Long length rarely improves either homilies or the Mass in general.
Watching Watches
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
When it comes to Time, Budget, Spending and just about anything…
“Awareness is good.”
Short ones stink also, unless the homilist spends some good prep time on nailing down the message–without the theo-fluff. Fortunately our pastor has a gift and does his homework before he steps up to give his homily .
The pastor of my former parish would have a two or three minute homily on Sundays. He would often end it with “Think about it.” They were always terrible. He’s why it is my former parish.
Can a homily be very short AND be good? Yes. Archbishop Pilarczyk of Cincinnati used to offer a quick 20-25 minute Mass at noon on Wednesdays in the late 90s. He would always give a homily and they were always good.
I wonder what you guys would do sitting through a 2 hour sermon by St. John Chrysostom.
PS, was born and raised in an Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church. 1 to 2 hour sermons were the norm. I think today’s Catholics NEED teaching during the Liturgy of the Word and that takes time. Right now Mass is too often become a disrespectful communal “let’s go get our wafer” affair. We need to understand the Word, and then eat the Word. Sadly, most priests don’t know a darn thing about Scriptural exegesis and interpretation and exposition.
I wonder what you guys would do sitting through a 2 hour sermon by St. John Chrysostom.
Fall asleep. Then I would find another parish. There is a great deal of difference between reading a sermon and studying it at leisure, and listening to anyone yacking for two hours.
I’m just thinking at a coronation you have to keep things moving and on schedule.
I’ve been at Masses w elderly priest who go on so many tangents they make a spider’s web look like a piece of string.
Now, I could listen to Benedict for that long. The ones that ramble, no.