Lingayen-Dagupan Socrates Villegas has slammed the
practice of many priests of giving long, winding and irrelevant sermons,
describing it as “homily abuse.”
In his own homily as reported by Rappler,
Villegas asked priests to be more prepared when giving the sermon after the
reading of the Gospel, so as not to antagonize people, or worse, bore them to
sleep.
Likewise, he asked priests to keep politics out of
their homilies. Said Bishop Socrates:
“The first call of the times is priestly sincerity.
You can preach to empty stomachs if the stomach of the parish priest is as
empty as his parishioners.
“Our homilies will improve if we diminish our love for
talking and increase our love for listening. When our homily is simply a talk,
we only repeat what we know, get tired and feel empty.
“The second challenge of our times is simplicity –
simplicity of message and even more, greater simplicity of life.
“Simplicity of life will also help us to stop talking
about money and fund raising in the homily; money talk has never been edifying.
Simplicity means resisting to use the pulpit as a means to get back at those
who oppose us – patama sa sermon.”
Sorry, but it’s all the space we have. Errr, the good
bishop’s own homily is rather loooooooong too. –END-
Image by: The Catholic
Movement
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