Talking and Listening

For several weeks this summer, we have a visiting priest from Honduras. As always in interacting with a person from another culture, you always learn something. In conversation with our priest visitor, he shared with us that, in his parish in Honduras, Mass usually is an hour and a half. He shared how the people expect that and actually feel neglected if things move any swifter in celebrating the Eucharist. From our side of the conversation, we shared with him that Americans, by culture, are efficient and direct, even when it comes to their religious encounters with God. We did add that clearing the parking lot followed as a quick second as to why our celebrations need to move along.

Very much a part of our liturgical celebration is the homily, the sharing of how the scriptures are related to our times and our personal lives. After a reading from the Old Testament, a New Testament epistle, and the proclamation of the Gospel, our every-Sunday experience is for the priest to preach and for the congregation to listen. What are we all about in this part of the liturgy? Is it just about two processes of talking on one side and listening on the other? Father talks and we listen? Perhaps we might think about a further question of whether we just hear, or listen carefully, and understand?

On a recent occassion at an interreligion wedding, the worship program noted that the presider from the other faith tradition would give a "sermon," followed by a "homily" on the Catholic side. To persue what happens at our Sunday preaching experience, we might look to the difference between the sermon and the homily. The sermon is a thematic, theologically organized presentation. It is at times scholarly and geared to offering of thought for the mind. The homily, on the other hand, is a commentary on the scriptures which have just been proclaimed. The attempt is to relate what God has said in the scriptures to our current life and world. It's about God's revelatory relationship with His people. In that sense, it is invitation to an experience of God among us. As the community proclaims the scriptures and the priest or deacon preaches, God shows himself to us. We are different because of the experience, which is to say that it is more than learning.

As a presbyterian minister explained to me in humor, the difference of a sermon and a homily "is about twenty minutes." On a good Sunday, homilies might be eight to ten minutes, or fifteen on longer days. The success of a homily is diologic. It continues the conversation of God's Word with the People. In that conversation, God and his People enter a more intense relationship. The event is revalatory both of God and of the People of God.

The homily is also diologic between the Word of God and our world. The listener is asked to enter the prayerful conversation with God about His will and action in the world. In this sense, the homily is very much in the prophetic tradition. The prophet of old spoke about where God was happening in the life of the faith community. In that

communal context, the hearer of the Word was invited to locate the action of God and, at the same time, his or her response in their own life.

The Word in Community

In both the Jewish scriptures and in the Christian Testament, the context of the Word is the community itself. The root of the Word, the action place of God, and the response required is located in the body of believers. The miracle of God's Word is that He speaks and acts among the human family. In human words and human actions, which comprise the Word of God, God communicates Himself with the believers. The long tradition of Catholic liturgy is that the context of the scriptures is the body of the faithful, the Church.

Sunday liturgy is the coming together of the faithful community for that very reason, to proclaim, hear, and respond to God's Word. Actually, before our coming together, it is the Word that calls us together in Christ. The mystery of Christian liturgy is that in human word, in human gesture, in preaching and responding, in song and ritual, the Father gathers us together in Christ. One could, and does, reflect on the Word of God personally and intimately. One could, and some do, stay home over a cup of coffee on Sunday morning, but the fullest proclamation, hearing and responding to the presence of God is when believers are called together for worship. As we have learned from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the liturgy is the "source and summit" of who we are as God's People. By Word and Sacrament we proclaim who we are and we become that reality by the action of the Spirit.

Before and After the Word

The process of the preacher in preparation of the preached Word is the pattern of preparing and responding to the homily at Mass. Most preachers begin their homily presentation with reading and sitting with the revealed Word of God. They sit with the Word and wait for God to speak. Then, a good preacher will live with the Word: attentive to their relationship with other believers, with world events, with the ruminations of the human heart and mind. And the Spirit moves and prompts the preacher where the Spirit will.

The homily process is part of the movement of the Liturgy of the Word. In the Catholic tradition, it is not the highpoint of the ritual. Actually, it is the Gospel, which proclaims Christ among us, greeted in procession with alleluia, with standing. Priest and People sign themselves with the Word: May the Word of God be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart. The homily invites us to think with one's mind, to hear it in one's heart, and to share the Word of Life with all in our world. The God who reveals Himself and whom we encounter begins with the readings and the homily. We are invited to walk in His presence together and invite others to the hearing of God's Word and its living in our world.

CDH