Pastors reignite the joy of preaching 

By the time Father Justin Huang stands before St. Anthony of Padua Church on a Sunday morning, he has spent 10 hours preparing and written about seven drafts of what he’ll say.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s so satisfying. I have never looked so forward to Sunday Mass.”

Father Huang takes his homilies seriously. He prepares five weeks in advance, praying, reading, studying, writing, and re-writing what he’ll say in front of 1,000 parishioners each weekend.

He also has a panel of seven devout Catholics who critique his homily and provide feedback on every draft. He re-writes the draft for content, flow, and timing until they’re all satisfied.

“The pressure is tremendous, but that’s also healthy,” said Father Huang. After he delivers a homily, he publishes it in the bulletin and on his blog so families can think about the message and talk about it at home.

For many, Mass is “the only spiritual nourishment of their week.”

Improving preaching of Vancouver clergy is a priority for Archbishop J. Michael Miller. When he announced his latest Priorities and Goals in 2016, he urged everyone in the archdiocese to “Make Every Sunday Matter” by focusing on beautiful music, hospitality, and effective preaching.

By then, Father Huang had already begun revamping his own preaching strategies and agrees with Archbishop Miller that thoughtful homilies are extremely important.

Preaching “is going to be absolutely critical for parish renewal and the new evangelization.”

To help pastors improve their homilies, the Archdiocese of Vancouver welcomed long-time pastor Darrell Johnson to speak at a Priest Study Week in November.

The Regent college professor shared insights and tips with about 110 Catholic priests over several days. “The joy of preaching is being able to talk about Jesus,” Johnson said, summarizing his classes in an interview with the The B.C. Catholic.

“Jesus is the most amazing human being to ever live. When you recognize that he’s also God in the flesh, he’s the most amazing God to talk about. We will never be done talking about Jesus. No one will ever be able to say: ‘I have that task done. I’m going to move on to something more important.’ No priest, no pastor, will ever be done with that job.”

Johnson, who has been preaching for 50 years, said the key to an engaging homily is joy and an inner love for the text. For him, that means daily meditation and in-depth study; he takes an average of 12 hours to prepare a sermon.

“When you sit down with the text, begin with prayer: ‘Lord Jesus, meet me in this text. Please reveal who you are in this text.’”

After reading, he thinks about the questions the passage raises, and how he might try to answer them. Anything he doesn’t know, he looks up in commentaries and scholarly articles. Because it takes a long time, he plans far in advance.

“Right now, be thinking about Advent. When I have a chance to study, I’ll be looking at that. The way the mind works, a preacher is thinking about a text all the time, even when he doesn’t do it intentionally. So, by the time I sit down on the first Monday of Advent, I’ve thought a lot about those texts already. I’m not starting from scratch.”

It’s a good idea to tell a story sometimes, but the story can’t distract from the message.

“The story you tell is supposed to get people back into the text. As a preacher, I’d be disappointed if all people remember is my story. I want them to remember why I told the story.”

Like Father Huang, Johnson usually writes out his whole script. He practises it aloud before preaching.

In most Protestant churches, sermons can go 25-30 minutes. Catholic priests tend to speak for shorter amounts of time, which can be just as challenging, Johnson said.

Priests also face other difficulties. Besides trying to find time to study, meditate, and dig deeply into historical context, he said they must try to reach people who have different worldviews and cultures or, especially in the Lower Mainland, might not even speak English as their first language.

For many people, “there’s no talk of a living God who interrupts and orchestrates and guides,” he said. “The challenge of entering into a modern worldview quickly and being able to then talk about a different worldview that involves the living God: that’s challenging.”

Johnson thinks of newcomers, visitors, or those dragged by family members and resentful of having to sit in church, and prays for them as he plans his sermons.

“Then, I step out and trust the Holy Spirit to use what I’ve composed so that people can meet the Jesus I met at the beginning of the process.”

Father Gary Franken, the archdiocese’s vicar general and the pastor of St. Anthony’s in West Vancouver, said Johnston’s workshop on preaching was “very valuable” for local priests.

“Preaching is both a joy and a challenge. That’s right on,” he said. “It’s an awesome privilege and a joy to preach, but it’s sometimes one of the hardest things to do, depending on circumstances and what you need to preach about.”

When he’s preparing to give a homily, Father Franken also starts in advance. On Monday, he reads the following Sunday’s readings. For the rest of the week, he re-reads them and studies commentaries on the text. On Friday night, he’ll write out his points and rearrange them in time for Sunday.

“It’s incubating all week, getting ideas, reading other ideas, doing research, and praying.”

He agreed that priests often feel swamped with other work. “We have to live up to the challenge of what needs to be done, and that’s passing on the revelation that we’ve received in Jesus Christ. If preachers are too busy doing too many other things and they can’t properly prepare for that and be supported in that, then we’re handicapping them.”

When Archbishop Miller announced his new Priorities and Goals in 2016, at the top was  “Make Every Sunday Matter” by improving music ministry, preaching, and parish hospitality. What has happened since his announcement? The B.C. Catholic is taking a look with this series. See our story on music ministry here.

Do you have an example of great preaching in the Archdiocese of Vancouver? Let The B.C. Catholic know!

Johnson's Top Three Tips for Preaching: 

Ask the Living Jesus to meet you in the text you’re going to preach. That’s the first thing. Stay in that text until Jesus meets you.

Seek to say only what the text says. Discipline yourself not to bring your own agenda into this, but let the text determine what you’re going to say.

Have as clear a flow as possible. You can give a lot of content if the flow is clear. Think of an arrow that’s being shot, that goes right through the air, clear to the heart. Work on clarity.