Pappa don't preach
Jabusch, Willard F
PAPPA DON'T PREACH Willard E Jabusch Friends tell me that my purgatory will be shortened because, as a seminary professor for twenty-two years, I had to listen to student preachers give more than...
...Cicero, Horace, and various Greek authors were read in the original languages...
...For many, it is the only religious discourse they will hear all week, and the only attempt to bring the Bible into contact with their daily life...
...Students for the priesthood now come with backgrounds in business, math, science, chemistry, accounting, law, and even the military...
...It is a high order for any would-be homilist-but it beats purgatory...
...None would deny the importance of these concerns, but they are not what matter to most people...
...Still, for most churchgoers here the homily determines whether Sunday Mass is a good or bad experience...
...In other words, the imagination was engaged and the creative juices started to flow...
...The Reverend Willard F. Jabusch is chaplain emeritus of the University of Chicago...
...German novelist Heinrich Boll has one of his characters remark that he no longer attends Mass because he can't tolerate "the faces and sermons of the priests...
...It may be ironic, but while today's clergy probably know the Scriptures better than their predecessors, the historical-critical method in which they have been trained has drained away much of the excitement, the color, and the poetry of the Scriptures in favor of questions about authorship or form criticism...
...Why then are so few parishioners happy with the results...
...Poetry and the "music of the mind" are important as well, but they too must serve the Gospel...
...Most men and women who ascend the ambo (pulpit) have studied the Bible...
...While the liturgy is grace-giving, regardless of the merits of the preacher, it is generally the sermon that most people remember when heading out to the parking lot...
...In too many cases, though, too little attention has been paid to their role as speakers who can employ language with zest and power...
...Biblical understanding, expressed in words that touch both mind and heart, is needed...
...I set myself on fire and the people come to watch me burn," he replied...
...It asks that the preacher be not only a theologian and student of the Scriptures, but an artist, that is, a person with imagination and vision...
...Sometimes modern drama was studied, as well as critical essays on the likes of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Shaw...
...Polls tell us that Catholics of all ages who attend Mass complain about two things: the music and the preaching...
...Shakespeare, Hopkins, and Faulkner were to be met...
...The same cannot be said about the preaching...
...Preaching, it would seem, is an international problem...
...The proclamation of the Gospel to the people," Vatican II emphasized, is the qffkium primum of the priest, his "first responsibility...
...When it comes to homilies, I've delivered them-and prayed to be delivered from them...
...The real practical problem is not theological, it is that they are boring...
...Yet it alone will not do for, lacking sincerity and a commitment to prayer, it can become self-indulgent and a snare...
...While it is not bad to major in such fields, it might be asked whether computer science, physical therapy, or even an MBA is the best preparation for a vocation involved largely with writing and speaking...
...Most homilies are anything but heterodox...
...Failing divine intervention, a dull, tedious person, one whose interests are limited and unremarkable, will probably deliver a bland homily...
...Most have spent years studying other serious theology, and their self-perception has been formed by these experiences...
...Jesus' parables, so vivid, concise, and subtle, were always told for a purpose...
...PAPPA DON'T PREACH Willard E Jabusch Friends tell me that my purgatory will be shortened because, as a seminary professor for twenty-two years, I had to listen to student preachers give more than a thousand practice homilies-and then review them again on video...
...Forty or fifty years ago, seminarians here and in Europe did not begin their study of philosophy and theology without some basis in a classical education...
...Although much still needs be done to improve the music, in many parishes it has been addressed and there are adequate hymns sung with a gusto formerly found only in Protestant churches...
...While no one would claim that a critical mass of sacerdotal poets was produced, this preparation was significant because preaching is an art...
...There is an old Latin saying: nemo dat quod non habet, "no one gives what he does not have...
...A homily is a creative act...
...Today, even the mention of a classical education sounds anachronistic...
...For words, like sparks, can move the heart and set it afire...
...Someone once asked John Wesley why so many people traveled long distances to hear him preach...
...They were persuasive because he not only meant what he said, he lived it...
Vol. 130 • March 2003 • No. 6
