Monthly Archives: December 2013

Notes on Preaching, #3 "The Joy of the Gospel"

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in constancy, courage, Joy of the Gospel, measured, Pope Francis, preaching

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The homily cannot be a form of enter­tainment like those presented by the media, yet it does need to give life and meaning to the celebra­tion. It is a distinctive genre, since it is preach­ing situated within the framework of a liturgical celebration; hence it should be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture. A preacher may be able to hold the attention of his listeners for a whole hour, but in this case his words become more important than the celebra­tion of faith. If the homily goes on too long, it will affect two characteristic elements of the liturgical celebration: its balance and its rhythm. When preaching takes place within the context of the liturgy, it is part of the offering made to the Father and a mediation of the grace which Christ pours out during the celebration. This context demands that preaching should guide 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.  (EG, 138)

I once heard a Benedictine monk compare good liturgy to a beautiful and precise dance.  Pope Francis is displaying this same sensibility in his reflection on preaching.  Liturgy has a specific rhythm and movement and the preached word is part of this greater whole.  If the sermon takes on too much emphasis, if it only becomes about entertaining, if the true focus of Christ’s continuing dialogue with his people is denied then the rhythm of the whole liturgy is thrown off-kilter if not entirely lost.  The balance and rhythm of the whole liturgy must be kept in mind and maintained during the crafting of a sermon.  Preaching is part of the offering made to the Father and a mediation of the grace which Christ pours out during the (entire) celebration.  (One internal way that I check to see if my homily maintained the rhythm of the liturgical celebration is if it corresponds with the music chosen for the liturgy – chosen separately by the music minister and, more often than not, not discussed or planned beforehand.)  
Pope Francis is making news for his “off-script” remarks but it has also been noted that his sermons are on the shorter side.  It seems that he practices what he preaches.  The homily is a distinctive genre, since it is preach­ing situated within the framework of a liturgical celebration; hence it should be brief and avoid taking on the semblance of a speech or a lecture.  It takes more effort to be brief, concise and measured in what one has to say.  This also requires a true knowledge of the distinctive genre that the sermon is and its scope and purpose.  Pope Francis, through his exhortation and his very own practice, is demonstrating that he knows both what a sermon is and what it is not.  The sermon is not a speech nor a lecture nor a moment to entertain.  (Maybe a worthy exercise for any preacher is to reflect on these three genres determining their purpose and method and then, by process of negation, try to then move toward and determine what is distinctive about the genre of the homily.) 
One word that comes to my mind regarding the distinctiveness of the homily, and it is a word used by the Holy Father himself, is measured.  The homily strives to be measured both within itself (in technique, in focus, in use of imagery, etc.), within the larger context of the whole liturgical celebration (again it is part of the offering made to the Father) and, I would say, in regard to the entire and ongoing dialogue between Christ and his Church (as a preacher it is essential to know that any particular sermon is a small part of something much bigger – this allows the preacher to be rooted in the true and abiding source of inspiration as well as freeing the preacher from the illusion that it is all on him, an unrealistic weight to bear).
In the section “Cross and Mission” in the book Open Mind, Faithful Heart, then Cardinal Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) reflects on the essential value of apostolic courage and constancy in regards to the mission of discipleship.  I would contend that these are two essential virtues necessary to the ability to be measured in the full act (as laid out above) of preaching.  
I want to mention now two attitudes that clearly reveal that a person has assumed the Lord’s mission on the cross.  The two attitudes are apostolic courage and constancy, and they go together.  They characterize the person who, having received the mission, seeks to have the same sentiments as the Lord who gives the mission.  The defects opposed to these attitudes are presumption and fear.  One woman devoted to the Church spoke thus: “Fearful people will never make great progress in virtue, nor will they ever accomplish anything great; those who are presumptuous will not persevere till the end.” Both attitudes, courage and constancy … go together and reinforce one another…  Cowardice means shrinking back toward perdition.  When we lack constancy and patience, the very first challenge makes us want to come down from the cross in order to fight our own battle and not the Lord’s.  Courage supposes constancy; it makes us persons who strive after an ideal.  To embrace the cross, we need courage, and, to remain on it, we need constancy.
Good preaching demands constancy and courage; it demands the lived asceticism that the homily is another instance of the continuing dialogue between Christ and his people and the awareness­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­that the desire the preacher may face to either fight any of his own battles through the sermon or avoid the full demand of the gospel is, in fact, the temptation to abandon the cross. 
A life of faith, lived in constancy and courage, produces the wisdom necessary to know how to be measured in the proclamation of Christ’s gospel. 

The Gifts of Advent

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Advent, humility, mercy, trust

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Caravaggio – The Holy Family with the infant St. John the Baptist

It is easy to rush through Advent.  With department store Christmas decorations appearing earlier and earlier each year it is quite easy to jump straight into Christmas mode after the Thanksgiving Day meal it seems.  Why a time of waiting and anticipation?  What is that all about?  After all the big day is Christmas with its exchanging of gifts and (at least for the religiously minded) the beautiful liturgies and reflection on the birth of Christ.  Who needs Advent?

Well, we do and Advent has its own gifts to share if we just take the time to appreciate and receive them.  I can think of three gifts that Advent has to give (similar in number to the gifts of the Magi) and they are gifts brought to us by the key figures of the nativity story – St. Mary, St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph.  
In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel we are told that the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary.  
…he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you.”  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  Then the angel departed from her.  
Much has been written of Mary’s “yes” to the angel and to God’s will for her.  Saints have reflected upon how all heaven and creation waited in hushed silence for Mary’s response.  Mary certainly knew the hopes and dreams of her people.  She certainly knew and trusted how God acted throughout the history of Israel. That God could and would act in such a way would not necessarily be a surprise to her but where it would end and the sacrifice it would entail, Mary certainly had no way of knowing and the angel did not share much information in that regard.  Mary did not know that her “yes” that day would lead to her standing at the foot of the cross – the epicenter of God and humanity’s sacrifice for death and sin.  Mary did not know how it would all play out or even what it all meant but she said “yes”.  
Mary brings us the gift of trust and she demonstrates to us that this gift is born out of a sure knowledge and belief of faith and how God has acted throughout history.   In opposition to the primacy of fate lauded in the pagan world; Mary reveals providence.  God is at work and continues to be at work in history and in our lives.  The gift of Mary’s trust also reveals that God wants nothing but what is best for us.  The God of Israel is a loving God and all things in God’s plan lead to fullness of life.  Mary brings us the gift of trust. 
Luke portrays John the Baptist as a relative of Mary and Jesus’.  During the Sundays and weekdays of Advent we read the gospel accounts of John’s ministry.  The gospels tell us that people from all over Judea and Jerusalem were coming to hear John preach and be baptized in his baptism of repentance.  This popularity and esteem of the people is even confirmed by the Pharisees and Sadducees coming out to receive baptism, not because of true conversion but because it looked good before the people.  John sees through this and denounces it.  Not much escaped John the Baptist.  It is in this context of expectation that Luke writes,
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  
The power of the multitude is a great power.  This is lesson 101 in the handbook of politicians, demagogues and tyrants throughout history.  John knew the expectation of the people.  He knew, probably more than any other person, how they were yearning for change.  Probably, he alone at that time in Israel could have tapped into that power.  He could have claimed it for his own and therefore claimed massive power but he did not.  To the crowd and to their desire to proclaim him “messiah,” John simply and humbly said, “I am not he.”  John had the authenticity to know who he was and who he was not.  John the Baptist brings us the gift of humility.  
It is a gift sorely needed in our world today.  The message of our world today, in so many words, is, “Build yourself up.  Claim all that you can.  Focus on yourself, forget everyone else.”  Our world exalts and glamorizes overweening pride.  John, just as much today as in the story of the gospel, stands in contradistinction to this message.  His poverty, simplicity of life, and reliance on the word of God gave birth to a humility and authenticity of personhood that the world cannot give.  In Advent, John the Baptist brings us the gift of humility.  
We have no direct words of St. Joseph.  He is the silent saint but he speaks through his actions.  Matthew, in the first chapter of his gospel, shares this about Joseph, 
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…”
Notice that even before the first angelic visitation in a dream (there were to be a total of four) Joseph had already decided that he would not expose Mary to public shame and would dismiss her quietly.  This decision on Joseph’s part should not be passed over carelessly.  It reflects his character.  According to the laws and customs of the time, Joseph had every right to have Mary stoned and killed.  Joseph could have acted out of vengeance and hurt pride but he chose not to.  Joseph, at that moment, held the life of Mary and the incarnate Word in her womb in his hands.  Just as Mary’s “yes” allowed the incarnation, Joseph’s “no” to violence and vengeance and “yes” to mercy allowed the incarnation to continue.  Joseph brings us the gift of mercy. 
Matthew writes that Joseph was a righteous man.  Our Lord throughout his ministry and proclamation of the Kingdom of God will again and again proclaim that righteousness is not based on blind observance of the law but on mercy and love.  It was simple human mercy and care that allowed the incarnation to continue.  St. Joseph’s proclamation to us is the gift of mercy.  
The three gifts of Advent: trust, humility and mercy.  As Christians, we receive these gifts by living them out in our lives and extending them to one another.  
Ss. Mary, John the Baptist and Joseph please pray for us.       

Notes on Preaching, #2 "The Joy of the Gospel"

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in homily, Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis, preaching

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Let us renew our confidence in preaching, based on the conviction that it is God who seeks to reach out to others through the preacher, and that he displays his power through human words. (EG, 136)

Pope Francis calls preachers of the Word to a sacred remembering of the power of preaching.  Throughout Scripture we find, time and time again, God choosing to work with human beings in all of our limits to proclaim his plan and his grace.  From Moses through the Old Testament prophets to John the Baptist to the apostles and to the great missionary Paul – there is a need that the Word of God be proclaimed and the need continues in our day!  People need to encounter the Word of God in all its richness and challenging beauty!  
I find it interesting that Pope Francis, after making this bold and challenging proclamation, then moves to the almost seemingly mundane character of dialogue and conversation as the foundation of preaching. 
It is worth 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”.   The homily has special importance due to its eucharistic context: it surpasses all forms of catechesis as the supreme moment in the dialogue between God and his people which lead up to sacramental communion. The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. 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. (EG, 137)
To help unpack this move toward dialogue and conversation I would like to quote in length a section out of Fr. Robert Barron’s book, The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism.  
At one point in his book, Fr. Barron is exploring intersubjectivity as a component of true knowledge. 
For the Christian, authentic knowledge comes not through isolation or objectification but rather through something like love.  Therefore it should not be surprising that the fullness of knowing would occur through an intersubjective process, with knowers, as it were, participating in one another as each participates in the thing to be known.  If, as the Johannine prologue implies, the ground of being is a conversation between two divine speakers, it seems only reasonable that the search for intelligibility here below takes place in the context of steady and loving conversation.  
In a lyrical and compelling section of “Truth and Method,” Hans-Georg Gadamer reminds us that a healthy conversation is something like a game.  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are carried away beyond themselves in such a way that the game is playing them much more than they are playing it.  In a similar way, when two or more interlocutors enter into the rhythm of an intellectual exchange, respectful of its rules and of one another, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  The fundamental requirement for this sort of shared self-transcendence is a moral one: each conversationalist has to surrender her need to dominate the play for her purposes; each must efface herself, not only before the others but, more importantly, before the transcendent goal that they all seek.  To have a conversation is humbly to accept the possibility that one’s take on things might be challenged or corrected, that the other’s perspective might be more relatively right than one’s own.  
Holding these thoughts with those of Pope Francis we can see that preaching has as its true basis the very common and universal reality of honest conversation and dialogue rather than the latest and currently trendy fad, philosophy or method.  Rather than belittling the preaching task these depth explorations of conversation and dialogue show forth the true richness of understanding afforded this important and critical task!
The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher of the Word, along with the people of God, is himself caught up in this ongoing conversation between the Lord and his people yet he has a truly unique and important role to play.  The preacher must allow himself to be caught up in the game and must constantly fight against the temptation to dominate the play for his purposes.  This is a renunciation and an asceticism that every preacher must develop in his life.  If a homily is too self-referential then it has missed the mark and probably most of the people of God have already tuned out.  To make use of the above analogy – a person cannot play a good and rousing game of tennis if he is more concerned about how he looks rather than the game!  To preach is to enter into the great game of the dialogue between our risen Lord and his people! 
The proper progress of the dialogue though is dependent upon respect of the rules given.  Here are a few that I find present and have sparked for me in the thoughts quoted above.  
Fundamentally, the dialogue is Christ’s and not my own.  If my preaching is to mean anything then somehow Christ must speak through my words to the heart of those who are gathered.  This means that I must learn how to get out of the way and not try to dominate the play for my own agenda or emotional needs.  My experience has taught me that this is not as easy to do as one might think but it is essential.
For my preaching to be effective I must be in dialogue with Christ myself and I must be in dialogue with the community of the Church.  The preacher must know Christ and allow himself to be known by Christ fully.   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 order to know his community, the preacher must be with his community.  He must have the “smell of his sheep” on him as Pope Francis has famously said.  When the community is not known there is always the danger of preaching at people rather than continuing the great dialogue that the Lord has begun.  Would it not be an extremely sad thing for a preacher to come before the gates of heaven only to there be brought to the realization that his preaching was more of an interruption and distraction to our Lord’s great dialogue with his people rather than an assistance?
If authentic preaching has as part of its basis knowledge of the community then homily preparation is just as much about visiting the homebound, celebrating with families, serving the poor and weeping with those who mourn as it is about studying the Scriptures and reflecting on Biblical commentaries.  The preacher who shuts himself away in a rectory or a parish office is stunting his preaching potential and doing a great disservice to his community.  Christ dwells in the midst of his people, especially the poor.  Whenever and wherever Christ is encountered deeper understanding of Sacred Scripture is gained.     
The homily is the ultimate moment of catechesis but it is not just catechesis.  Scriptural studies and commentaries can provide good and worthy insights for preaching but preaching should not just become a lecture on Scripture or the faith.  There are appropriate moments for that (i.e. Bible Studies or Faith formation) but it is not the homily.  The homily is not meant to give facts about Jesus or his time or a period in Israel’s history; the homily is meant to help people encounter Christ, right now in their lives!    
Another rule – the preacher must learn how to allow the dialogue to carry him!  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  In humble prayer, the preacher must first encounter the Word and let the Word speak to him, once something sparks then the preacher must let the Word carry him to where it wants him to go.  Again, this gets into not trying to dominate the conversation.  We need to trust that the Word of God is indeed active and alive and we need to trust that the Word will take us to what the community needs to hear.  I believe that it is the author Annie Dillard who once reflected that if you want to learn where a bee hive is (and hence find the honey) then you must first learn how to follow bees.  The preacher must learn how to be guided by what sparks for him from God’s holy Word.  The preacher must learn how to follow bees.
Some thoughts for consideration as this ongoing reflection on the importance of preaching to the great task of evangelization continues…                        

In Praise of the Imperfect: Lessons Learned from a Christmas Tree

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in beauty, Christmas, God's love, goodness, grace, imperfection, Messiah, truth

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I am from a family of four boys.  Usually around this time of year when we were growing up two of us would be given the task of getting the family Christmas tree down from the attic.  For us this was no small feat.  The tree was set in a large and heavy cardboard box.  Our main technique in regards to this task was shuffling the box to the top of the stairs, putting the front edge over the top step, lifting up the back of the box and then just letting it go!  The box would noisily slide down and come to a solid thump against the wall at the bottom of the stairway.  We would then wedge it out the doorway and into the hall.  This annual rite of retrieval gives an adequate portrayal of how this poor tree was treated over the years!  

It was the only tree I remember from my earliest Christmas’s and it remained a holiday fixture in my family’s home up until my first couple of years in college.  The tree consisted of a metal base, a three-piece wooden “trunk” with slots for the branches which varied in length.  The branches were made of a twisted metal with artificial, plastic needles comprising the greenery.  
It was never that beautiful of an artificial tree to begin with and over the years it became even less so.  One year a bird flew into the house immediately followed by our barking dog.  The bird landed in the tree; again, immediately followed by our barking dog!  This brought the tree down to a crashing thud, scattering ornaments everywhere!  The tree always had a bend to it after that year.  The ravages of Christmas wore on the tree.  After so many years there were just massive and solid wads of silver tinsel that could not be removed nor hidden.  Some branches gained bare spots as the plastic needles melted away after coming too close to the hot and large multi-colored Christmas lights.  At some point a couple of branches were lost.  (How do you misplace branches of a Christmas tree?)  It also did not seemingly help the cause that our parents made my brothers and I place tacky and not very attractive ornaments – made by ourselves as young children – on the tree each year.  All this being said; it was a wonder that we were able to assemble anything that even remotely resembled a Christmas tree each year.  
Yet we did and not only that, each year it somehow became quite beautiful.  After everything had been thrown on the tree – the new layer of tinsel, the ornaments, the lights, colored garlands – we would turn off the lights and stand back and gaze in wonder at the beauty of our tree!  When we were young, my brothers and I would lie under this very imperfect tree, with our heads touching the base and look up and it was beautiful – the lights, the ornaments, the branches…  It was like looking into a different world!  
Now that I am older I have come to realize something that my parents understood as they insisted that we not toss out the tree in favor of a “newer” and “more improved model”.  Our tree was made beautiful not in spite of its imperfections but because of its imperfections.  Somehow the tacky ornaments, the burnt branches, and the gobs of tinsel came together to make something quite beautiful and even magical each Christmas. 
This is a part of the great mystery; beauty and truth and goodness are found not in spite of our imperfections nor apart from them but in the very midst of our imperfections and even because of our imperfections.  This is an aspect of the mystery we await each Advent.  In the coming of Christ we realize that God does not abandon the imperfect.  We can often think that the contrary is the case.  Only when we are perfect will we then win affection and care!  Only when we are perfect will we achieve fulfillment!  The message so often told us, “Be perfect, or at least pretend to be, and abandon the imperfect!”  Yet, what a cold, lonely and ugly world that creates!
God does not abandon the imperfect and because of this Christians cannot abandon the imperfect and this includes even our very selves.  We are imperfect and God loves us.  God loves us and yet (at least in this world) we remain imperfect.  “My grace is made manifest in weakness,” says the Lord.  In other words, “God’s beauty shines forth!”
There is a freedom and a joy found here that the world just cannot match and also that the cultured despisers of Christianity fear (although they are loath to acknowledge it).  When we deny the Messiah and the need for one then we all must become messiahs unto ourselves.  We must be perfect!  What an unbearable weight to carry!      
When I acknowledge the Messiah, when I await his coming and realize my need then I realize that the job of “messiah” has already been filled.  I do not have to carry that weight!  I do not have to pretend to be perfect!  I can learn to be comfortable in my own skin and in who I am!  I can gain an authenticity that the world cannot afford because it is an authenticity rooted in the very fact that I am imperfect and yet I am beloved of the Father!   
As a priest of eighteen years now I am beginning to understand a little of the subversive nature of the sacrament of reconciliation.  In a time that cries out, “Be perfect!  Abandon, reject and distance yourself from the imperfect!” the Church quietly in reconciliation chapels and confessionals around the world provides a space (maybe for some the only space) where we can honestly acknowledge that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes – sometimes quite painful ones – and that we are loved by God even in our imperfections.  One fruit of true reconciliation is an authenticity that the world just cannot give.   
God does not abandon the imperfect and because of this; goodness, truth and beauty can be found not in spite of our imperfections but even in their very midst.