Category Archives: Homilies

The Ambo: The Open Tomb of Christ

Empty TombTry this on for size: the ambo from which we proclaim the Gospel and preach has its origins in the earliest days of the Church, as a sign of the open tomb of Christ from which the deacon would proclaim the Good News of salvation and new life.

In reviewing some material on early pioneers of the renewed diaconate, I came across this wonderful insight from an early promoter of the diaconate in Spain: Bishop Pere Tena Garriga, who passed away earlier this year.  He served as a renowned professor of liturgical theology for many years, was then the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments at the Holy See from 1987-2004, and also served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Barcelona from 1993 until his retirement in 2004.

Tena GarrigaShortly before his death, Bishop Tena Garriga was interviewed by Deacon Rob Mascini from the Netherlands, the former long-time President of the International Diaconate Center headquartered in Rottenburg, Germany. Deacon Mascini has now completed and published (in Dutch) a wonderful book on the international pioneers of the renewed diaconate and we are working to get it translated and published in English as well. Bishop Tene Garriga was one of those pioneers.

During the bishop’s interview, he recalled not only the ravages of global war and depression on Spain (as well as the rest of the world), but also the particular tragedies surrounding the Civil War and the horrors which still affect so many people in Spain. He spoke of the death of Franco in 1975 as a great “relief and memorable moment” for all in Spain. It was only at this point that the Church could truly rebuild itself in light of the Second Vatican Council, and one of the elements of that rebuilding was the renewed diaconate. As a theologian and later as bishop, Garriga was an early proponent of a renewed diaconate in Spain, following the lead of the Council Father and Cardinal-Archbishop of Barcelona, Narciso Jubany Arnau. Following the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1975, Jubany Arnau was central in his country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. In 1977, he was instrumental in the formation of an interested group of priests and laity who became known as “The Friends of the Diaconate.”

Empty Tomb 2During the interview with Deacon Mascini, the retired bishop stressed the role of preaching as critical to the ministry of the deacon. He referred first to the ancient liturgies, often in the catacombs, in which the episkopos would celebrate Mass over the bones of the martyrs. The deacon, likewise, was directed by the bishop to proclaim the Gospel from an open tomb nearby in order to stress the fact that the Gospel leads us out of our own tombs and into new life. The bishop remarked, “Do you realize that the ambo of today represents the open grave of Jesus on Easter morning? The deacon filled the role of the angel who proclaimed the resurrection.” He continued, “Today in the old basilicas of Rome you can still see the high ambos where the deacons later proclaimed the Gospel. Next to the ambo stands the Easter candle, representing the risen Christ. It is also the place from which the deacon chants the Exultet. . . . He proclaims life and light for the communion he is part of, and who he serves. Together with his bishop, the deacon should lead the church in such a way that the concrete message of life is a constant source of hope. Rooted deep in the deacon’s ministry is a sacramental dimension that is essential for the Church.”

This idea of the ambo as a representation of the empty tomb of Christ on Easter is a stunning challenge to all of us charged with proclaiming the Gospel, not only during the Mass, but through our lives. It can also focus our preaching as the constant call to move from death to life for all the people we serve.

Over the years I have been writing about the reasons behind the renewal of a diaconate permanently exercised in the Church today. Repeatedly we have found that the inspiration for the diaconate is to be found in the concrete and often messy needs of very real people facing very real tragedies, horrors and terrors today. The diaconate did not emerge out of a theological theory or some abstract principle: our task is proclaim life in the face of death, hope out of despair, and meaning out of chaos. Understanding the ambo as representing the empty tomb of Christ should inspire us all.

Preaching Like the Pope in Nine Easy Lessons

Francis preaching 3Within the context of a universal call to proclaim the Gospel by all the baptized, the Pope now turns his attention to the liturgical homily.  He refers to the homily as “the touchstone” for judging a minister’s (he specifies “pastor” but given what he is about to say, it would apply as well to all bishops, deacons and presbyters) “closeness and ability to communicate to his people.”  And so he begins his short course on homiletics.

Lesson #1:  The Homily as Experience, Encounter, and Source of Renewal

Youth-PossibilityPope Francis reminds all homilists of the potential of the homily.  Rather than something to be dreaded by all concerned, the homily should be “an intense and happy experience of the Spirit, a consoling encounter with God’s word, a constant source of renewal and growth.”  The initiative is all on God’s part: God wishes to communicate with God’s People, using the preacher as His instrument.  The homily is, therefore first and foremost, God’s loving outreach to His People.  Once the preacher thinks he is preaching his own message, the homily is doomed.  This is a great comfort to preachers!  A homily is not just another speech we might devise; it is an attempt to find God’s will and God’s words.  Our focus is on God and on the People: we’re just a go-between trying to help the connection between the two.

Lesson #2:  The Liturgical Context

Francis preaching 2The homily occurs during a liturgical celebration, and this further assists the homilist.  Pope Francis quotes Pope John Paul II: “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.”  But Pope Francis goes further: “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 leads up to sacramental communion.”  We are told in the liturgical books that when the scriptures are read in Church, it is Christ who proclaims: in the homily during the Eucharist, Christ continues that conversation.  Furthermore, the homily for us is not the only action of Christ during the liturgy!  The pope reminds us that, even though the human skill of the preacher might permit him to drone on and on (well, OK, so the Pope doesn’t say “drone”; but he does say that the homily “should be brief” because if it goes on too long it will affect “the balance and the rhythm” of the liturgy.  Since the homily is itself liturgical, it should “guide the assembly, and the preacher, to a life-changing communion with Christ in the Eucharist.”

Lesson #3: Talk With Your Mother

mother and childIn a lovely passage (##139-141) the Pope reminds us that the Church is a mother, and so “she preaches in the same way that a mother speaks to her child, knowing that the child trusts that what she is teaching is for his or her benefit, for children know that they are loved.”  But he also points out that the good mother listens to the concerns of her children and learns from them.  The preacher is “to hear the faith of God’s people. . . . The language is a kind of music which inspires encouragement, strength and enthusiasm.”  All of this should be found through “the closeness of the preacher, the warmth of his tone of voice, the unpretentiousness of his manner of speaking, the joy of his gestures.”  Pope Francis speaks of the great dialogue Christ had with the people of his day, a dialogue he wishes to continue.  The secret to Christ’s approach, he says, “lies in the way Jesus looked at people, seeing beyond their weaknesses and failings.”  He is full of the joy of his relationship with his Father.

Lesson #4: Choose Words of the Heart

holding the lightOnce again the pope uses the language of dialogue, which “is so much more than the communication of a truth.  It arises from the enjoyment of speaking and it enriches those who express their love for one another through the medium of words.”  This enjoyment is not simply in “objects” but in the persons participating in the dialogue.  The pope cautions that we are not dealing with “abstract truths or cold syllogisms” but through the beauty of images and wonder, a source of hope from the joyful and practical exercise of the love they have received.  “The challenge of an inculturated preaching consists in proclaiming a synthesis, not ideas or detached values.  Where your synthesis is, there lies your heart” (#143).   Words mediate meaning, but the right words also join two hearts: God and the People.  It falls to the preacher, who should know both God and the People so well, to find the right words to build up this loving covenant of Heart to hearts.

Lesson #5: Reverence for Truth

preachingorgheader1Turning his attention to the actual preparation of the homily, the pope encourages a “prolonged time of study, prayer, reflection and pastoral creativity.”  Almost apologetically, the pope says, “I wish to stop for a moment and offer a method of preparing homilies.”  He knows that most preachers are so busy with pastoral responsibilities that it is often hard to find the time to devote to this proper preparation.

Nonetheless, I presume to ask that each week a sufficient portion of personal and community time be dedicated to this task, even if less time has to be given to other important activities. . . .  A preacher who does not prepare is not ‘spiritual’; his is dishonest and irresponsible with the gifts he has received.

After prayer, our entire attention is to be given to the biblical text, “which needs to be the basis of our preaching.”  In great humility, we are to pause often and seek a greater understanding of the text.  This is what the Pope calls “reverence for the Truth.”  “To interpret a biblical text, we need to be patient, to put aside all other concerns, and to give it our time, interest and undivided attention.”  The pope is clear: if you’re looking for quick results, you are going about it all wrong.  “Preparation for preaching requires love.  We only devote periods of quiet time to the things or the people whom we love; and here we are speaking of the God whom we love, a God who wishes to speak to us. . . . ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening'” (1 Sam 3:9).

Next, we must understand the meaning of the words we read.  However, the pope says, while we do want to use all of our critical tools in analyzing the text, the single most important thing is to find its principal message, “the message which gives structure and unity to the text.”  The preacher should also use the text as it was intended:

If a text was written to console, it should not be used to correct errors; if it was written as an exhortation, it should not be employed to teach doctrine; if it was written to teach something about God, it should not be used to expound various theological opinions; it it was written as a summons to praise or missionary outreach, let us not use it to talk about the latest news.

Lesson #6: Personalize the Word

kneeling_in_prayer1The preacher needs a “great personal familiarity with the word of God.”  We must approach the word “with a docile and prayerful heart so that it may deeply penetrate his thoughts and feelings and about a new outlook. . . .”

It is good for us to renew our fervor each day and every Sunday as we prepare the homily, examining ourselves to see if we have grown in love for the word which we preach. . . .  If we have a lively desire to be the first to hear the word which we must preach, this will surely be communicated to God’s faithful people. . . .”

This wonderful examination of conscience helps us to avoid the anger of Jesus who “was angered by those supposed teachers who demanded much of others, teaching God’s word but without being enlightened by it. . . . The apostle James exhorted: ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness” (Jas 3:1).  The word of God must become incarnate in the daily life of the preacher.

The preacher’s attitude is one of total humility and dependence upon the Holy Spirit: “the Holy Spirit places on his lips the words which he could not find by himself.”

Lesson #7: Spiritual Reading: Lectio Divina

Fully integrated into the search for the scripture passage’s principal message is the prayerful reading of scripture and finding its application in the preacher’s own life.   The pope offers a wonderful series of questions for reflection:

  1. What does this text say to me?
  2. What is it about my life that you want to change by this text?
  3. What troubles me about this text?
  4. Why am I not interested in this?
  5. What do I find pleasant in this text?
  6. What is it about this word that moves me?
  7. What attracts me?
  8. Why does it attract me?

Lesson #8:  An Ear to the People

Pope Francis, as we have seen so many times in the past, always speaks in terms resonating with the ideas of the Second Vatican Council.  Consider the following citations from the beginning of Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes:

1. The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. . . .

4. The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics. . . .

Now hear Pope Francis (citing Pope Paul VI’s landmark Evangelii Nuntiandi) as he exhorts preachers to have “an ear to the people.”  “A preacher has to contemplate the word, but he also has to contemplate his people.  In this way he learns ‘of the aspirations, of riches and limitations, of ways of praying, of loving, of looking at life and world, which distinguish this or that human gathering,’ while paying attention ‘to actual people, to using their language, their signs and symbols, to answering the questions they ask.’

The pope notes that we need to truly understand what really affects people’s lives: their experience is what matters, and the pope remarks that “we should never respond to questions that nobody asks”!  The homily is more than a simple challenge of current affairs: we are to respond to human experience “in light of the Gospel”: challenging what needs to be challenged, affirming what is to be affirmed.

Lesson #9: Homiletic Resources

Here the pope challenges preachers to attend to the technical aspects of homily preparation and delivery.  While the primary focus is always spiritual, even these technical components have a spiritual foundation.  He first lists “imagery”: how well do we find and use appropriate images in our homilies?  Not merely examples, which appeal to the mind, but images, which appeal to the whole person.  Again citing Paul VI, preaching should be “simple, clear, direct, well-adapted.”  He cautions that many preachers fall into the trap of using the technical and theological words learned through years of formation and education; we must adapt our language accordingly to be understood.  It must be well-organized as well: there should be “thematic unity, clear order and correlation between sentences.”  Finally, the homily must be positive.  We should focus less on what should not be done, but with what we can do better.  “Positive preaching always offers hope, points to the future, does not leave us trapped in negativity.”  Let me recap the resources the pope highlights:

  1. Use of imagery more than examples
  2. Simple language
  3. Clearly presented
  4. Well-Adapted
  5. Thematic Unity
  6. Clear Order and Correlation in Structure
  7. Positive

That’s it!  Preaching Like the Pope in Nine Easy Lessons!

“How good it is when priests, deacons and the laity gather periodically to discover resources which can make preaching more attractive.”

bible.17

Preaching Like the Pope, Part One

Francis preaching 4Want to preach like the Pope?

Many images have been filling ecclesial cyberspace over the last few days: Pope Francis sending a video to a Kenneth Copeland charismatic rally of Evangelical Christians in Texas, the creation of new Cardinals from around the world, his homilies, his Angelus message and so much more.  During the Angelus this weekend, for example, the Pope observed that “a community does not belong to the preacher, but to Christ”.

Francis to EvangelicalsPope Francis has become renowned for his preaching: not just in his content, but in the way he does it.  Want to preach like the Pope?  Francis gives us all a homiletics class in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, so I’d like to take a closer look at that section of the Exhortation.

The pope’s teaching on the homily is part of a grand chapter on “The Proclamation of the Gospel.”  The chapter consists of four major sections, each of which demands significant attention: “The Entire People of God Proclaims the Gospel,” “The Homily,” “Preparing to Preach,” and “Evangelization and the Deeper Understanding of the Kerygma.”  The homily is the heart of the chapter.  But this heart beats within the larger body of the Gospel, so let’s look a bit at the first section of the chapter.  That will be the subject of this blog post; I’ll follow up with another on the homily itself.

The Entire People of God Proclaims the Gospel

DisciplesPope Francis begins by reminding his readers that “the Church. . . is more than an organic and hierarchical institution; she is first and foremost a people advancing on its pilgrim way toward God.”  Acknowledging the Church as a Trinitarian mystery, the pope emphasizes that “she exists concretely in history as a people of pilgrims and evangelizers, transcending any institutional expression, however necessary.”

Everything about the Church begins with God: not simply a human desire for community, but God’s offer of communion and eternal life, an offer that the pope stresses “for everyone”:

Jesus did not tell the apostles to form an exclusive and elite group.  He said: “God and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).  St. Paul us in the people of God, in the Church, “there is neither Jew or Greek. . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

Not long ago, reports emerged from several locations about bishops who were objecting to certain songs and hymns on theological grounds.  One example was the song, “All are Welcome.”  The apparent argument is that, in fact, NOT “all are welcome.”  I do not critique the musical appropriateness of certain hymns and songs, but certainly a theology which suggests that the Church is not a place where “all are welcome” is certainly flawed.  All of us are sinners, and all of us need the “hospital” that is the Church.  And, despite recent liturgical translations to the contrary, Christ did indeed die and rise for all.  To suggest that his soteriological mission was selective in intent and effect is likewise flawed.  This is not a facile “universalism”; rather it speaks to the scope and intent of Christ’s kenosis and mission.

The great themes of the Second Vatican Council have always formed the foundation of this pope’s teaching.  Consider this paragraph from Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes, #40:

Coming forth from the eternal Father’s love, founded in time by Christ the Redeemer and made one in the Holy Spirit, the Church has a saving and an eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the future world. But she is already present in this world, and is composed of men, that is, of members of the earthly city who have a call to form the family of God’s children during the present history of the human race, and to keep increasing it until the Lord returns. United on behalf of heavenly values and enriched by them, this family has been “constituted and structured as a society in this world” by Christ, and is equipped “by appropriate means for visible and social union.” Thus the Church, at once “a visible association and a spiritual community,” goes forward together with humanity and experiences the same earthly lot which the world does. She serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society as it is to be renewed in Christ and transformed into God’s family.

Now, here is Pope Francis, fleshing out that last sentence:

Being Church means being God’s people, in accordance with the great plan of his fatherly love.  This means that we are to be God’s leaven in the midst of humanity.  It means proclaiming and bring God’s salvation into our world, which often goes astray and needs to be encouraged, given hope and strengthened on the way.  The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.

The Pope then turns to the role of culture in evangelization, stressing that no one culture incarnates the Gospel; rather, “Grace supposes culture, and God’s gift becomes flesh in the culture of those who receive it.”  He speaks of the “logic of the incarnation,” the whole design and effect of God’s becoming human: “Evangelization joyfully acknowledges these varied treasures which the Holy Spirit pours out upon the Church.  We would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as monocultural and monotonous. . . .  it’s content is transcultural.”

hulaSuch a teaching raises many questions, challenges and opportunities, of course.  Take just one example from the so-called “liturgy wars”: the elements of liturgy are nothing if not culturally expressive!  While a particular culture may find meaning through particular forms of chant or movement, other cultures — expressing the same religious truths — would be better served by their own cultural lens.  For example, a European-based community might find Gregorian chant and processions evocative and full of meaning.  A Hawaiian community might find mele and hula better suited to expressing the richness of Christianity.  The gesture of striking one’s breast as a sign of penitence has meaning in certain cultures, but in certain African traditions the same gesture is a sign of threat and challenge: to prescribe one gesture over another would make no cultural sense and might actually serve to distort religious truth!  The Pope puts its this way:

We cannot demand that peoples of every continent, in expressing their Christian faith, imitate modes of expression which European nations developed at a particular moment in their history, because the faith cannot be constricted to the limits of understanding and expression of any one culture.  It is an indisputable fact that no single culture can exhaust the mystery of our redemption in Christ.

The pope then turns to the notion that all are missionary disciples, each and every baptized person.  Furthermore, “all of us are called to mature in our work as evangelizers.  We want to have have better training, a deepening love and a clearer witness to the Gospel. . . . Our falling short of perfection should be no excuse; on the contrary, mission is a constant stimulus not to remain mired in mediocrity but to continue growing.”

Finally, Pope Francis presents a strong reflection on “the evangelizing power of popular piety.”  More than simple expressions of faith, forms of personal piety incarnate powerful theological richness: “Nor is it devoid of content; rather it discovers and expresses that content more by way of symbols than by discursive reasoning, and in the act of faith greater accent is placed on credere in Deum than on credere Deum.”  It appeals to the heart as well as the head.

Francis preachingIn his treatment of personal testimony and the charisms available to each one as an evangelizer, the pope stresses a mufti-faceted approach: through the specific forms of each culture and the varied means of communication: “We should not think, however, that the Gospel message must always be communicated by fixed formulations learned by heart or by specific words which express an absolutely invariable content.  This communication takes place in so many different ways that it would be impossible to describe or catalogue them all, and God’s people, with all their many gestures and signs, are its collective subject.”

It is within this context that the Pope turns his attention to the subject of the liturgical homily.  So do we.

Francis preaching 3

 

Kevin McCallister: “I’m living alone! I’m living alone!” Jesus the Christ: “I’m NOT!”

This was the homKevinily I gave last night; with a few minor changes, I gave it in similar form at the Masses today as well.

Bottom line: Young Kevin McCallister, in Home Alone, decides that when he gets big, he’s going to live alone — family life is just too tough for him to imagine!  Our God, coming to us, is exactly the opposite: Christ chooses to come to us precisely through the relationships of family and community, with all the challenges that presents!