Do Poor Homilies lose Parishioners?

by Michael Shackleton · April 16, 2013

I took a business associate with me to Sunday Mass in Johannesburg. His comment afterwards certainly made me think: The service was beautiful but the weakest point was that man’s sermon. He quoted the Bible, made comments and seemed to do nothing but repeat what he had already said. He had no awareness of how negatively the parishioners were receiving his product. This is why your church is losing so many. Your comments? Devout parishioner

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

It would be unfair to judge all homilies on your associate’s experience at one Mass in one church on one particular Sunday.

You do not say whether you agree with him or not, and you might have declared your own opinion, because as a Catholic you would have a deeper understanding of the scriptural readings and their context than one who is unfamiliar with the sacred liturgy.

The purpose of the homily is to help the hearers appreciate the deeper, spiritual significance for themselves of the sacred readings they have just heard. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says the homily should be an exposition of some aspect of the readings from sacred scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or Proper of the Mass of the day, and should take into account both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners (65).

We must accept, however, that the preacher cannot always grab the attention of one and all at the same time. The audience consists of people of all ages, levels of education and attention spans.

The important thing about talking to a congregation is to engage them as much as possible in a conversational way. There should be lots of eye contact as the preacher begins to sense whether his words are being fittingly appreciated or not. Reading directly from a script is often a sure way to lose the congregation’s attention. It has been suggested the preacher should rather work from an outline instead.

We all know the frustration of hearing the preacher repeat himself, especially when explaining a piece of scripture. Even the best preachers tend to do it and it is something only they can control with a little effort.

A homily longer than ten minutes is almost certain to test the congregation’s endurance level, because the preacher’s message is nowadays measured against the countless short messages in the social media that pour into people’s lives every day.