Francis again urged priests to reduce the length of their homilies, recalling that they are a “sacrament”.
Sermon: a subject close to the heart of Pope Francis. The Pope dedicated part of his 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium to her, and recently he delivered a speech against overlong sermons, even going so far as to label certain sermons as “disasters.”
According to the Pope, the sermons that follow the reading of the Gospel at Mass should not be “philosophy lessons” or “lectures”. On the other hand, they are “sacraments”.
“Sometimes I hear: ‘Yes, I was in this parish at Mass… A good philosophy lesson, 40, 45 minutes long…’, the Pope regrets. According to him, a sermon should last “eight, ten minutes, no more than that. And it should always include “a thought, a feeling and an image” so that “people take something home with them”.
After inviting the diocesan leaders who visited him to take care of the liturgy and to promote silence in order to “lead the people to Christ and Christ to the people”, the Pope returned to the at first glance unusual Idea of “sacrament” back. To define a sermon: “The sermon is not a lecture, it is a sacrament. … Prepare in prayer, prepare with an apostolic spirit.”
The homily, a sacrament?
The homily is not a sacrament like the seven sacraments instituted by the Catholic Church, but in the sense that “it can be an intense and happy experience of the Spirit, a consoling encounter with the Word, a constant source of renewal and growth” ( Evangelii Gaudium). It is also “grace mediation” (idem).
The homily therefore has a sacramental significance. “It is part of the liturgical action”, specified Benedict XVI. in his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini. For Benedict XVI “the function [da homilia] it is designed to promote a broader understanding and effectiveness of the Word of God in the lives of believers. The sermon is an update of the message of Scripture to lead believers to discover the presence and effectiveness of God’s Word in the present moment of their lives.
Just as the sacraments are visible signs of God’s grace and enable people to become aware of God’s presence in their midst, so the sermon is a vector through which God seeks to reach people through the preacher.
The words of the preacher must be measured so that the Lord and not his servant is the center of attention.
The room of the homily
For this reason the homily should be brief and not take up the entire space of the liturgical celebration. “A preacher can hold the attention of his listeners for an hour, but then his words become more important than the celebration of the faith,” Pope Francis warned in Evangelii Gaudium.
“If the homily lasts too long, it harms two characteristics of the liturgical celebration: the harmony between its parts and its rhythm. When the homily takes place in the context of the liturgy, it is part of the offering to the Father and a mediation of the grace poured out by Christ in the celebration. The same context requires that the sermon directs the church and also the preacher towards a lifechanging communion with Christ in the Eucharist. This requires that the preacher’s word not take up too much space, so that the Lord shines more than the servant,” explains Francis.
