The Homily

Because the recent apostolic exhortation is about the Joy of the Gospel, it stands to reason that the Holy Father would spend a significant amount of time and words about a subject we have all heard much about in the past; namely, preaching the homily during our Eucharistic celebration. No fewer than forty some paragraphs of the document are devoted to this topic.

At the beginning of my diaconate internship, the pastor made a curious statement: "As your diaconate supervisor, I'm supposed to teach you how to preach. The only way I know how to do that is to give you lots of experience. So you will preach every day!" There were three daily Masses at that time in the parish; I was assigned to preach at one of them every day. It became the single most time consuming part of my diaconate experience. Each week when we met to talk about my experiences, he always had some feedback to give me on my preaching.

Because I had to preach every day, I did not have the time to write down my homilies. Although I tried to do so at the beginning of my internship, I soon realized that it would be impossible to do so every day. So I had to find a different way to prepare. Much of what the Pope has to say about preaching in this section of the exhortation became my way of preparing. I prayed with the Scripture. I meditated on it. I read about it. I focused on one particular word or phrase. I then jotted down a few points to remember. I look back on the experience now and am grateful for this "immersion" experience.

When I was a minor seminarian, on the first day of our first religion class, the teacher asked us a question. "If the Church had to choose between preaching the Gospel and celebrating the sacraments, if only one of those activities was permitted, which would the Church have to choose?" Not a few of us thought that the choice would have to be the sacraments. However, as he explained, just the opposite is true. The Church must preach first. Faith comes through hearing. Only believers can celebrate the sacraments. So faith must come first, and faith comes from hearing the Gospel, a point the Holy Father makes in paragraph 136: Saint Paul speaks forcefully about the need to preach, since the Lord desires to reach other people by means of our word (cf. Rom 10:14-17). By his words our Lord won over the hearts of the people; they came to hear him from all parts (cf. Mk 1:45); they were amazed at his teachings (cf. Mk 6:2), and they sensed that he spoke to them as one with authority (cf. Mk 1:27). By their words the apostles, whom Christ established to be with him and to be sent out to preach (Mk 3:14), brought all nations to the bosom of the Church (cf. Mt 16:15.20).

It is clear that this is one of the most important, if not THE most important responsibilities of the priest. While we would certainly feel the loss of the sacraments if we were forced to choose between them and preaching, there can be no question but that the Gospel must be the true focus of our ministry. I am grateful to my diaconate supervisor for impressing that upon me at the beginning of my ministerial priesthood.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator