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Institute for Homiletics

A Collaboration of The Catholic Foundation and the University of Dallas

ANNOUNCEMENTS

St. Matthew, Child of God

By Karla Bellinger – Reading: Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13 ;

Brothers and sisters,

I, a prisoner for the Lord,

Urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received

With all humility and gentleness, with patience,

Bearing with one another through love,

Striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit

Through the bond of peace:

One Body and one Spirit,

As you were also called to the one hope of your call:

One Lord, one faith, one baptism;

One God and Father of all,

Who is over all and through all and in all.

But grace was given to each of us

According to the measure of the Christ’s gift.

And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets,

Others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers

To equip the holy ones for the work of ministry,

For building up that Body of Christ

Until we all attain to the unity of faith

And knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,

To the extent of the full stature of Christ.

And he gave some as Apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors, and teachers: which one are you? What’s your role in building up the kingdom of God?

Today is the feast of St. Matthew. We name him apostle. We name him evangelist.

But did he name himself apostle and evangelist?

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Preaching for Encounter Program – Preachers’ Progress Report 2024 Cohort

Executive Summary: 

Catholic preaching can improve. At the Institute for Homiletics, we have witnessed homiletic growth anecdotally and we have measured it statistically.

The 2024 cohort of the Preaching for Encounter Program worked on their preaching from the orientation sessions in April 2024 through the capstone retreat in February 2026. Forty-three priests and deacons came from these (arch)dioceses: Chicago, IL; Joliet, IL; Dallas, TX; San Antonio, TX; Gary, IN; and Los Angeles, CA (see group photo on page 27). Supporting their clergy were 429 lay people, the St. Joseph’s Preachers, who learned to be homiletically-trained conversation partners. We are grateful to all of them, as well as to the large support system of bishops, abbot, directors of ongoing formation, donors, coaches, and staff who were the foundation for the 2024 cohort.

Catholic congregations in these represented dioceses are huge; we estimate that the words of these homiletic leaders impact at least 65,000 parishioners daily, weekly, and monthly, with more at funerals, weddings, quinceañera, Christmas and Easter. Incremental improvement in Catholic preaching has the potential to result in exponential renewal for the Church.

We have solid statistical evidence of that improvement from three sources of data: 1) coaches’ pre- and post-evaluations; 2) preachers’ pre- and post-self-evaluations; and 3) parish pre- and post-surveys. See the survey instruments in the Appendix, beginning on page 28.

This report reveals that the quality of Catholic preaching can improve. How to do that is not based on guesswork. Preaching quality is not simply that some are “talented” and some are not. There are standards to effectiveness. How to connect the gospel with the lives of our people can be learned. This is good news. It takes time, financial investment, energy and a commitment from church leadership. But it can be done. This report is evidence for that hope.

Read the Full Report

A Reflection for the Feast of St. Monica: Grace Comes into the Gap

By Dr. Karla Bellinger – 1 Corinthians 1: 26-31

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were side by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world , those who count for nothing to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so thus, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

The Word of the Lord

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Preaching in Ordinary Time Doesn’t Have to be ‘Ordinary’

By Dr. Suzanne Nawrocki, Institute for Homiletics Coach:

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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The Feast of Ignatius of Loyola: the Mystic of the Ordinary and Everyday

In homiletics, we can lose the mystery dimension of preaching. It is a miracle when a listener says, “You touched me today.” The Holy Spirit is the One who makes that encounter happen. But sometimes, homileticians and homilists can get ensnared in the details of how to preach and forget our zeal for the One for whom and through whom we preach. A famous theologian once said, “We must invoke the mystery of God, ponder it, live with it, learn to love it, so that, even though it remains a mystery, it becomes a reality in our life.”

See more in the Homiletic Scholar Series Vol. 2, No.1, Fire in the Marrow of the Bones: Mysticism and the Homiletic Encounter