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A WORD FROM THE PASTOR
Go Deeper In Your Faith
Jesus continues to preach on Bread of Life. The Jews murmured about his preaching. Asking them to stop their murmuring Jesus continues to preach that he is the "Bread that came down from heaven." You would agree with me that to listen to the word of God the same type of murmuring continues even today. Some people are restless to listen to a homily for over 7 minutes. I heard that priests cut short their homilies to 2 or 3 minutes because people like it that way. This attracts many people to the church because it has become a trend to find a short Mass where the homily has been cut. It saddens me that these people don't realize the value of not breaking the word of God to be able to fruitfully participate in the Mass. This may be the reason that it is popularly known - 'Catholics are sacramentalized, not catechized.'
The following is the extract from the book "Rebuilt" (Page # 129 & 130) written three decades ago after rebuilding a parish which was almost dying in Baltimore with proper pastoral strategy.
"One of the greatest preachers in the history of Christianity, St Augustine was the first to deliberately apply the principles of Ciceronian rhetoric (teach, delight, move) to Christian preaching. For Augustine, preaching is fundamental to the work of the church, its purpose being to engage and teach people with the word of God in order to change them. And that's what we see from the beginning as the apostles followed the example given to them by Jesus: they engaged and taught people in order to change them to become more like Christ. That's it. The word of God has the power to change people.
In the history of Church the great periods of reform were marked by the renewal of preaching. The founding of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuit movement, the missionary efforts of the Church in North America, Asia, Africa, and now today a more evangelically minded Catholic community have all been exercises in effective and relevant preaching.
Again and again in the game-changing epochs there is a rediscovery of the importance of preaching in the life of the Church and an accompanying restoration to its primacy of place in the work of the Church.
The Second Vatican Council led the way in a contemporary Catholic revival: "The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word... means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text;..the homily, therefore, is to be highly esteemed as part of the liturgy itself" (Sacrosanctum Concilium #51 & 52).
Catholic Christians call it the "homily," and Protestant Christians call it the "sermon." We've come to refer to it as the "message." For a few minutes each week, we get to share the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is an unparalleled opportunity to help church members go deeper. Next to the sacraments, preaching the word of God is one of the most important things you do to grow disciples, and it's even more important when it comes to reaching the lost. For lost people as well as those new to the discipleship path, the weekend message is the defining element of the weekend experience, because they don't yet understand or appreciate Eucharist."
Do you want to go deeper in your faith?
In the Service of the Lord,
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