A lesson for Catholic preachers in the power of brevity

The shocking brevity of a 27-word homily was a reminder that one problem with much Catholic preaching is simply that it goes on too long, in part because homilists sometimes don’t appear to weigh every word to determine if they’re actually necessary.



Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Key West, Florida. (Credit: Wikicommons.)

John L. Allen Jr.December 19, 2016
EDITOR

Flannery O’Connor, probably the greatest Southern Catholic novelist of the 20th century, liked to tell a story about a relative who converted to Catholicism, which was a highly counter-cultural move to make in the “Baptist belt” of the American South in the 1950s.

Pressed to explain the choice, the relative allegedly said, “Well, the preaching was so bad I figured there must be something else to keep folks coming back.”

That’s a bit of a caricature, but it captures something real about how Catholics and Protestants have been seen, at least at the level of stereotypes, in the United States over the years: Catholics are great at liturgy, at art, at “smells and bells,” but when it comes to preaching, Protestants, especially Evangelicals and Pentecostals, usually run the table.

Those perceptions are, of course, over-generalized. Still, there’s at least a grain of truth captured in this stereotype, which is the idea that on the scale of priorities for Catholic clergy over the years, preaching sometimes just hasn’t rated that high.

https://cruxnow.com/analysis/2016/12/19/lesson-catholic-preachers-power-brevity/