Growing up, I always thought I could deliver a better (or comparable) homily than what I heard at mass. This prideful thought, mixed with a call from the Lord, influenced my decision to give seminary a try – twice. After a couple of years of discerning priesthood, I exited seminary and ultimately followed the Lord’s will to married life. Yet, I still sometimes find myself sitting in the pews, having the similar thoughts about homilies whether it be a Sunday or weekday mass that I am fortunate to be able to attend a couple of times a week. And while there is pride still to work out in my own heart, I do believe I have been able to identify (as a fair and constructive critique) when I believe a homily is sub par.
The problem with certain homilies from my perspective is that we are a faith with many Catholic (or not so Catholic) cliches. This is the byproduct of having a weekly or even daily attendance at mass. The Good News is the same as it was the day of the resurrection, even if it has been presented in countless ways ever ancient and ever new. So from a participant’s standpoint, hearing that God loves us time and time again can lose its luster after the thousandth time of hearing it in the past year. Additionally, from the viewpoint of the priest, it can be difficult to represent the beauty of the faith in a fresh way. Thus, we autopilot. The priest leans on his cliches of ‘God loves us,’ ‘love our enemies,’ and ‘be kind to people who do not look like us,’ and the like. All of these are very good sentiments. But when a poorly catechized congregation in recent decades hears these phrases, they tend to construct their own meaning of these cliches giving rise to mantras like ‘love is love’ and ‘in a world you can be anything, be kind.’ Or if they are a more formed congregation: They hear these cliches, assent to them in their mind, but because of the vagueness of the statements and their self assurance they have from their good works, do not allow the cliches to convict them. Thus, many homilies in the past half century have in many cases helped form a lukewarm church.
How do we combat this? From the side of the priest: generalities at the pulpit must cease. 21st Century issues must be identified and spoken to, and terms such as good, love, sin, and nice need to be redefined from their secular meaning to how Catholics should understand the words. A Pastor or spiritual father must understand the world that his children live in so that he may guide them with truth. If he does not care to understand the modern Christian pitfalls, then he will fall into cliches.
From the side of the laity: Our hearts have to change. Interestingly enough, when a Catholic desires to go deeper into their relationship with God, the Holy Spirit is able to speak even through cliches. We (I) need to move away from prideful reception of the homily and stop judging whether it applies to us (me). Rather, we should be docile to the Holy Spirit and words of the priest. We will be able to find meaning in them as long as they are not heretical. Active preparation outside the mass or daily prayer, scripture reading, and good works, will enhance the reception of the homily.
With this being said, cliches are not bad. In fact, they can sometimes be the best way to describe something as mysterious as our God. But we have to be cautious of an unformed Church, because sinful people tend to find any excuse or rationalization to allow their sin to persist, and without clear communication the way to holiness can be blurry. For homilies to be effective, both the priest and the congregation must be striving for holiness. The desire to give detailed truth combined with a humble reception is the formula for sainthood. We must recapture this as a church so that we can fulfill Jesus’ wish to set the world on fire.
