Holy Smoke
My wife and I are Catholics, Eucharistic Ministers, I’m also a lector, we attend church weekly, and we contribute substantially. I tell you that because I’m about to be critical, and I assume many of you will find this observations to be true also in your respective houses of worship.
We attended St. Jean Baptiste in New York City for Vigil Mass last evening. It’s a gorgeous church, pre-Vatican II, meaning it has the great altar, profound artwork, and a magnificent organ that are often lacking in more modern churches. It is immaculately maintained, as far as I could see, a very wonderful spiritual environment.
The homily (sermon), however, was rambling. The priest wandered through four different points that I could hardly follow, never understood that a microphone is not a replacement for articulation and projection, and was far more concerned with delivering his message than with the receipt of his message. As I looked around, I found faithful people, spending their time on a Saturday evening, clearly losing attention. This is all too common.
The two priests in our own parish are fine homilists. But that’s my experience only about a third of the time as we attend churches in our travels all over the country. What a lost opportunity to have gathered the faithful to praise and experience God only to have the lessons for the congregation lost in poor organization, poor speaking technique, and poor sensitivity. They apparently do not teach speaking skills in the seminary, or they do so poorly.
I’m a world-class speaker, and have been for 30 years, inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame® years ago. Here’s an open offer to any bishop interested: I will, pro bono, provide improvement in your diocesan sermons if I can spend just one day with your priests in a group. I only want to work with those who want to be helped—which I would assume should include them all. Contact me at [email protected].
This might not get me into heaven, but it will make the wait more bearable.
© Alan Weiss 2015
