Whether you preach from a pulpit or sit in a pew, you hope (and pray) for a homily that connects the Good News with life. But what does it mean to connect? In a world that buzzes with the synapses of technological “connection,” can the human touch of preaching make a difference anymore? Connecting Pulpit and Pew is a fresh look at the conundrum of Catholic preaching, asking six key questions: Why does Sunday preaching matter and to whom? Why is Catholic preaching such an uphill climb? How can we connect the gospel message with our young people? What are the struggles of clergy-on-the-ground in preaching? What is going on in the listener’s head during the homily? And finally, what can each of us do to help “connection” in preaching become more common? New research speaks to those questions from the voices of youth, the experiences of lay leaders, and the words of priests and deacons. Karla Bellinger offers concrete ways to connect the pulpit and the pew so that preaching becomes an act of love within a community of caring. This practical book breaks open an important and necessary conversation.

If your heart is on fire with God’s love, your preaching will help listeners encounter Christ and deepen their spiritual lives. And that should be the ultimate goal of a homily.

Remembering Why We Preach is a retreat that will help you revive your creative energy and spiritual focus. Karla Bellinger—executive director of the Institute for Homiletics at the University of Dallas—and Fr. Michael Connors, CSC—director of the John S. Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics at the University of Notre Dame—lead you through an eight-part process of spiritual renewal and skill development that will nourish and enrich you and your preaching for years to come.

Whether you are recently ordained or have been preaching for decades, you will explore the spiritual, pastoral, and communal aspects of preaching, which lies at the heart of the Church’s work of making disciples.

This book can be used as a personal or group retreat or in preaching courses It includes:

• reading materials for personal reflection;
• questions for journaling or peer-group discussions;
• practical exercises to enhance skills such as listening to your people, storytelling, homily writing, and diversifying your speaking styles; and
• support materials such as an outlines for a peer-group meeting, a sample retreat format, and forms for homily feedback and goal setting.

Well known for his teaching, writing, and editing of Magnificat, the widely popular monthly publication containing the Scripture readings and prayers for the Mass used weekly by several hundred thousand Catholics, Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P., offers here expert spiritual and practical help for priests, pastors and seminarians desiring to preach effectively.

Why Preach draws from the author’s rich understanding of the Word of God as the challenging, encouraging, and healing presence of Christ, as well as from his own experience as both a preacher and a teacher of homiletics. With an eye focused on the works and examples of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, Father Cameron illustrates that good preaching derives from and leads to an encounter with Christ, the Word of God made Flesh, who comes to us through the Scriptures.

The objective of the book is to help preachers to think about preaching in a new, dynamic way. Its aim is to provide a fresh and helpful vision of preaching geared to deepening a preacher’s appreciation of what preaching is, and the great spiritual impact that good preaching can have on its audience, so as to increase his desire and ability to preach well.

Effective, significant preaching requires a vision and a pondering of the question, How can I do what the Church expects of me?” The homily offers preachers a chance to live this question. Drawing from official Roman Catholic documents (1963–1995), Written Text Becomes Living Word summarizes this Vision for the homily as having five characteristics: personal, liturgical, inculturating, clarifying, and actualizing. DeLeers integrates and develops homiletic practice into this Vision by a detailed process for effective preparation and preaching. Written from the author’s work with preachers, Written Text Becomes Living Word will help re-inspire the homiletic Vision as well as the spiritual life of those preaching.

Chapters are: *Repairing the ‘Accidents of History’: Roman Catholic Restoration and Embrace of the Sunday Homily, – *The Evolution of the ‘Restored’ Homily,1963-93, – *A Roman Catholic Contribution to the Vision of Sunday Preaching, – *The Homily as Personal Word: Responsibility, Faith, and Love, – *The Homily as Liturgical Word: The Assembly and Its Sacred Ritual, – *The Homily as Inculturated Word: Correlating Experience and Tradition, – *The Homily as Clarifying Word: One Good Point, Clearly Made, – *The Homily as Actualizing Word: Written Text Becomes Living Word, – *Arriving at the Sunday Message: Three Necessary Encounters with the Word, – *From Message to Homily: Content, Structure, and Delivery, – *Ten Suggestions for Becoming a Better Preacher, – and an Appendix: Roman Catholic Documents on the Homily. Also includes an Index.

On the feast day of the newly canonized saint Carlo Acutis, another young saint-in-the-making named Logan Edwards, 24, asks the Church, how does Catholic preaching connect with young people? His three-part series, “Young People on the Road,” arises from his summer of research at the Institute for Homiletics, working with a thousand transcribed pages of Lilly Endowed young adult conversations.

Using the metaphor of the road to Emmaus, Edwards offers three masterful reflections to aid the Church in its preaching with young adults:

Part One:    Questioning and Listening

Part Two:     Exploration and Accompaniment

Part Three:  Identification and Proclamation

As we focus on youth on the feast day, Pope Leo describes Acutis’ life as an invitation to all of us, especially young people, “not to squander our lives, but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces”.  This series of articles offers concrete advice to help that to happen.

According to Merriam-Webster, ordinary means “to be expected,” “usual,” or “of a common kind.” In everyday speech, we often use the word to describe something that is neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad — “ordinary” means simply average, routine, or “just okay.”

But in the liturgical calendar, Ordinary Time means something quite different. The word comes from “ordinal,” as in numbers arranged in sequence. During these Sundays, instead of selecting scripture passages specifically for liturgical feasts, the Church journeys through Scripture in an ordered way.

The introductory notes in the Lectionary remind us that these readings are carefully paired. The First Reading and the Gospel are linked in one of three ways: complementary, foretelling, or supplemental. The Psalm responds to the First Reading and, by nature, also creates a bridge to the Gospel reading. What may seem ordinary is actually extraordinarily interconnected.

The challenge for many preachers, however, is that these readings can feel over-familiar. So, one way to handle this overfamiliarity in the Ordinary Season is not to change the message, but to change the form through which that message is proclaimed. That will help to keep your preaching fresh. How do we do that?

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On the road to Emmaus, two disciples encountered the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread. They immediately took to the road to spread the good news to their community back in Jerusalem.

What a beautiful reminder that every preacher must first be a person of faith—someone who has encountered the risen Lord and continues to encounter Him throughout life.

Their encounter at the table was preceded by their encounter with Jesus on the road… which was preceded by their encounter with Him during his passion and death…
which was preceded by his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem…
which was preceded by months of discipleship on the journey through Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. The point is: their encounter had unfolded over time.

Some of us have encountered Christ in a singular, dramatic moment, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Most of us have not—most of us have experienced Him over the course of our lives along the winding roads we’ve traveled. Whether the encounter came in a transforming moment or a series of graced encounters, we are witnesses who are impelled to share our experience and faith with others. That is what it means to be a preacher.

It is no longer the Easter season. Now in Ordinary Time, as preachers, we can witness in a way that reveals that we too are disciples. In homily preparation, we deeply reflect on our own Emmaus journey that leads us into a deeper relationship with the Lord. In the liturgy, we witness in parallel to the disciples on the road to Emmaus: we seek the Lord’s companionship as he opens the scriptures through us and he breaks the bread. Even as we stand before the community as preachers, we also stand with them as disciples seeking understanding and encounter. This is the journey that is always extraordinarily ordinary.

Our communities long to see and hear from witnesses. This is a high calling. While we might hope that they marvel at our learning, it is our faithfulness and conviction that transforms. As a deacon, as I watch someone preach, I ask myself whether I can tell that they know Jesus Christ, not in the intellectual, but in the relational sense. If that knowledge is there and it shows through in their words and demeanor, then I am ‘hooked.’ However, eloquence without conviction, without infused knowledge of the risen Lord, is not enough to move me.

We are called to testify, to be witnesses to the truth of our faith. Pope Leo says that AI cannot do that. In a high-tech world, we do not share ‘hearsay’ but our own eyewitness account of faith, hope, and love. We join Peter and the saints throughout history as witnesses of these things, the things that Jesus said and did that have changed the world (See Acts: 1:8 below). If we are convicted, then we are impelled to share what we know to be true with others.

We, as preachers, are first and foremost, witnesses.