A reader writes:
In the parish I go to, I have discovered, many months ago, that the priest’s homily is always downloaded from the internet. It has gotten so that each Sunday, I would pick up a couple of key words said during the homily and then google those when I get home. Invariably, I would find the homily that he had delivered to our parish.
It is disappointing to me, because now I do not feel that the priest is actually devliering a ‘personal’ homily (whatever that means). Is it alright for a priest to be doing this? I was wondering if there was any Church law on homilies that touch on this matter.
I know that it’s diappointing when one realizes that a priest is not writing his own homilies, but there is no law against it.
THUS HOMILY SERVICES ABOUND ON THE INTERNET (AND IN PRINT).
Priests may offer different reasons for why they use such services. Some, for example, might appeal to how busy they are and argue that with the shrinking number of priests they are ever busier and thus more unable to find time to write a weekly homily.
If that is genuinely the case for a particular priest, then using a homily service is perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy as a way of obtaining (what one hopes is) quality material to present to one’s flock.
Too often, though, many might have trouble giving credence to this argument. To many laity, a large number of priests today give the appearance of being lazy lumps who do not have any idea how easy they’ve got it compared to people with jobs and families and who have an appalling bad "customer service" attitude that would make it difficult for them to hold down a job in the secular world if it involved working with the public.
The contrast with other priests who have a real work ethic, who do things expeditiously, and who make themselves available to people (without giving the appearance of being put-upon) is dramatic.
But then it’s probably always been that way. Chaucer would have had very little trouble getting Fr. Modern Put-Upon into the Canterbury Tales.
It also doesn’t seem that it should take that long to come up with a homily. As a public speaker who speaks on biblical subjects on a regular basis, I think that for a professional who preaches every week it should take no more than thirty minutes max (and that’s being generous) to come up with a good, basic five or ten minute homily explaining what the readings mean and what we can learn from them.
In fact, I think that (if I were a priest who reads the Bible and who’s been speaking for more than a handful of years), I’d be able to read the readings, think about them for five minutes, and then be able to get up and speak informatively about them for five or ten minutes in an extemporaneous fashion. (I say that because I’ve gotten to the point in my own speechifying that I normally know my subject well enough that I can talk extemporaneously based on a little prior reflection to think through the points I want to make.)
The trouble is that most priests don’t want to give good, basic homilies. They seem to think that they’ve got to be Deep and Inspiring and as a result they clutter up their homilies with all kinds of extraneous elements designed to make them seem Deep and Inspiring and that actually distract from telling us what the readings are about.
For example, how often do you have a priest start a homily with one of those patented Anecdotes Of Dubious Historicity That Are Only Connected To The Readings In The Most Tenuous Manner Imaginable? (Or the even worse Joke Of Dubious Humor Value That Everyone Feels Obliged To Chuckle At So As Not To Be Rude.)
It’s like they teach ‘em in seminary that it’s not okay to approach the readings directly, that they must only be approached obliquely.
A number of years ago, someone caught me overusing anecdotes and pointed out that what I said would be a lot more powerful if I said what I wanted to say straight out instead of trying to cloak it in a disguise that might be emotionally meaningful for me but likely would only confuse or bore others. I didn’t like it when he told me that, but he was right, and I wish more priests learned the same lesson.
The problem is that you can’t be Profound every week, and if you
try, you’ll fail. The solution is not to try to be Profound every week
and only go for profundity when you yourself are feeling particularly
inspired.
But rather than do this, many priests use artsy tricks to try to create the appearance of profundity.
Some priests even seem to have definite literary forms worked out for their homilies. One priest who I see preach regularly (and who I suspect is using a homily service) always, always starts his homily with an Anecdote of Dubious Historicity and then languidly gets around to maybe, kinda discussing the readings and then summing up by formulating things into a kind of "Do I want to be this kind of person or that kind of person?" question, at which point he says "You decide!" and walks back to the chair.
Same thing each time I see him preach. Every. Single. Time.
How much more refreshing it would be if he cut the "artsy" stuff and simply began by saying, "In today’s Gospel, Jesus tell us that . . . " or "In the second reading, St. Paul says that . . . "
What a breath of fresh air that would be! Straight into the subject without having to sit through an iffy anecdote or joke!
The poor state of contemporary homiletics is really criminal, because with the Church in the condition it is at present, the faithful desperately need to be instructed in their faith. The homily is the one time that the priest can really reach his core audience with instruction in the faith, and wasting the opportunity on a bunch of fluffle is simply unsupportable in the present environment (or, for that matter, in any environment).
What counts is getting people instructed in their faith and how the readings relate to that.
Which brings up a point.
I can think of one really good, iron-clad reason for using a homily service: If a priest has found a particular service that consistently delivers quality homilies that are better than the ones he could write himself then it is not only legitimate but also praiseworthy for him to use it. He is doing something that genuinely will better serve the people to whom he ministers.
More power to him!
In fact, in olden days it was common for great preachers (e.g., Cardinal Newman)–and great non-Catholic preachers (e.g., John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon)–to publish books of their homilies and sermons for the edification of other priests and ministers and even the faithful.
I don’t see a problem with that.
Given the technology of the time, these homilies were distributed by book or booklet rather than being downloadable from the Internet, but they still provided the function of helping priests (and, in the Protestant community, ministers) of delivering higher quality material than they otherwise would have.
I thus don’t so much have a problem with contemporary homily services in themselves.
I have a problem with the quality of the fluff they churn out.
