A movable priest
Carberry, Mary Margaret
THE LAST WOR A NOVABLE PRIEST Mary Margaret Carberry I suppose they're teaching it now in Preaching 101. No, I haven't actually researched this with a representative number of...
...True, you can occasionally wiggle around in the pew to establish a clear sight line between the large heads and broad shoulders of the taller folks in front of you...
...But if a short preacher moves around while speaking, it rarely works, even if the message is marvelous...
...I do know a few, but only a few...
...Not so long ago, I watched a priest whom I had never heard before move around so vigorously during his homily, not only striding forward but also recklessly backing up in a reverse march-step, that I could only wonder if he would soon take a fall, stumbling over the altar steps perilously close behind him...
...People in the pews do tend to want to see the homilist so that they may appreciate the full effect of his words...
...Mary Margaret Carberry writes from Chicago...
...But the last two seminarians who spoke in support of vocations at Mass in my parish raced—and I mean raced—out into the middle aisle as soon as they were introduced...
...I realize that peripatetic middle-aisle sermonizing is done in earnest, and that the basic idea even goes back to Aristotle...
...So forget the noble example of the Sermon on the Mount...
...But the truth is that with several hundred people crowded into the pews on a Sunday morning, the homilist will make his best impression if he can be seen as well as heard...
...Fortunately, he didn't, but it had surely seemed to me to be a distinct possibility...
...Cogently and briefly, of course...
...Also, more often than not, once they have selected a speaking spot in the aisle, they stay right there...
...So I readily confess I didn't get anything much out of what he was saying...
...Get down there where only a few people can actually see you...
...No, I haven't actually researched this with a representative number of seminaries...
...That's why I'm more than a tad suspicious that today's seminaries must now have courses in which future homilists are instructed to get out into the middle of the congregations to speak...
...Somebody, somewhere out there, however, has come up with the idea that if a preacher is down among the pewfolks, his message will always be more effective, that it will be welcomed more warmly when delivered in the middle of a crowd on a sort of buddyto-buddies basis...
...They are not holy roamers...
...More and more of these gentlemen seem to feel impelled to do this, too, even though the truth is that there are not many sermonizers who can carry it off successfully...
...The chance of seeing him take a backwards flip in full Sunday vesture was too dazzlingly promising...
...In the real world, being seen helps being heard...
...But why do you suppose the pulpit, the lectern, the ambo (if you want to use the liturgical word that probably only three people in the parish know) provide an elevated position from which the priest can look out over the congregation and from which he can be seen...
...Without stadium seating, short men simply can't be seen by most of the congregation...
...No doubt the word is being spread at annual priests' meetings and in deacons' training classes as well...
...Commonweal 39 May 4,2001...
...While this observation may seem to confirm in part the "medium is the message" theory, sometimes the messenger/medium can unintentionally create a special type of holy havoc: simple, fascinating, non-gospel distraction...
...They are usually tall, gifted with compelling voices that project well even without a microphone, and their messages are, of course, well prepared and meaningful...
...Believe it or not, the disembodied voice is not particularly attention-getting, except in scary movies...
...And that means that he should speak from the pulpit...
Vol. 128 • May 2001 • No. 9
