One great sermon
McGowan, Jo
'Y~'~??,S$eXf'-5i•.lxVii ~•s.~!51T. Fh Ahw.xATi', t'Yfli... .~ Yw6 '. X" ~:-.~F`.tline:iv,:?:tnni'. OF SEVERAL. JO McGOWAN ONE GREAT SERMON And an even better confession n the small town in...
...he called back, obviously more interested in helping his parishioner get to his car...
...I've just had a lot of jobs...
...Let's give her the smartest theologian in the country...
...JO McGOWAN ONE GREAT SERMON And an even better confession n the small town in India where I live, there is only one Catholic parish...
...It took me a while to fetch the car and bring it up to the church to get my parents...
...Manchester, New Hampshire—we sampled the fare in one city after another and I was never disappoint-ed...
...The Gospel that Sunday was about the temptations Jesus endured during his forty-day fast in the desert...
...Like a master storyteller, the priest took us from the desert to the mountain, speaking in painful detail about the almost unbearably seductive power of Satan's offers to Christ: wealth, political power, honor, glory...
...The priest was graying and there was nothing dramatic about him: he looked mildand slightly old-fashioned, rather like a retired English professor I once knew...
...It was so beautifully crafted, like a work of art...
...On the way out of the church, I stopped and told the celebrant that it was the best sermon I had ever heard in my life...
...I thought we would sit for thirty minutes and it ended up close to two hours...
...You should have told me you were the famous Fr...
...As I helped my parents through the door, I asked a woman in the vestibule what the priest's name was...
...As it happened, I had been avoiding going to confession for about a year...
...You can still do God's will," the devil assured him...
...I think it did...
...They try, as often as possible, to attend daily Mass, and as their chauffeur, so did I. Although I know it is fashionable to complain about the quality of the homilies in most parishes, I was amazed by the number of excellent ones I heard, even at daily Mass, where many priests—at least when I was a child—used to get by without giving one at all...
...A good sermon is a rare event...
...We'll deal with her spiritual pride later...
...It was like water in the desert for me, like finding the complete works of Shakespeare at a yard sale, or being able to order the perfect vegetarian meal at Mc-Donald's...
...I asked...
...They are chosen for their faith, not their intellectual abilities, and for most of them, English is a difficult foreign language...
...I'm not famous...
...I would like to think it changed my life...
...Fall River, Massachusetts...
...Hehir emerged from the side door...
...I didn't want just absolution, I wanted advice, and I knew I wouldn't get it in my parish in Dehradun...
...I think God said: "This woman needs intelligent advice...
...And I had just asked him if he was a writer...
...I had one week left before I returned to India and I knew it was now or never...
...It was totally unexpected and just what I needed...
...Bryan Hehir," she said, obviously proud...
...Hehir's ma-chine...
...An elderly man in a wheelchair was propelling himself down the path with some difficulty and the priest stopped to assist him...
...As I was helping them in, Fr...
...The best read out sermons writ-ten by others, but their pronunciation and the antique sound system make even well-meaning plagiarism an exercise in frustration...
...Hehir," I called out to him...
...I was in the United States in Lent to spend a month with my parents...
...He laughed...
...ROSS / ROTHCO Commonweal 7 May 21, 2004...
...Fr...
...We met the day before I left the country...
...I thought, aghast...
...And then, with a forward pass so subtle I never saw it coming, the priest took us into the garden and made us see how the Devil does the same thing with us—and succeeds nine times out of ten...
...I didn't want it to end, but of course, it did...
...Just do it your way...
...Our priests are pious, simple men, almost all raised in villages so remote they make Dehradun, which boasts four traffic lights, look like a booming metropolis...
...Five minutes later, he returned my call and we set up a time to meet...
...But once he began his homily—well, I knew I wasn't in Dehradun anymore...
...I go to Mass with no expectations and am occasionally pleasantly surprised by a visiting priest from Delhi or Australia...
...Providence, Rhode Island...
...I have to say I was unprepared...
...I was committed...
...I called the rectory and left a message on Fr...
...Are you a writer, Father...
...John the Evangelist, my sister's parish, that I heard the sermon I had been waiting for all my life...
...But it was in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, at St...
...It's kind of you to say so, but no, I'm just a professor...
...Bryan Hehir...
Vol. 131 • May 2004 • No. 10
