Homiletics for Deacon Candidates

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Homiletics for Deacon Candidates

• Candidate Formation
• February 2007
• Deacon Lee Hunt

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Objectives

• To make you better preachers
• Give you a model for preaching that works for
  others
• Provide background and resources

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Introduction

• Deacons usually preach differently than priests
• Once per month
• Preparation time better than a one-week cycle
• Dont have to start on Monday before
• I start one month ahead to meet the deadline for
  a homily service

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Introduction

• I was a PhD research chemist
• Started new project
• Did much research
• Wrote and presented a report
• This sounded like preaching

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Introduction

• A Sunday to preach was the project
• Exegesis was collecting data
• The written homily was the report
• Preaching was presenting the report
• But

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Introduction

• I did so much exegesis that I couldnt see the
  forest because the trees were in the way
• I spent too much time developing a homily
• So, I read many homily books, and

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Introduction

• I found one book that gave a model for giving a
  homily
• I use this model, as do my past two pastors, who
  are excellent homilists
• First, lets review what the U.S. Bishops say
  about a homily as opposed to what we might think

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1. Fulfilled in Your Hearing The Homily in the
Sunday Assembly

• Highlights from 1982 publication of U.S. bishops
  to enhance preaching
• Online
• In The Liturgy Documents

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Introduction

• Preaching of the Word is an essential part of the
  celebration of the sacraments
• Deacons are ordained ministers of the Word
• For the vast majority of Catholics, the Sunday
  homily may well be the most decisive factor in
  determining their faith and strengthening their
  level of commitment to the church.
• GIRM The homily should ordinarily be given by
  the celebrant

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The Assembly

• An accurate understanding of the audience is
  necessary if preaching is to be effective
• What is heard is determined in large by what the
  hearer needs or wants to hear
• One principal task of the preacher is to provide
  the congregation with words to express their
  faith, and with words to express the human
  realities to which this faith responds

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The Assembly

• The preacher represents the community by voicing
  its concerns, by naming it demons, and thus
  enabling it to gain some understanding and
  control of the evil which afflicts it
• Weve got problems, God has solutions

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The Preacher

• Preaching is pastoral, displaying a sensitive and
  concerned knowledge of the struggles, doubts,
  concerns, and joys of the members of a local
  community
• The preacher will have to be a listener before a
  speakerdialogue between the Word of God in
  Scriptures and the Word of God in the lives of
  his people

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The Preacher

• Pray over the texts to seek the light and fire of
  the Holy Spirit to kindle the now meaning in your
  hearts
• If the words of scripture are divinely inspired,
  as we believe they are, then divine inspiration
  must be at work when these words are made alive
  and contemporary to the believing community
• The interpretation of the texts is the science of
  hermeneutics (more later), which first of all
  relies on exegesis (more later)

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The Preacher

• Every preacher ought to have a basic library to
  turn to in the preparation of homilies (more
  later)
• It is the faith of the Church that the preacher
  must proclaim, not merely his own
• Regular and sustained contact with the worlds
  greatest literature is part of a preachers
  ongoing professional development

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The Preacher

• If preachers are totally unaware, or give the
  impression that they are unaware of the
  activities and interests to which people give a
  good deal of their leisure time, energy, and
  money, it will be difficult to make connections
  between their lives and the Gospel
• Preachers need to devote some time and energy to
  understanding the complex social political, and
  economic forces that are shaping the contemporary
  world

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The Preacher

• The Word of God offers us a way to interpret our
  lives, a way to face the ambiguities and
  challenges of the human condition, not a pat
  answer to every problem and question that comes
  along

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The Homily

• The homily flows from the Scriptures read at the
  liturgical celebration
• A homily presupposes faith
• The homily does not primarily concern itself with
  a systematic theological understanding of faith
• The preacher has a formidable task to speak from
  Scriptures in such a way that the assembled will
  be able to worship God in Spirit and truth, and
  then go forth to love and serve the Lord

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The Homily

• The preacher does not so much attempt to explain
  the Scriptures as to interpret the human
  condition through the Scriptures, to interpret
  peoples lives, depending on the particular
  liturgy that is being celebrated
• We have to hear these texts as real words
  addressed to real people
• The homily will be effective only if individuals
  recognize there is a word that responds to the
  implicit or explicit questions of their lives

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The Homily

• The homily is related to a community (e.g.,
  Hispanic vs. Anglo)
• A homily should sound more like a personal
  conversation
• Begin with a description of a contemporary human
  situation which is evoked by the scriptural texts
  (Step 1 Story)

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The Homily

• Since many Catholics are ignorant of Scriptures,
  shouldnt the homily deal with the fundamentals
  of faith?
• Social science teaches that the oral presentation
  by one person is not a particularly effective way
  to impart new information of to bring about a
  change in attitude or behavior
• The homily is effective to reinforce attitudes or
  knowledge previously held
• The homily does not exclude doctrinal instruction
  and moral exhortation

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Homiletic Method

• Read and reread the texts read them aloud use
  different translations read in original
  languages read in different languages listen to
  them read
• Read from the Bible as well as lectionary read
  all four readings read side-by-side
• Pray to the Holy Spirit
• Jot down all ideas that pop in your mind
• Do your own thinking before turning to the
  experts in commentaries

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Homiletic Method

• Do exegesis to learn from experts what the
  authors probably meant, as opposed to your idea
  of what they meant
• Look at homilies by others only if you are dry
  and cant get going use them only for an idea
  for where you might go
• Prepare a draft so as to organize your thoughts
• Revise by cutting good but extraneous materials
  (side trips distract listeners)

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Homiletic Method

• Make sure that the homily has a central, unifying
  idea, and that this idea is clearly stated and
  repeated throughout the homily
• Make sure the homily is clearly connected with
  the Scripture readings and is not a sermon
• Practice the homily aloud (Spanish comes from my
  lips differently than from my mind)
• Writing provides good organization, clarity of
  expression, and concreteness

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Homiletic Method

• It is better to speak from notes, an outline, or
  nothing at all (daily vs. Sunday)
• I use my homily text, looking at it just to be
  sure I am on course
• Adlibbing is okay as long as it does not result
  in blabbing while trying to think of the next
  point you want to make
• Effective preaching requires time and serious work

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Homiletic Method

• Non-negotiable elements of effective preaching
• Time
• Prayer
• Study
• Organization
• Concreteness
• Evaluation (honey test)

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Epilogue The Power of the Word of God

• Still need to be empowered?
• Read the epilogue from your own copy of Fulfilled
  in Your Hearing and you will be raring to preach
  the Good News

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• Everything you wanted to know, and then some, can
  be found in The Sunday LectionaryRitual Word,
  Paschal Shape, Normand Bonneau, 1998 ISBN
  0-8146-2457-X.
• A lectionary is an orderly sequence of selections
  from Scripture to be read aloud at public worship
  by a religious community

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• Tradition comes from the Palestinian full
  synagogue service
• Opening blessings
• The tradition read the Torah in 154 sequential
  segments extended over a three-year cycle of
  Sabbaths
• A psalm was sung
• The second reading was from the former prophets
• There was a homily
• Final prayers and blessings

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• The lectionary was totally changed as a result of
  Vatican II
• The Sunday and Feast Day lectionary covers less
  than 1/6 of the Bible
• OT 32 of 45 books read (5.7 of total)
• NT 24 of 27 books read (41 of total)
• The Sunday Eucharist cannot pretend to be the
  first and foremost occasion for the faithful to
  be exposed to and become familiar with the
  scriptures

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• Ordinary time occupies most of the liturgical
  year and is interrupted by AdventChristmas
  Season and then the LentEaster Season
• A cycle of Matthew
• B cycle of Mark
• C cycle of Luke
• John used at Lent and Easter Season

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• Sundays (34) of Ordinary Time
• The gospel is read sequentially, for the most
  part
• The first reading from the Old Testament (except
  during Easter Season) is picked to go with the
  Gospel reading sometimes it is obvious, other
  times a real stretch
• During Advent and Christmas, the OT readings
  articulate the main themes of the season
• During Lent, the OT presents an overview of
  salvation history

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• The psalm reflects on the first reading
• The second reading is on its own schedule so that
  more of the Bible can be read if there is a
  connection with the gospel, its a coincidence

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Relationship of Lectionary Readings

• Weekdays of Ordinary Time
• Gospel mostly sequential
• Old Testament reading sequential, not related to
  Gospel (got to get more of the Bible read)

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Read and Ponder the Text before Exegesis

• First Reading of the Text
• This first reading is a spontaneous, even "naive"
  engagement with the text. All faculties of mind
  and heart are open, with no concern for what one
  ought to think, much less what one will say later
  in the homily. This is the time to listen, think,
  feel, imagine and ask. All responses should be
  jotted down do not trust the memory or take time
  to weigh the merits of your thought. And by all
  means, no other books or study aids are to be
  used at this point they will have their chance
  later

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First Readingof the Text

• Second, only to the fault of not doing adequate
  study, is that of introducing into one's
  preparation too soon the secondary resources.
  When used at the proper time they are
  indispensable, but if too early opened, they take
  over. They suppress and intimidate the preacher.
  After all, who is going to venture a thought or
  an interpretation when at the very same desk are
  internationally known Bible scholars? They
  intrude themselves between the text and the
  preaching and begin explaining everything.

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Read and Ponder the Text before Exegesis

• Reread all the readings, once more allowing
  yourself to freely respond to those texts
• Read all the readings in another translation or
  another language, noting any difference in
  meaning or emphasis
• Read all the readings in context. What goes
  before the text? What comes after? How does the
  context change your experience of the text?

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Read and Ponder the Text before Exegesis

• What about the liturgical context? How does the
  text fit in with readings heard last week and to
  be heard in a few weeks ahead? How does the text
  contribute to the meaning of a particular feast?
• Identify the readings genre Is this reading
  history? legend? short story? poetry? law? a
  miracle story? an oracle of judgment or of
  salvation? song? vision?

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4. Exegesis the next step after reading the
scriptures

• Scriptures were written from 2,000 (NT) to 2,600
  (OT) years ago
• Authors were inspired by God to write what is
  necessary for salvation
• Being in the belly of a large fish is not
  necessary for our salvation
• Authors were men who were limited to write within
  the culture and times in which they lived
• We must go to the scripture scholars to find out
  what the authors most likely meant 2,000 to 2,600
  years ago

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Exegesis

• Eisegesis is reading into scriptures what we
  think the authors meant
• Our culture and times are very different
• In the future, culture and times will even be
  more different

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Exegesis

• Examples
• List of my resources
• Samples of my best books
• My best online resources
• The Sánchez Archives http//www.nationalcatholicr
  eporter.org/sanchez/
• Preachers Exchange
• http//judeop.org/latest.htm
• Can be found on my web site http//members.cox.ne
  t/leehunt1/WebSite/4/4.html

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Exegesis

• Exegesis, for the most part, belongs in homily
  preparation, not in presentation
• You will need to remember thisMost of the
  people you will be preaching to are not going to
  be waking up Sunday mornings with a burning
  desire to know what the Hittites did to the
  Amalekites.
• Dr. James Alvin Sanders,
• Chair of the Old Testament Department,Colgate-Roc
  hester Divinity School

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5. What is Hermeneutics?

• Merriam-Webster Online the study of the
  methodological principles of interpretation (as
  of the Bible)
• For the preacher, how do you bring the message
  from scriptures into the life of your listeners?
• What do scriptures have to say about the problems
  in our lives today?
• Have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in
  the other hand (Karl Barth)

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Hermeneutics

• From An Introduction to the Homily by R.P. Waznak
• The homily
• Interprets the human situation through Scriptures
• Interprets people?s lives drawing on texts from
  the Lectionary in such a way that they will be
  able to
• celebrate Eucharist
• be reconciled with God and one another
• be baptized into the Body of Christ

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Hermeneutics

• The homily
• Interprets the mystery of the word ?from below?
  rather than ?from above?
• Discerns what specific phase of human life and
  what particular word from scripture needs to be
  addressed

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Hermeneutics

• The homilist
• Is primarily an interpreter, not a teacher
• Is an interpreter who tells people what they
  already suspect or wonder about but for which
  they have no words or images
• Represents the community by voicing its concerns
  by naming its demons, and thus enabling it to
  gain some understanding and control of the evil
  that afflicts it

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Hermeneutics

• The homilist
• Represents the Lord by offering the community
  another word, a word of healing and pardon, of
  acceptance and love
• Proclaims Good News of what God has done for us
  rather than a nagging exhortation to good works

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Hermeneutics

• Reflect on the congregations who will hear your
  homily
• Who are they? (Be specific! Put faces on this
  answer!)
• What are their lives like this week? What
  challenges, graces, milestones have they faced?
• Whats going on in your local community? Whats
  going on in the world?

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6. Tips for Homilies

• What is the Good News of your homily?
• Look for it when you think you are finished
• Include as many groups of people as possible
  youth, aged, others
• Choose part of one of the readings and perhaps
  allude to the others

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Tips for Homilies

• Be specific
• dont talk in generalities
• not who is your neighbor? but How much time
  did you spend this week working at the food
  pantry?

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Tips for Homilies

• Prepare a script and refine it use an outline,
  if you feel comfortable
• Quality and length are not related (if more than
  12 minutes, you are in trouble)
• Rehearse your homily aloud, in different
  languages, if necessary
• Time yourself or limit yourself to a certain
  number of pages

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Tips for Homilies

• As you rehearse, you may find better ways to say
  what you want to say. Without rewriting the whole
  thing, make those changes
• Adlibbing is okay if you are really good at itI
  do this during the week, not on Sunday
• Sometimes, you comfort the afflicted other
  times, you afflict the comfortable
• My preaching must first convert me if it is to
  be effective for others (Bruce Neili)

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Tips for Homilies

• Feasts are difficult to preach
• I have a preaching strategy on these big feast
  days. I want to resist any attempt to explain
  or teach the mystery being celebrated. This
  didactic approach usually yields a very esoteric
  and doctrinal preaching unrelated to the readings
  and the possible meanings of the feast for our
  lives.
• First Impressions, Fr. Jude Sciliano, O.P.

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7. The 1-2-3 Approach Story-Connection-Invitation

• Obscure archbishop, living in his people, still
  causes mighty to tremble
• CARLOS X. COLORADONational Catholic
  Reporter, April 15, 2005
• Continued on next page

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Obscure archbishop

• III. He was a prophetProphetic preaching could
  be defined as preaching that converts the
  ordinary time of our daily, mundane lives to
  Gospel time. Cardinal Rodríguez also says that
  Romero made his church an Easter church, and
  this is part of the prophetic process to which I
  am referring. Romero took the history unfolding
  around him and used it to preach the same message
  that is revealed in the Bible. Just like the
  parables and the psalms, the days headlines
  became the medium by which he preached the
  Gospel, leaving us mesmerized with the grandiose
  feeling that God walked right along with us, in
  our valleys, in our troughs and in our bitter
  places. That is a prophetic ministry if there
  ever was one! Romeros awakening the moral
  righteousness of the Old Testament was a
  much-needed challenge to the sleepy, dormant role
  to which religion had been relegated.

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8. Parables

• Resources
• Parables for Preachers, Years A, B, and C,
  Barbara E. Reid, 1999
• The Gospel in Parallel, John R. Donahue, 1988
• Parables were commonly told in the time of Jesus

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Parables

• Parabolic preaching allows the listener to back
  away from a sensitive topic and enter into the
  make-believe (but true-to-life) situation, where
  one can see more clearly what is right
• Jesus began with what his listeners knew sowing
  and reaping, weeding and harvesting, baking
  bread, searching for what is lost (the story
  part of the model for preaching)

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Parables

• The parable doesnt stay familiar it deviates
  from the status quo the listener wonders what is
  meant and demanded
• You can usually recognize a parable because your
  immediate reaction will be self-contradictory I
  dont know what you mean by that story, but Im
  certain I dont like it.
• Sooner or later you recognize that the parable is
  about you

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Parables

• Jesus parables are invitations to see the realm
  of God as God sees it and to act as Jesus did
• Parables shatter the structures of our accepted
  world
• Our defenses are removed and we grow more
  vulnerable to God
• Jesus parables are usually open ended
• What happened to everyone in the parable of the
  prodigal son?
• Parables convey distinct messages to different
  people in diverse circumstances

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Parables

• Jesus parables proclaim that God is not neutral
• God takes the part of those who are poorest and
  most oppressed
• They take up the perspective of those who are
  marginalized and invite a comfortable assembly to
  do the same
• Dont make the comfortable feel guilty move them
  to see from the perspective of the disadvantaged
  (Peru for me)
• If one is not poor, then Christian discipleship
  demands solidarity with the poor

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Parables

• Example of the workers in the vineyard
• It is not about each one pulling his or her own
  weight with appropriate compensation
• The believing community is one in which each
  member has the means by which to subsist for the
  day, no matter what his or her contribution to
  the group
• The ultimate aim of preaching is that the word be
  acted upon
• No preaching takes root unless the life of the
  preacher is a living witness (walk the talk)

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Parables

• With passion for the gospel, the preacher becomes
  a sign of hope, not a prophet of doom
• To preach a parable, good exegesis must be done
• Scholars found 12 possible meanings of one
  parable I was preaching
• The solution is to pick only one interpretation
  and to preach on it

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9. Preaching wakes, funerals, and weddings

• I preach mostly weddings, and very few wakes or
  funeralsSt. Monica is a young parish

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Wakes, funerals, and weddings

• The meaning of a sacramental celebration is
  distorted when we shift the focus from God to the
  individual
• For example
• When a parish First Holy Communion liturgy
  degenerates into a rite of passage rather than
  the praise of Jesus Christ who has become our
  bread

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Wakes, funerals, and weddings

• Or at a wedding when a couple has been carried
  away with planning the perfect wedding ceremony,
  crafting it as an exercise of self-expression
  rather than the grateful praise of Gods eternal
  and unconditional covenant with humanity
• Nowhere is this confusion more glaring than when
  the funeral homily is replaced by a eulogy

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Wakes

• The Vigil is the initial rite celebrated by the
  Christian community at the time following death
  and before the funeral liturgy and the rite of
  committal

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Wakes

• The celebration of the Vigil is the time for the
  Christian community
• to offer both prayer and consolation to the
  members of the bereaved family
• to read and reflect on the Word of God
• to call upon our God of Mercy through
  intercessory prayer
• and to provide an opportunity for family and
  friends to recall the memory of their loved one
  (euologies)

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Funerals

• Celebration of eternal life winning over death
• Be sure to make it clear that the deceased was a
  good guy while clearly presenting the Christian
  theme of eternal life and our hope in the
  resurrection
• Consider the instruction given the preacher in
  the General Introduction to the Order of
  Christian Funerals
• A brief homily based on the readings is always
  given after the gospel reading at the funeral
  liturgy

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Funerals

• There is never to be a eulogy (in place of the
  homily)
• Attentive to the grief of those present, the
  homilist should dwell on Gods compassionate love
  and on the paschal mystery of the Lord, as
  proclaimed in the Scripture readings

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Funerals

• The homilist should also help the members of the
  assembly to understand that the mystery of Gods
  love and the mystery of Jesus victorious death
  and resurrection were present in the life and
  death of the deceased and that these mysteries
  are active in their own lives as well
• Through the homily, members of the family and
  community should receive consolation and strength
  to face the death of one of their members with a
  hope nourished by the saving word of God
• Write a draft there wont be much time later

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Funerals without wakes

• Put eulogy at end of funeral

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Burials with nothing else

• Use rite from The Order of Christian Burial

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Weddingsmy main focus

• Two great commandments love God and love
  neighbor
• Love God is first
• Must make God first in our lives
• Provide divorce statistics for doing this
• God Family Job Other

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10. Rating Homilies

• A Light unto My PathCrafting Effective Homilies
• James J. Bacik and Kevin E. Anderson, 2006
• Presents and statistically analyses data from
  nearly 2,000 listeners who rated the homilies
  given by 131 preachers, mostly Catholic priests
  and deacons
• Authors have hard data to back up their methods
  of what makes an effective homily for listeners

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Rating Homilies

• 36 items used to predict what makes a successful
  homily
• The ten top predictors, in order, are
• This preachers style of delivering the sermon
  helps keep my attention
• This preachers sermons make me feel like he or
  she knows what is in my heart
• This preacher helps me get a new or deeper
  appreciation of the Scripture readings
• This preachers sermons usually have a clear
  central message

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Rating Homilies

• This preachers sermons are relevant to my daily
  life
• This preacher makes creative use of stories and
  examples to enhance the sermon
• This preacher uses humor effectively in sermons
• This preacher usually presents ideas in the
  sermon very similar to my own
• This preacher is a very likable person
• This preacher knows the real struggles of life

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Rating Homilies

• Use the top ten predictors to rate homilies you
  hear preached during formation
• Rating system for predictors
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Slightly Disagree
• Slightly Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree
• Tell homilist strong and weak ratings for
  predictors