enables him to preach efficaciously. By praying then, both for himself and for those of you who are about to address, let him be a prayer before he is a speaker. Does that characterize how we prepare for a home? Do we really first
preach with our callous deeds before we do with our golden mouth. The ultimate goal of preaching, St. Augustine says, is twofold. For matters requiring the ascent of faith, some type of intellectual response, the preacher must convince the listeners of the truth of what he's saying.
So, sometimes we have to help people to see that it's true, especially in some controversial areas of second talk today. It's going to be preaching about certain inner obligations, life and family today. Sometimes we do have to go intellectually, but for matters that deal with a change of moral behavior, the preacher must convince them more than just about the moral truth, but move them somehow to change. That moral metamorphosis can only happen
by divine power. And that's why there's a need to prayer first, but then second, for the power of the Lord of God, which when Hebrew says, is like a two-edged sword capable of getting in where no surgical instruments would dare enter. So duty of the interpreter and the teacher of the Holy Scriptures.
That's who a preacher is for sin Augustine. Just focus on it for a second. An interpreter and a teacher at the Holy Scripture. And remember, he was the most well-trained guy alive. He knew all of the Roman words. He knew so much of the philosophy that it is. He had to date it. He could have used all of that enormous learning
to persuade. But he said, fundamentally, the preacher, and you see this in his homily. The preacher is fundamentally an interpreter and teacher of the Holy Scriptures. Both to teach what is good and to un-teach what's bad. And in this task of speaking, to conciliate the hostile, rouse the careless, and tell the ignorant both what should be done and what they should expect if they don't do.
So there are multiple things that we need to be aware of, but we're doing it by prayer and the power of God in his word. If the hero needs to be taught, it's to be done in a narrative style. You're basically going to be able to tell the story. You don't really have to drill the deed if you're just trying to end the pre-war. But if you're trying to read form, then you need a different art.
The hero needs to be moved rather than tossed so that they may not be sluggish in doing what they already know and so that they give a sense of things, that they profess to be true, greater powers of speaking are needed.
Here, there's a need for entreaties and reproaches, exhortations and words that restrain. And whatever other things that are veiled for moving minds and soul, he says, when we need to bring people into person to pull out all the stocks, whatever morally will work, some people are going to be drawn toward the truth, others are going to be persuaded only by having the hell scared out of them. But whatever works,
He says, we've got to use those weapons. To do this, a preacher must have assimilated first what he's trying to communicate, because the medium is the messenger. It's not fundamentally a question of rhetorical skill, but of knowing Christ. We all know this is a cinch on the end, right? When Father Locke or dear, the greatest preacher of the 19th century, used to still know Kedav,
came to ours just to check out this priest that everybody was talking about. He tried to do it quietly and without stands here, but joined to any size that could have it full of mud from that winter. And he saw him humbly out there. He was really high-pitched voice from our number priest, not the witness that had served on the Father and preached for an hour.
And then he started to do the tour of the region as the famous creature's age. In the local dean of Rewire, John Welch, on the end, he was here at a confession call date, and that was a day. The priests around, many of whom were affected by NVIDIA Clara Colleis. Clara Colente.
He said, you must have been bored out of your mind. How could you handle listening to him preach? And Lock our dear, just said, what are you talking about? He preached as a good pastor should. He preached exactly what his parishion is needed. He could appreciate it because he knew the art of preaching. The John Deanna was a little artist because he was cooperating with Holy Spirit and bringing the full arsenal of prayer and holy scripture to the needs his parishioners have.
It's not fundamentally a question of rhetoric. It's fundamentally about knowing Christ. And when people know Christ, they'll listen. When they suspect, no matter how eloquently ours, that we might be living a double life, they'll have an excuse not to let that verbal jackhammer do its job.
The content of Sacred Preaching, he says, is wisdom will be finite in a second. And the style he calls eloquence and communion with those who came before him. To be eloquent means to be convincing, intellectually, and moving morally. Cicero et toss, wisdom without eloquence is of little use. While eloquence without wisdom is frequently, extremely prejudicial to it, never been used.
So wisdom without eloquence is of little use. No matter how well we know God, if we have an AK-15 of odds in unites and pauses, people, even the hungriest, caramel-like sitting, like myriad Bethany on the edges of their pages, aren't going to be able to fall
We do have to take the ox seriously and work it. And he says, eloquence without wisdom is extremely prejudicial to wisdom because it's basically sophistry. Eventually somebody says, boy, he's a good speaker. But not that this person brings me to conversion. For Guston, there needs to be both wisdom and eloquence.
And wisdom for Him means Christ incarnate. Wisdom is blessed. After Christ's ascension, He said wisdom is conveyed through the Scriptures. So wisdom for Augustine means personal knowledge of Jesus and the worship of Jesus and the knowledge of the words of God as the vehicle to bring us to the locals. So wisdom means prayer,
and means intimacy in the arid and with the spiritual. Only this true-fold wisdom will allow the creature to preach well. Augustine said that the primary condition for preaching is wisdom not eloquence. Wisdom is more important than it was. For man with the duty of saying wisely, even when he cannot say eloquently, it's supremely important that he should have the words of Scripture at his fingertips at the edge of his talking.
If one doesn't know sacred scripture, he says eloquence is useless and can be harmful. It's already stated. The source of what we have to say in our preaching is the Bible, which is all about the person and the work of Christ. And he stresses, and this is 1600 years ago, he stresses that we shouldn't be spending all our time looking at joke books. So telling stories of starfish on the sea,
We've got the greatest story ever told in this picture. So he says preaching is not about other things, or even the subjective, what this scripture means to me. But it's the content of scripture itself, what it means. So look at the whole world through a scriptural lens.
revealing or unveiling every day to day thing by God's wisdom, perceiving God's action in the middle of the world, and receiving God's life thereby. And a positive way, he says, the preacher is meant to teach scriptural revelation and unto each everything that's inconsistent with it. And depending upon the crowd, we may have to emphasize the form or the ladder, but we need to be fluent in both language.
Augustine could have used all the paying literature I said to make his points, but he emphasized sacred scripture because sacred scripture not just is useful, but it's powerful. It has divine power to change people. This is something the church has always said and was focused in his last week on in a couple occasions, right? St. Anthony the desert. Here's
that passage about going and selling all that you have and giving the money before you'll be rich and have to make them follow me. And he takes it literally and that's what he does. We see it with Saint Paul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you? And once he discovers who it is, not only does he seek to follow the rule for it, but he gets that the persecution
The church is the person who cries and spends the whole rest of his life trying to talk about that ecclesia-wanted communion between the bride and bride room between the body and head. We see it in the life of Saint Teresa's year when she discovered that her vocation was to be loved in the heart of the church and mother.
I see it in Mother Teresa, which you heard Jesus speak to, we're on a train to jar. Geely, come be my light. Come quench my infinite thirst for soul with this. And whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me. Change the entire real life. That's the power. Sinagustin says has to be unleashed. We remember what St. Paul himself wrote to St. Timothy.
remain faithful to what you've learned and believed because you know from whom you learned it and from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God is useful for teaching reputation correction and training and holiness so that one who belongs to God may be confident equipped forever good work. God has given us this gift of sacred scripture to train us
in the discipline that makes holy disciples. And we know like why this is important today because a lot of the times we don't get scripture in our home. It's one of the things that I need to do as the natural director of the typical mission society says we have missionary co-authors come by and some can preach, most can't. We've got to fix that. We've got to fix it unless we're trying to dissuade people from caring about missions.
A lot of the times when they come, they'll tell one story or another, but a lot of times it's not even based on that same election or something. That's got to change too. Because if we really want all the other good things to happen as a result of this encounter, it's got to start in the power of the Word of God. The preaching of Augustine and the fathers led to a truly Christian biblically based culture. Because everybody was talking about how life was infused with the Word of God.
People are formed in a biblical worldview and capable of understanding everything in its life. That's why the average Catholic today with a master degree can't hold a candle to the average illiterate medieval in walking into a church and looking at stained glass windows. Even though less important than wisdom eloquence is still useful, Augustine said.
Would anyone dear to maintain that truth should stand without any weapons in the hands of its defenders against falsehood? That those speakers who are trying to convince their hearers of what's untrue think all the heretics should know how to get them on their side to gain their attention to have them eating out of their hands by their opening words? Well, those who are defending the truth shouldn't. That those should state their lives briefly, clearly, plausibly.
And then we should state our truths in a matter too boring to listen to, to obscure to understand, and finally too repellent to believe. It's almost as if he was writing in 2025. Okay. I got some said that eloquent should be learned by the young who are quick learners. Can't teach everybody eloquence.
But it's super important for us in training the future generation of priests to whom we pray to be able to pass at the top. And if we want them to preach better, like any good dad always wants the sons to do better than the fathers, then we need to be eloquent. Because the best way to learn is not by pouring over the rules of eloquent study. Aristotle's rhetoric. But by listening to eloquent preachers,
No one can become eloquent without listening to good speakers at work, just as those growing up in a home that use as good grammar, learn good grammar. You know, God's been blessing me and I don't deserve it.
I used to drive all the way up and down the East Coast, listening when I was in college and in a young seminarian to two sources. Fulton State Sheen has reduced degrees over and over again, and the young Scott Hahn soon after his conversion. And now I'm the successor of Sheen and have the copyright for all those books.
And then the other day, Scott Anacostemean says, I've got my most important work. He's writing it on the amazing rod which you write before. And it's just a real tribute of gratitude to God for having learned how to share the Word of God by listening over and over again to these two creatures whose mouths were like furnaces.
most powerful form of eloquence is the moral character in the manner of life of the preacher. Well, the content of dying behind wisdom doesn't change. The means by which it delivers is delivered must be adapted to the audience, he says. It must be listener-centered rather than method-centered. What's he saying here? The way we preach the parishioners is going to be different than the way we're going to preach the four clears. The way we preach it, the four PM mass,
We're making a cloud here, but the massive anticipation with all the seniors is going to be different than the Sunday night mass with all the young people. It's not the same. And the most important thing we're doing is to lead them with the seeds planted. A good teacher is not just in how the person structures a lecture.
But what the students actually learn and live, and for us as preachers, we have to adapt so that it's not just scattering wherever it falls, but that we're taking care of the individual soil to try and make it fruitful. Sometimes this means letting go of polish what Augustine called a diligent negligence to ensure that people get the point. Okay, so that's Augustine.
Let's turn to St. Thomas. Happy birthday to you. He was a popular preacher during this time, not just academic purposes, but every book. People were coming because he really communicated something very rich in a way that was intelligible. For those in a lab, in this lab, especially in an instrument, it's super simple. He's writing it for St. Mary to do the lab, isn't very good.
He didn't leave us a treatise on preaching, like St. Augustine did, but an impressive body of sermons. How he preached, like Bonaventure, at most of their contemporaries. It's a form called the Cevamot Modern Sermons.
which always revolved around biblical verse. You likewise see it in St. Anthony and the preachers of the age. There's a theme at the beginning which is basically one verse is sacred scripture that is then used as a reframe throughout everything. And then as the trunk of a tree gets to various branches, that's how that passage of sacred scripture is used. That's the way Thomas did it. And the way and the effect was a total aversion
and sacred scripture. And wicked, everything he would say back to sacred scripture was totally clear that it was coming from God. Classical orders had five canons for putting together an effective speech. First, you didn't know what you were saying. Second, you needed to arrange what you were going to say in a way that was persuasive. Third, you needed to work on your presentation. Fourth, you needed to memorize, not read it. And if you were going to hear it, release it.
And then, yeah, the delivery. What happened in medieval time period is that discovering of what you were to say would always be taken from sacred scripture. In his style, Thomas showed the importance of scripture. He never gave Bible studies, but a moral and existential encounter with the living word that forced people to ask
What and in whom do I believe? How should I live? Where am I going? Not just what the scriptures say. It's not that it's a Jesus. It's an encounter with God. He didn't use contemporary stories. Again, same point. But for the most part, he called those frivolities. Waste of time. Doesn't mean we can't illustrate. He would use examples.
but not in a way that would displace the power of the Word of God. Dante put him to the lips of Dietriche in the Paradiso. Christ did not say to his first company, go and pre-ginal stories to the world. But he gave them the teaching that his truth and truth alone was sounded when they spoke. But now men go to preach with just and jeers. And just as long as they can raise a laugh, they get puffed up.
And nothing was asked of them. I think it should have been in the inferno, not the heritage, so nevertheless, it's there. St. Thomas said that preachers are, and just never forget this from St. Thomas, so does St. Thomas. Preachers are a moment of Christ. Preaching is the noblest of all ecclesiastical functions.
Thomas was aware of what we did with the altar. And he still said, preaching is the noblest of all the ecclesiastical function. Because how can they believe if they do not hear? Christ came to preach. This is the reason why I can't, he said.
And Thomas urged that preachers be grounded in virtue when adorned with sufficient learning before they assume the office of the preacher, because there's a real mission that they have when they mount the pulpit. Pope Jae-Shin used to say there are basically two types of people, two types of preachers. Those would sound to them to say, and those who have to say something. The latter of the guys would buy other people's homes.
and sometimes don't substitute it when it's a visual mask. And so they're reading, they all say it's humbling when it's really supposed to be the 30 seconds that they will every time of my first group. No one ought to assume the office of preacher unless one is first purified in perfect and virtue. It doesn't mean already canonized, but somebody's striving for holiness. If the teaching is good but the teacher's bad,
occasions given for blasphemy against God rather than the glorification of God. Preacher must have knowledge of sacred things, the capacity to prove what he says, and faith to give a reason for the hope within him. He must be a person of study, especially of scripture. He needs virtue, scholarship, clarity, eloquence, and a desire to have God increase rather than himself. So Thomas is stressing
Prayer, virtue, and sufficient knowledge. And the reason why he stresses it here is he wants us constantly learning, constantly studying, not diving in what we use three, six, nine, 12, 36, 39 years, constantly learning. Aquinas teaches that the purpose of preaching is primarily the honor of God and the glory of God and the spreading of his kingdom.
We're just instruments and the plans of the one who has sent us that we are sent out with a gospel to share. Purpose is not entertainment. We must have zeal for God and for others salvation. He says, he who preaches errors is a wolf. He who preaches for gain is a mercenary. He who preaches for God's glory is a shepherd. We all want to be that shepherd.
Even the works of fraternal charity must give place to the exercise of preaching. Right? We see them, right? They ask the apostles. They didn't have enough time for the ministry of the Word in prayer. So that's why they are doing the details. Not because charity was less important, because charity is totally important.
who can't all do everything at the same time, so that it wouldn't be neglected, or so that preaching or prayer wouldn't be neglected. That's when we needed to have others make sure that it was of primary importance to the apony of the church. But because we would be judged in the final analysis by our love,
because the Lord has called us to love one another just as much as he has loved us. The primary way we love people is by our preaching. This is what Thomas is. It's preaching our love language. It's supposed to be.
But most Protestant ministers, without our education, without our graces toward nation, are way better at it than we do. Because they love more than we do. Until now. The matter of preaching, he says, is what's useful in the present life and view of the Eschaton.
It should be useful to the audience listening rather than, in general, same point as an Augustine. Always headed to this audience. To persuade the discourse must be orderly and given by someone at virtue of good work, same point. If it's totally disorganized so that people can't see the line that's running through it, and there are how many awesome insights there are there. It will be lost.
eloquence is important, but can never become an end in itself. Secular eloquence is on the one hand commendable, but in the other potentially reprehensible when someone uses it for display or an end in itself. Ultimately, we're preaching to bring people to God rather than for any other motive. Okay, and so now we switch to Pope Francis.
in the seven minutes we have about their thoughts. So we remember what the Second Vatican Council said about preaching and prescriptive or moredness for the Constitution on the priesthood. The priests have the primary duty of proclaiming the gospel of God to all. Even before this afterwards, even before charity, our first task is preaching. The most important subject is preaching.
And what is a homily? The purpose of a homily is to exhort all men to conversion components. It's not to give them one thing that they can chew on for the rest of the day or the week. Certainly not to entertain, to help them repent and believe. To repent and believe, convert and live a new life being offered to you right now.
And so everything that we do needs to be framed that way. Is it going to help people to look at the Word of God as a mirror, as St. James says, so that they can look at themselves and say, I'm not who I'm supposed to be yet. But then here, the consoling words that even though you're not who you're supposed to be and I'm not who I'm supposed to be, God's coming here today to help us. He's helping us in these words and he's helping us on the inside and
The sacrament we're about to see. O Benedict, again, none of this is contradictory. It's complementary. Set in verbal hegemony is a beautiful education to work on the life and mission of the Church, that the homile is part of the literature to go action. I can't stress this enough. The U.S. should play quite stress it. But for instance, we'll say a mass without a homile lead is an insufficient offspring to it.
Sometimes, especially in sort of more conservative circles. There's such a focus on what's happening at the altar. But we don't preach during daily mass. It's an exhibition offering. Pope Benedict's ad in Pope Francis' chapter.
It's part of the liturgical action meant to foster a deeper understanding of the word of God so that it can be a fruit in the lives of theta, fruits of conversion, fruits of holiness. Pope Francis says, liturgical homily promotes a heart-to-heart dialogue between God and his people, proclaiming a steed to salvation and restating the demands of the covenant. It's part of the offering made to the Father. Again, we're not making the same offering to the Father, it's just not all.
part of the offering made to the Father in a mediation of the grace that Christ forced out during the celebration. So in other words, the preacher restates the covenant by proclaiming the Word of God. And then, as somebody hearing it, as just as human as any of those listening to it, he then confronts the covenant about the ways that we're supposed to embrace and live at the challenges in order to be able
to do it the role that we have to take in order to be able to do it perfectly. But conversion and hoping is so that, with the gift of the covenant, we are literally converting, turning with the Lord full-time. The U.S. bishops in their 2012 document on preaching the Mysterium-CAD said, one of the most important teachings of Vatican II in regard to preaching is the insistence that the homily is an integral part of the Eucharist itself.
The homelies met to set hearts on fire with praise and thanksgiving. It's to be a feature of the intense and privileged encounter with Jesus Christ that takes place in the liturgy. The homelist connects the two parts of the Eucharistic liturgy as he looks back at the scripture reading, looks forward to the sacrificial meal. That's why it's preferable for the celebrant of the Eucharistic liturgy also to be in the homelies.
integral part of the Eucharist itself meant to set hearts on fire with praise and thanksgiving. But you remember that echo of Pope Francis after his first four days day in Rio when he said, based on the Macy,
and how Christ first lit the hearts of the two disciples on fire, because they were slow apart, so that with their hearts burning with the eye of their heart they could recognize from breaking the bread. He said, he would still have a capacity to light people's hearts on fire. He was saying that to the bishops from all throughout Salem, the Caribbean and the Latin America, do we still have the capacity to light people's hearts on fire?
The only way we do is if our hearts are burning and how our hearts are burning when Jesus itself helps us in prayer to connect everything to Him and what He is doing.
One of the reasons why I'm citing this guy, I'm asking the right to practice this book, on a mayis, which he says is more or less a lesser than testament, not that he said the end of his life, but the most important thing that he wants to pass on the search is that with Jesus being on the road to a mayis, with those two disciples he's connected, everything was passed through history. Every person that has ever occurred was connected to it, and they were able to see that the crucifixion wasn't a contradiction, but a confirmation of all of this anti-profit, and that's where their whole life was being flipped right side out.
But as I have the privilege to do 65 days carrying the Lord Jesus from New Haven in Indianapolis, the summit of salvation history is eucharism. Jesus wants us to enter into this castle and we do that sacramentally. But in order to do it efficaciously, we need fiery preaching.
because otherwise people often will just go through emotions. But Francis says, people thirst for authenticity, credible witnesses, preachers who speak of a God they know, incontestible. He says, the preacher should be, and now he's talking about our attributes. What you use is an examination of conscience. Clothes, who are not distant or hot,
Even though that kid may one day falsely accuse us, we're not distant. Even though we may be a germaphobe and they might be carrying COVID, we're not distant. We're close. So not just physically close, we're approachable. We allow people to knock on the door and receive them well. Welcoming, warm, joyful,
not to faking it, on pretentious, ready for dialogue, want their questions. Because it's a sign of somebody who is searching. And we want them coming to us rather than the internet. And patience, ready to go in stages, willing to suffer literally, where they presently are, withholding. The preacher should enjoy passing on the faith to others.
Looking, this is one of the two greatest insights of this entire papacy and life. Super helpful. Looking beyond people's weaknesses and failures to see what Jesus sees and wants in them. So a lot of the times when we're preaching, when we're looking at it at the people in front of us, like I remember when I was bastard seeing him, there's new veteran messages, there was one guy who was basically reading the bulletin during the proclamation of the gospel.
If you wanted to do it when I was preaching, okay, I'll take it. Don't do it when the Lord is speaking live. He used to fill me with righteous innovation. And I had to do everything that I could not to just steer a good guy and to put the voltage down. These words were very helpful to me, that it looked beyond their defects, their problems. See what Jesus sees, that he would readily climb, calorie, and move
and died from 10,000 deaths, 10,000 times worse if he had to save that degree again. And looking on their defects and see something more, because that's going to change who we are as a preacher. We're not going to be angry in the pulpit, but this list of athletes that are in the second point. They must strive to know the community whom he addresses, the heart of the community, not just superficially.
But where God is alive and ardent and where the loving dialogue with God has become barren. What are their disappointments, et cetera? Just like Jesus entered into the pain of those who decided. He should be striving for holiness. The greater or lesser holiness of the minister impacts the proclamation. Again, can't argue with that point. You know what? Every once in a while, I start to ask myself the question.
How would St. John Deannie Handel be drinking this Sunday, or your preaching right? How would Francis Ader Handel him? How would St. Augustine Handel him? How would St. Thomas Handel him? How would Francis DeSales Handel him? How would St. Paul Handel him? How would St. Paul Handel him? How would St. Paul Handel him? How would St. Paul Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel him? How would St. John Handel
If there are only two states, it's not the end of the set. We're starting for holiness, life loss. Because we want to help our people come to holiness. And they're going to see heaviness before they're going to heal it. Sorry. Quoting St. John Paul II, Pope Francis says that the message that we communicate is the joyful, patient, progressive preaching of the incarnation, birth, life, saving, death, and resurrection.
He's the hero of every homie we get. He's what the Holy Father said. Not something else. When we start and we write it down, we're not going to do it like saying Thomas used to do what I am, indeed, for the sake of scripture, for the sake of it. But what is the main takeaway that we want that they have? And it should always be in some way, God. Preaching, he says, must begin and emphasize above all the currentment. And he defines currentment very beautifully.
It's not just 1 Corinthians 15. Facts that went way back. He says, here's the curriculum. Jesus Christ loves you. He gave Himself up to save you. And now He's living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen, and bring you. But the good news really is, God with us is still very much with us. And that changes everything. To preach the curriculum, the preacher must believe the curriculum.
He must know God loves him, but Jesus saved him. And that love is the last word. That will change everything. Stresses if the gospel is a gift before it's a task. Do we treat it as a gift? But Francis sometimes goes off by saying, like, do we use the word God as a weapon?
That's why he uses Jeremiah's against those he puts in the category of Pharisees. Because he thinks that just like we see in the Gospel, some hear more about the wrong principle than about whether this person or that person is going to be able to live by that principle.
Sometimes we can moralize, because we look at all the duties that we've got, rather than recognize that even the most challenging aspects of the gospel are blessings. But Francis says that good preaching is not just knowing what to say, but how to say it. That method is a supremely spiritual concern. Because we love our people, we have to learn the basic art of communication. Are we not a machine?
Are we clear? If we were to ask the people from last Sunday, what was the point of what we said? Could it match our attention? It's an expression of love of neighbor to refuse to offer a product of poor quality. Again, preaching is our love language. And what are the elements of a good homily?
Pope Francis gets thirteen of them. He's right on twelve. First is well-prepared. A preacher doesn't prepare isn't spiritual, he emphasizes, but dishonest and irresponsible.
I remember it was a true story from the diocese of Arlington, a pretty sprinted one of those secondary mal-deceased, was a parochial vicar and a parish. And he, if someone was an excellent preacher, the pastor was a terrible preacher. And the people on the consultative body spoke of national counsel as well as the finance counsel came to Father Joe and basically just said, how can we get the message to him once he hears?
But people are switching, not just masses, but switching barriers, because it's so bad. And we're just afraid to bring it up, because he sends it in the whole rest. Give me help, but he says, well, let's pray and we'll do the best job that we can. So, the next meeting of the joint consultant, the chairperson, the finance comes and brought it up once we do listen. It's impacting finances, everything else like this.
People are complaining a lot about trauma leads, and they would love to ask you if you could do something about that. They were expecting defensiveness. My senior responded, okay, I'm happy to work in my preaching, under one condition. They said, what? He said, we have to have a capital campaign. And the client comes, it's like, we don't need to have a capital campaign, we're okay, we're paying our bills.
What do you mean we have to have a capital? He says, because we're going to have to renovate the sanctuary. Why are we going to have to renovate the sanctuary? It's one of the most beautiful churches in our diocese. He says, because we're going to have to double the length between the presidential chair and the pulpit. Most of the people didn't get it. Most of you haven't gotten it. It's because his preparation to preach was the distance
Some of you doesn't fear isn't spiritual, but fear responsible in dissolves. He's got a duty to do when he's not fulfilling his responsibility. Prayerful. We've got to call him the Holy Spirit in prayer. Again, going back to Augustine, the most important thing we do in preparation of the humble. Scriptural, we've already talked a lot about this, based on the word of God with which the preacher is intimately familiar, not just intellectually, but existential.
on fire. His words should be ignited so that others' hearts can be on fire. People know right off of that whether you believe in or not, whether you're passionate about it or not. We should be way more passionate for the word of God than either this maniacal, sooner-skinned, is the sacrifice of a maniacal.
Help me, I touched on them. Okay. It's gonna be humble. Christ messes much penetrates our entire being so that the Holy Spirit through it worked out. With God, we can't be on a high-worse region as possible. We likewise have to recognize that we struggle. Simple. Everyone should be able to understand the language. No big words. No showing off. It's not a class. Clear. Our language can be really simple, but not clear.
There's a need for a thematic unity so that people can grasp the point. What is the point? This is one of the reasons why I just have to say, I'm not sure. Awesome. Awesome. At least write an outline. Do not lean in. You're really not going to get clarity off the cuff 365 days a year. You just won't. She needed it. Krisasa, something.
Augustine didn't, Thomas didn't, but at least got to have something written down. Practical. It should use familiar practical everyday images so that people can understand and savor the message and know what they're being asked. I remember I was, this is 2012. I was in St. Lucia.
preaching to a crowd of 55,000 young people throughout the United States for their version of World Youth Day. Every intervening period between the international and World Youth Day, all the islands there, the official conference we've had. And they invited them one year and it was super fun. It was at night.
The power went down the sea. The microphones were now walled. There are 55,000 people there. I'm waiting to see if it happens. And then one of the bishops just came on up and said, this is why God gave you a diaphragm.
So I just did the best that I could somehow avoid amplifying just like I think he would have at the seat of Galilee if he was seated in a boat and finished it. But then he came on up and like I just thought that that was like the most incredible performance of my life. And he came on up afterwards just like, listen, there was a lot that was good in there, but you forgot the most important data. You're preaching to a whole bunch of young people. And he didn't tell them what they needed to do.
They're all hungering to know what they need to do. And you just talked about these beautiful ideas and let them draw their own conclusions. At least here in the Caribbean, they need to tell them what they need to do. Just a point that I'll never forget. Are we practical enough for them?
that they know what the Lord is concretely asking at them. We have to be positive. Again, each word of sacred scripture is a gift before dominion. We really shouldn't try to steer the hell out of them. We should persuade them by the beauty of the gift if we can. I love this expression. We should be a joyful messenger of challenging proposals showing the beauty of a life of wisdom rather than experts in diaprotictions in our judges.
It's very easy to condemn and everything. Much harder to be in the midst of the collapse, to be able to point to the light. Beautiful. Though we should help people recognize what Christ is teaching, it's not just true, but beautiful, capable of filling life with joy even in the midst of difficulties. Preaching is more than communicating abstract truths because we're trying to help people love, and you can only love what's beautiful.
And that likewise involves the eloquence of what we say. It's not just the music, it's important as that is. It's not just the way the lectures read, it's not just the beauty of the church. It's also the beauty of the Word of God and how we proclaim that. It's going to be eschatological. Helping people live between their baptismal and eternal race is going to be racism. Maternal? We need to use language in the encouragement of a mother.
There is a big way that we know this between the way moms generally discipline their kids and dads generally discipline their kids. He's arguing that we should be more of a church, as we're calling people to conversion, doing it wrapped in tenderness and support, rather than with anger.
rather than just setting the standards and making feel guilty or ashamed by not needing it. So many people already have bad impressions of the characteristics of God the Father, because of the collapse of Fatherhood. We don't need to add to that type of pressure. That's what Pope Francis is talking about. And then finally he says, the homily must not become more important than the celebration of faith or violate its basic balance and rhythm. Therefore, it should be brief.
And he said over and over again that Sunday home we should be 8 to 10 minutes. I totally disagree with what we found. And I'm going to tell you why. And I told him, directly to what he used to work for him, he was always very generous with me. But the average American spends 31 hours a week on devices. How are we going to compete with that? How would a customer compete with that with 8 minutes? I'm sorry.
But the Holy Father's essentially saying, if the homily was awful, please don't elaborate first. But the real change is going to be to make homilies way better so that they're adequate.
Like here in the states and certain seminars, we're still here today. Well, the people's attention is being as such as they can't listen more than 8 to 12 minutes. Pause! And it's just like, so Protestants are that much smarter than we are, even with our Catholic schools, that somehow they can listen to 45 minutes, and we're staying in Catholics, even when graduating from Jesuit universities can't listen 8 and a half minutes.
Are you trying to tell me that applicants who have never been able to go to high school are able to listen to a homily for an hour? And we don't have the attention span? No. It's really a sentence for proof homily. So proof homily. And so I agree that homily's
are a disaster, and they need to be changed, but it's not by reducing the power of the word God to change people. But actually, we'll prove them. Colonel Sean Manley, who ordained me very close for the mind, all the rest of it. Just honor him last week for the missions.
He generally reached about 37 minutes, and I am still hanging off every single day, because he knows how to do it, but stories, and poems, and humor, and the whole rest of it. It can be done. The Protestants do it. The great creatures do it. And we're supposed to be the best speakers alive, because we have the Holy Spirit. OK. Just quickly.
Learn how to proclaim the gift of the Eucharist effectively. And for that, we have to take a soil sample. Lots are hardened. We know it. They're stubborn, resistant, either because of opposition or a transgender habit. We need gradually to get through that. Some are superficial, initially responsive, but the growth doesn't really happen. We likewise need to emphasize some points over the course of time to really help people grow. Many are thorny.
which worldly here is an anxiety for lower bridges and pleasure, choke the growth of the sea. We see it a lot. They like it or they dislike it. Everything's part of spiritual consumerism. There's a different and better way. And then good soil, which changes us 36,000 or a hundred ways over time. What do we see when we look out there? Secularism makes us stubborn. Emotivism makes us superficial.
And then we just have lots of dorms. We must be aware of these as we seek to so generously God's word and use the skills at our disposal and the power of God to try to address them as we preach. And we'll have a chance in our next talk this afternoon to examine how preaching the gospel of life and the gospel of the family is an opportunity to address.
Was this transcript helpful?
Recent Episodes

Ask this episodeAI Anything

Hi! You're chatting with Catholic Preaching AI.
I can answer your questions from this episode and play episode clips relevant to your question.
You can ask a direct question or get started with below questions -
What was the main topic of the podcast episode?
Summarise the key points discussed in the episode?
Were there any notable quotes or insights from the speakers?
Which popular books were mentioned in this episode?
Were there any points particularly controversial or thought-provoking discussed in the episode?
Were any current events or trending topics addressed in the episode?
Sign In to save message history