Since I knew I’d be visiting the mud volcanoes on Dec. 8, I went to the vigil Mass for the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 7th.
The priest was Fr. "You Decide!"–so named because his homilies ALWAYS follow a set formula of opening with a joke and then concluding with him posing a rhetorical question about whether you should do A (an obviously bad thing) or B (an obviously good thing), at which point he says "You decide!" and goes and sits down again.
Only that’s NOT what he did for the Immaculate Conception!!!
Instead he opened by explaining, in simple terms, what the Immaculate Conception is. (I.e., no opening joke–and actually EXPLAINING CHURCH TEACHING yet!)
Then he talked about the meaning of the doctrine and about history and how we should pray more. And he gave a specific recommendation of praying the Angelus as an example of a traditional prayer.
And then he finished and didn’t say "You decide!" It was an honest, straightforward homily without artificial encumbrances that explained Church teaching and sought to apply it to the congregation’s lives in a way that involved specific suggestions instead of vague generalities. In short: It was what a homily is SUPPOSED to be.
It was GREAT!
Now, Fr. "You Decide!" always makes a bee-line for the sacristy after Mass, so I followed him into the sacristy and said:
<great sincerity>Excuse me, Father, but I just wanted to say that I thought that was the best homily I’ve ever heard you preach. It was simple, direct, and explained Church teaching without any artificiality and with specific suggestions for what we could do, and I wanted to thank you for it.</great sincerity>
Just wanted to give credit where credit was due–and hopefully reinforce this kind of homily.
Who knows? Perhaps soon he’ll be known as "The Priest Formerly Known As ‘Fr. You Decide!’"
so I followed him into the sacristy and said:
Excuse me, Father, but I just wanted to say that I thought that was the best homily I’ve ever heard you preach. It was simple, direct, and explained Church teaching without any artificiality and with specific suggestions for what we could do, and I wanted to thank you for it
So, what was his response? Was he appreciative of the vote of confidence?
From Fr. “You Decide!” to Fr. “Roma locuta est!”
Perhaps, Father secretly reads your blog.
So, what was his response? Was he appreciative of the vote of confidence?
He did.
The priest celebrating the Mass I went to on Thursday also did something very similar. He explained the immaculate conception, explained why it was necessary that it occur (and why it is ridiculous to say that it didn’t), explained the importance of Mary (drawing heaviliy on St. Louis de Monteforte), and then tied it all into abortion. It was the greatest homily I ever heard. I was with a cradle Catholic who has been having serious reservations about her faith for almost a year, and she was drawn very deeply into listening to it. She seemed to gain a great deal from it, thanks be to God.
WOW! We got Deacon Somebody who started off talking about how a teacher friend he knew explained to him that there is an art to sending a child up to the blackboard to explain a math problem. You can’t send the slowest in the class because they will just confuse everyone. You can’t send the brightest in the class because they will end up more confused and feeling worse about themselves. You have to send the average student, the one they can all relate to. So when God had to choose who to send to the blackboard, he chose…wait for it… Mary. The average girl who was like the rest of us and to whom we could relate. Ugh!
That’s wonderful. I only wish I could say I had a similar experience. Now normally I drive about 30 minutes to attend mass and the priest at the church I regularly attend is noted for his wonderful teaching homilies – he is truly a gifted speaker and is accord with the traditional teachings of the church —- but that night it was snowing and I had to go to a city about 30 miles north of my home for work so I went to a church I don’t normally attend. Now the masses I’m used to usually go about an hour and 15 minutes — the mass I attended that night went 35 minutes! The priest did not really give a homily – when the time came he thanked people in the congregation who had prayed for him (he’d been seriously ill recently) and said he was recovering and that he believed that the prayers of the congregation helped him — now as wonderful as that news was — I would have liked to hear a word or two about the immaculate conception — but not a jot. Next time, snow or no – I’m going to my regular church. But, it’s sad to think that for many Catholics this is their regular fare.
I have to say, Trish, it sounds like there might have been extenuating circumstances at the Mass you attended. Obviously, the priest had been quite ill, and perhaps was still ill, and offering a Mass anyway. This might have hindered his preaching capacity. I work very closely with priests in my work, and I can tell you that many work very hard even when they are ill, so please cut the guy a break.
Also, the feast is on a weekday, people don’t all get off from work/cub scouts/ soccer practice, and sometimes, a 35 minute Mass is one people will come to, and 75 minute mass may not be.
Just some thoughts. Maybe, in a parish that isn’t your own, when things aren’t quite what you are used to, if they aren’t blatantly awful, they aren’t what they seem.
My priest gave an awesome homily.
We weren’t able to get to our regular parish, so we went to the more local one (I’ll ignore the ‘nobody nearby had a vigil mass’ rant). This is the parish I actually grew up in. The pastor who’s been there for about 2 ish years or so gave the homily. Like all of his homilies, there wasn’t anything WRONG with it, just nothing RIGHT. After mass, my wife and I were talking about it, and I came up with a great description. After his homily, you feel like you have to go to the dentist. All of them are so sugary sweet and fluff, that while he never contradicts any Church teaching, you never feel enlightened either.
We had a black Jesuit priest from Cleveland visit our parish and give the homily yesterday. He was cool, a very powerful preacher, but I thought I was in a Southern Baptist church for a few minutes there; he was going buck-wild. “Clap your hands-UH for Je-SUS! Can I get a AMEN?” He had the whole parish clapping along as he sung, “Can’t Nobody Do You Like Jesus.” It was surreal. At the end of his homily, the entire parish broke into applause.
Thanks for your opinion, JD. I was very sympathetic to the priest and very touched to hear that he was recovering from illness. If it sounded like I wasn’t – then I gave the wrong impression.
My point was, that he did not give a homily of any kind – he only briefly told us about his health condition – there was not a word of explanation of the Immaculate Conception – and it is a doctrine that is not well understood. And, there was a Deacon who assisted with mass who could have done the homily if the priest was not up to it. In fact, I half expected the Deacon to start the homily after the priest said the few words about his health but that didn’t happen.
I’ve been to this church before – so I was not expecting the same level of worship that I’m used to but worship was lacking, and on such an important feast day, the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, I missed it.
Our new associate pastor gave a great homily on Mary this 3rd Sunday of Advent. He also mentioned the fact that Thursday was a Holy Day and that every Catholic was expected to attend a Mass. He posted his Homily on his website:
The Third Sunday of Advent, B, Knowledge of Mary
December 12th, 2005
The Lord gave me some really interesting insights into this while i was preaching – including a really neat analogy of a 10,000 piece puzzle “The Clear Blue Sky.” Mary is like the puzzle box. She is the image that we look to to see it done right. She is an ideal that we would litteraly be lost without…
Anyway – enjoy.
Today marks a turning point for us in this Advent Season. We shift now from the looking inward and preparing our hearts to the need to look outward with Joy to the Lord and to his blessed mother.
The turn is marked by the wearing of a rose – not pink! – vestment and a turn in preaching from the internal to the knowledge of Mary and next week, of Jesus.
It may seem odd to speak of a need for knowledge of Mary. She is often seen as an option – one among many. You can choose to pray the rosary or not – Mary is just one of many saints…
But the reality is that Mary is wholly unique. On Thursday, we celebrated the fact that she alone among all human beings was born without original sin. Further, knowledge of Mary was considered a necessity for many of the great saints, not the least of which was Pope John Paul the Great.
This is so for at least two reasons. First, Mary is in the ideal of the human person. She is as Adam and eve were before the fall. She is free from sin and so her virtue and love comes naturally, as ours would have if not for the damage done to human nature by sin. Mary shows us who we were created to be and who we will be once we’ve been fully restored by the Lord. She is for us an icon of our ultimate vocation to holiness and living rightly with the Lord.
This aspect of Mary is representative for these last two weeks. We’ve looked into ourselves and seen those things in our lives that are like this – that are as they should be… Our gifts, our graces, our hopes, and dreams. We’ve also looked inside and seen those things that are not as they should be… our sins, our failings, our fears, our scars… And in Mary we have the benchmark and perfection of what we SHOULD be striving for.
But this day marks the motion from inward looking to outward and so the second reason we look so intently and necessarily to Mary is because she is an image of the Church. Mary is a type of the Church before the Church herself was formed.
We can begin to see this in a meditation Pope John Paul the great wrote about Mary:
In his mediation on the apostles praying in the upper room before Pentecost, the pope notes that Luke’s statement mentions the presence in the upper room of some women, thus showing the importance of the feminine contribution to the Church’s life from the very beginning. This presence is closely linked to the perseverance of the community in prayer and harmony. These traits perfectly express two basic aspects of women’s contribution to the ecclesial life. Better suited toward outward activity, men need women’s help to be brought into personal relationships in order to progress toward the union of hearts.
Mary’s femininity, her receptivity, her humility, her obedience, and her love are all critical elements of the Church in the World. In looking to Mary, we can see our own place within the Church.
So often, the world would like to portray the Church as a corporation charged with organizing religious ideas and morals. They would like to see the Church as a business or a social club or a ritualistic support group. But, at its heart, the Church is just like Mary, the Church is Mater et Magistra – Mother and Teacher. She is charged with coming to the aid of those who are spiritually lost and teaching the truth of Jesus Christ to the world in word and deed. If we’re to find our place in this mission as lay people, we must look to Mary who was the first lay person, so to speak. She provides the image of the Church and the image of someone in the Church. In meditating upon Mary we’re able to understand who the Church is called to be and where we’re called to be in her.
Now, these are very high theological and spiritual concepts – and although they’re not easy – they are critical, because, as I said, all of the great saints have called us to have a relationship with Mary… They haven’t said it’s option, they’ve said it’s a must…
Concretely, we need to do two things.
First, we need to pay attention to our Lady in the Scriptures. Mary appears in the Gospels certainly – and we need to pay attention to the things she says and the things she does… You may have noticed that our responsorial psalm wasn’t a psalm – it was the words of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth – My Soul maginifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior…
But Mary also appears in the book of revelation as the Woman clothed in the Sun, she appears indirectly in the Old Testament – we all know the words of the prophet Isaiah – “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son…” We need to make sure that we pay attention to the place of Mary in the scriptures, because she, more than anyone else in scripture – except Jesus of course – is for us an image of our vocation…
Second, we must pray to Mary… We don’t pray to Mary as a god. Mary is not a God. We pray to Mary because she is so near the Lord… Think about it – when we need prayers for ourselves or for friends and family – we look for people we consider as holy… It’s logical that a person closer to the Lord is better equipped to pray to the Lord for some intention. We don’t go look for a corrupt politician or an atheist – we want someone closer to God. Ultimately, if we believe that there is a heaven and that there is eternal life, then we have to believe that the saints in heaven can see us – they have complete knowledge in heaven – this has long been Catholic belief. If the saints can hear us – then we should be going to them to ask for prayer. And more than any – our Lady. She, more than any other is close to the Lord in a way no one else can be… We need to pray to her than she would bring our needs and prayers before her Son… That’s our prayer.
The most common marian prayer begins Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you… From the annunciation. The Second sentence is from her encounter with her cousin Elizabeth – Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your Womb… We then say – Holy Mary, Mother of God, PRAY FOR US…
Whether we pray the Rosary or we pray spontaneously, we must bring our needs before Mary and ask her to bring them before Jesus. She is not an option.
As we move toward the end of Advent, Christmas, let us turn our eyes joyfully toward Mary who is the model of our faith. Let us pay attention to her, especially in the scriptures, and learn from her the way of holiness.
ps, what an awesome homily.
My priest gave a homily that talked about how Mary is the mediatrix of all graces. These graces are indispensible for the salvation of all. Such graces as the Rosary,
the Seven Sorrows devotion and others. Those who
pay no honor to the Queen of heaven and Earth
will not go to heaven.
He concluded by saying those who reject Mary,
by refusing to pay her the honor that she is entitled to, as our Mother forfeit their salvation and cannot be saved. For the person who will not have The Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Blessed Virgin Mary for his Mother, and honor her, cannot have God for his Father.
Amen.
Kosh,
You should meet this priest. He’s only been ordained since about May/June. You never see him except in black and with the collar!
And one of his fellow new priests told everyone at Mass on Sunday that no one who failed to attend Thursday Mass without a valid reason should receive communion until they had confessed the sin.
Our Diocese has some OUTSTANDING new priests!
God Bless
I just wanted to take a minute to congratulate Jimmy on speaking to the priest about his homily. Very well done.
Let your pastor/presider know when he’s done a good job AND let him know when he’s failed to do a good job.
Try these:
1). Did he preach the Gospel? I mean, did he actually preach on the text of the day? Did he use all of the readings?
2). Did he preach/teach with the mind of the Church? In other words, did he humbly submit himself to the 2,000 year wisdom of the Church and allow his gifts to be used to spread God’s Word? Or did he blather on about his own agenda?
3). Tell him what you remembered: good, bad, ugly.
4). Tell him what you didn’t understand…and why.
5). Be slow to take offense until you’ve actually talked to the guy about what he said. I was accused of being anti-Semitic b/c I said Jesus came to fulfill the Old Law! My accuser blabbed his thoughts all over the place and has yet to talk to me directly.
6). Be constructively critical of how the homily is delivered. I read all my homilies. I tend to ramble if I don’t have a text. I’ve been told that I talk too fast, so I’ve made a conscious effort to slow it down.
7). Did the preacher say something useful to your growth in holiness?
8). Is there solid evidence that the homily preached grew out of prayer?
I’m sure there are others! But PLEASE–speak up! Catholic preaching ain’t gonna get better until Catholic preachers are expected to be better.
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Let your pastor/presider know when he’s done a good job AND let him know when he’s failed to do a good job.
Fr. Philip,
Since the first part is easy, can you provide some solid examples of how I might share the second part?
Father Phillip,
many dominicans i know do not preach during the week. what is this about?
In the past, when I have heard Heresy spoken during the Homily, I would wait until the end of the Mass and privately ask the Priest why he said what he did, and cite dogmatic definitions to the contrary, or bibilcal passages to make my point.
The responses I received were threefold.
The classic was, ” you misunderstood me “, followed by , that’s the way I see it, and third, I was taught that in the seminary.
Some examples include one homily where the priest said ” all dogma’s are inventions of men, ( and he is a canon lawyer to boot !)
and many were designed to create division between peoples. ”
Another was ” Jesus never intended to establish a church”.
My practice now is to stand up in the church when I hear such teachings and proceed to slowly walk out of the church with the entire family. The procession down the isle cannot be missed, by the priest.
We return to the pew when the homily is concluded.
It makes people ask what was that all about. And then I can tell them, I will not let my family be harmed by heresy, and we will not be deprived of the Sacraments because if it.
I also replace the check, in the envelop with a note to the pastor, explaing why there is no money in my envelop this week.
I also leave when any priest allows a non Catholic to essentially preach, or given a commerical during the Homily.
Some priests will deliver a 30 second homily and then introduce a guest speaker, who is pitching some program or event.
I am fairly certain this is a violation of canon law, but if not, it is certainly a tolerated abuse.
Barabra writes, “Since the first part is easy, can you provide some solid examples of how I might share the second part?”
Really, it depends on the pastor/presider. I take criticism well, so being blunt with me is fine. I think this is the result of living in a religious community where NOTHING one does goes unremarked upon…ahem…
I think asking to see him privately is good. No one likes to be critiqued in public. There’s also the whole problem of trying to carry on a critical conversation in the reception line after Mass. Not good. If your problem is with content, start by assuming you’ve misunderstood something and ask for clarification. If you haven’t misunderstood and the clarification doesn’t clear anything up for you, then ask a few pointed questions like, “Father, can you point me to a text-source for that idea?” Or, “Father, can you tell me a little about where that idea came from?” If Father is teaching something plainly outside the mind of the Church, then simply refuse to pick it up. Just leave it there and move on. Avoid accusative language. I take it your point is to understand what was preached not set up a privately run, privately funded Inquisition. Dramatic gestures in protest almost always make the one being protested against feel victimized and therefore justified. Dramatic gestures also tend to lend sympathy to the one being protested. They usually backfire.
If it’s in the delivery, just be plain spoken and genuinely nice: “Father, I’m missing a lot of your homily b/c you’re talking really fast!”
JD writes, “Many dominicans i know do not preach during the week. what is this about?”
It’s about being lazy. Plain and simple. No excuses. You don’t join the Order of Chicken Eaters and then refuse to eat chicken! I’m sure someone will write to tell us that it’s an ancient Dominican practice from the early 1950’s. When I was at Blackfrairs, Oxford the presider wouldn’t preach if he didn’t have a homily well-prepared. I understand the need to be well-prepared, but my first thought at seeing the practice of a Mass w/o a homily was: “I thought just living Dominican life was sufficient preparation for a homily!” Guess not.
Hold pastors/presiders responsible for good preaching! But don’t make them into martyrs by being mean-spirited, dramatic, inquisitional, or passive-aggressive. Be generous, honest, humble, and above all, charitable.
Fr. Philip Neri, OP