Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world
Details: Being a bishop means being no stranger to debates and challenges, but also knowing the joy of sharing the faith, said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami. “We know a little bit about controversy and dissension, but like (St.) Paul we know also the joy not only of having encountered the Lord, we also [...]
Several years ago, a newly ordained priest in the Archdiocese of Washington took it upon himself to preach one Sunday on the topic of contraception. He reminded the congregation of the Church’s teaching on the subject, acknowledged that there were probably many in the pews that morning who did not follow it, and suggested that [...]
From Abilene, KS comes this intriguing look at how preachers of various denominations — including Catholic — sometimes adjust their sermons, depending on the congregation: For churches with more than one Sunday worship service, the sermon doesn’t change much from one service to the next. While the basic message stays the same, there are subtle [...]
Several months ago, the folks at Deacon Digest asked me if I might have anything interesting to contribute to a special issue devoted to preaching. Well, I didn’t. But they printed it anyway. Now you can find that essay — “Pray, Prepare, Practice: How I Put Together My Homilies” — here at Patheos. A snip: [...]
What can you do about bad preaching? I wondered about that recently, after hearing from two different priests, from two different corners of the country, who expressed frustration at deacons whose homilies in their estimation just aren’t up to snuff. “It was dismal,” one pastor wrote about his deacon’s homily. ”He preached, as always, far [...]
Thursday night, I got a call from a classmate and friend, the DRE in my parish, Deacon Bill, explaining that his mother-in-law had died after a long illness. As a result, he would not be attending or preaching at the special mass for third graders in our parish Sunday. He asked: Could I fill in [...]
A longtime FOB (Friend of the Bench) and FOD (Friend of Deacons) has just published a very good book on one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life: forgiveness. Fr. R. Scott Hurd, from the Archdiocese of Washington, serves as the executive director of the archdiocese’s Office of the Permanent Diaconate. (The Father [...]
That’s the message of a recent seminar on homiletics for priests and deacons. CNS has details: For eight days at Loyola University New Orleans, three priests and five deacons absorbed the cool mathematics and internal symmetry of good preaching. Just as Moses descended from Mount Sinai with Ten Commandments chiseled on two stone tablets, the [...]
It happened 70 years ago today: the Bishop of Munster, Germany climbed into the pulpit to condemn the Nazi’s euthanasia program. Bishop Clemens August von Galen later became a cardinal, and was beatified in 2005. L’Osservatore Romano takes note: The bishop did not hide from his faithful the names of certain places nor his attempts [...]
That seems to be the unfortunate thinking among many priests (and, supposedly, deacons), according to this observer from the United Kingdom: I once asked an old faithful Catholic why so few people went to confession these days, and he replied at once: “Because we are never exhorted to do so from the pulpit.” This set [...]
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