Catholic Sunday Preaching, Part 4:

Chapters 9-11
 

9. American Homiletic Trends, 1935-1963

The instruction Provido Sane Consilio was issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Council on January 12, 1935. Its official title explained its purpose: "On the fuller implementation and promotion of catechetical instruction."52 While Provido dealt mainly with catechetics for young people, it also made a pointed reference to adult catechesis, reiterating the provision of Canon 1332 that it be scheduled weekly. To emphasize the need of repeated catechetical teaching for grown-ups, the Instruction cited a remark made by Pope Benedict XIV as long ago as 1772. "It has been found," said the papal encyclical, "that not only adolescents and people of riper years are in ignorance of divine things, but even adults and aged people are entirely inconversant with the salutary doctrine, either because they have never acquired it, or because, once acquired, it has gradually faded into oblivion."

The intention of Provido Sane was therefore to reinforce existing catechetical legislation. With this in mind, the Congregation directed the bishops to submit a quinquennial report on their diocesan catechetical programs. One of the queries in the questionnaire supplied was: "Besides the usual homily, is any catechetical instruction being given by the pastors to adults? When is the instruction given?" The phraseology of this and the other listed questions showed an openness on the part of the Roman authorities to pastoral adaptations of the norms governing doctrinal teaching.

Provido Sane probably had little effect on basic American catechetical practice, for catechetical instruction was now pretty well organized across this nation. By 1935 the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine had met with general acceptance, and been assigned a central office in the National Catholic Welfare Conference. In the matter of adult catechesis and its Sunday time-slot, the American bishops became increasingly realistic in the legislation they issued between 1935 and the Second Vatican Council.

The Fifth Provincial Council of Portland, Oregon (1957) mainly contented itself with repeating the preaching regulations of Portland’s Fourth Provincial Council (1932). The sole added rule was that preachers announce at the beginning of their sermons the scriptural text or doctrinal subject with which they intend to deal.53 Here, the Council Fathers were trying to prevent their priests from dealing with trivia. But the new rule also clearly indicated that the subject matter of sermons could be either Scripture or doctrine.

We have been able to study the homiletic decrees of twenty-eight synods held between 1936 and 1961. They represent seventeen American provinces.54

Five of these synods made some effort to promote adult catechesis outside of Mass-time, whether in Lenten or other public devotions, or in formal classes or study clubs.55 It is clear, however, that most of the bishops had come to share the view of Woywod, that the best and most dependable time-slot for giving catechetical instruction to adults was sermon-time at the Sunday Mass. Despite the Code’s provision that there be consueta homilia at the principal Mass, few of the American prelates continued to make any distinction between concio and conciuncula, for American social practice had already obliterated the distinction between major and minor Sunday Masses. To make sure that enough time was allowed at each Mass for an adequate discourse, the legislators now tended to increase the time-span of the sermon from five minutes to ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty minutes. In a further effort to keep this time-span inviolable, the synodal laws urged pastors to limit the number of their public announcements; and especially from the late 1940’s on, the use of a printed parish bulletin for publishing these communications was widely recommended.

It is evident from the synodal legislation that bishops expected preachers to devote a large portion of their pulpit time to Christian doctrine and duties. Six of the synods we are now considering repeated the Code’s stipulation that the sermon deal either with the day’s Scripture or some part of Catholic teaching. Twenty-one synods directed that priests follow a plan of preaching that would enable them to cover the main doctrines every three to five years. Five synods, in speaking of this cycle, specifically mentioned the Roman Catechism. Other synodal collections recommended a schedule deriving essentially from the same Tridentine source. Synod V of Kansas City (1948) took a slightly different direction, in that it directed its priests to follow a three-year cycle based on the Baltimore Catechism. The obligation to follow the schedule might differ from diocese to diocese; but the total impression is that the bishops wanted a strong, if not exclusive, program of catechetical homilies.

In support of this conclusion, we can point out the contemporary growth of the practice of issuing diocesan preaching syllabi. Our questionnaire to the United States dioceses asked whether, in the years prior to Vatican I, they had made a practice of sending out sermon syllabi; and if they had, whether they had done so for more or less than five years. Seventy dioceses replied that they had issued such syllabi. Of these, thirty had continued the practice for five years or less; forty, for over five years.56 None mentioned, because they were not asked, in what decade or decades the policy had been initiated or had flourished. Callan and McHugh’s A Parochial Course of Doctrinal Instructions (1920-1921) had surely been a pioneer in sermon planning; and this was originally developed as a syllabus for priests of the Archdiocese of New York.57 But if preaching syllabi, even syllabi less grand than A Parochial Course, had been very widespread as early as 1921, Msgr. Hugh T. Henry, the homiletic expert, would not have thought it necessary to urge, in that same year, the issuance of lists of sermon topics by dioceses — lists that would be official and, he hoped, even mandated.58 It is our general impression that the practice of sending out diocesan syllabi flourished later, especially during the 1940’s and 1 1950’s.

Syllabi differed a good deal from diocese to diocese. In some instances, they gave only the topics of the sermons. This was the case in the diocese of Bridgeport, whose bishop, Most Reverend Lawrence J. Shehan, sent his priests, on November 21, 1958, a simple schedule of. doctrinal topics for Year I of a projected four-year cycle.59 On the other hand, Bishop George Leech of Harrisburg, in 1952, distributed to his clergy a series of sermon outlines on the Sacraments, written especially for the Harrisburg Diocese by the well-known theologian of the Catholic University, Father Francis Connell, C.SS.R. (It is interesting to note, in the Foreword of this sixty-four-page booklet, that Bishop Leech urged the correlation of the doctrinal instructions, as far as possible, with the Epistle and Gospel of the day60). Not many dioceses could afford the services of so able a homilist as Father Connell. Some bishops turned to local priests for assistance in preparing sermon material. Some bishops borrowed syllabi produced by other dioceses, like Milwaukee, Chicago, or St. Louis. Some directed their clergy to use sermon courses already on the market, like Francis Connell’s Sunday Sermon Outlines (New York and Cincinnati, 1955), or the Catechetical Sermon Aids of Bishop Joseph H. Schiarman of Peoria (St. Louis, 194 2). No doubt the very difficulty of obtaining good sermon material, year in, year out, explains why not all the United States’ bishops distributed preaching syllabi, or did so for very many years. But it must also be borne in mind that even those bishops who did not distribute official sermon programs usually stipulated that pastors work out a series of their own based on the Roman Catechism. If they did not choose to draw on the Roman Catechism itself or the Baltimore Catechism, or, indeed, to write their own series, they could always borrow from Callan-McHugh’s Parochial Course; Schiarman’s Sermon Aides; Connell’s Sermon Outlines; the four-volume course published in the late 1930’s by Father Clement Crock; the catechetical sermons presented by such periodicals as the Homiletic and Pastoral Review; and so forth.

The Second Vatican Council, as we shall see in a few moments, presented, or rather, confirmed, an official concept of the Mass-time sermon that differed in important respects from the concept hitherto accepted by Catholic bishops and priests. Since 1963, therefore, marked the end of a homiletic era, we should at this point summarize briefly our findings on American Catholic preaching practice as indicated in the Church legislation from colonial times up to the convocation of Vatican II.

First, the negative aspects. From the time of John Carroll on, there was a tendency, in practice if not always in theory, to consider the Mass-sermon as something detachable from its liturgical context. In practice, we say, for Carroll, in his 1791 legislation, acting no doubt on the basis of colonial or English custom, confirmed the procedure of sandwiching parish announcements and general intercessions between the reading of the Gospel and the pulpit discourse. This sandwiching tradition probably made it easier in later years to tolerate the preaching of catechetical sermons which had little relation to the scriptural or liturgical texts of the Sunday.61

A cognate tendency was the de-emphasis of Scripture as the principal source for Sunday sermons. Not that it was ever excluded: the sermon at the principal Mass could easily be a true scriptural homily; legislation often stipulated that the low Mass "instructions" be based either on Scripture or Christian doctrine; and, as in the case of Harrisburg, bishops might insist that even the sermons prescribed in a catechetical syllabus be tied in with the pericopes of the day. Nevertheless, the increasing emphasis placed on Mass-time catechetics could only have been disadvantageous to the scriptural and liturgical context of the Masses.

One might wonder whether the warnings of the Second Plenary Council against preaching on politics and current events were not phrased too absolutely. To a point, such cautions are necessary, for it is rather easy for a preacher to forget that his subject matter is not today’s headlines but eternal truths. Still, preaching can never be divested of its prophetic role. In general, American Catholic preachers seem to have understood this. For example, one of the ablest of them, Father Clarence Walworth of Albany, N.Y., did not hesitate to upbraid Tammany Hall from the pulpit on February 21, 1892, for its advocacy of legalized Sunday liquor sale.62 While American Catholic preachers were not at all ready, as representatives of an immigrant and minority Church, to attack in their sermons the policies of governmental leaders, they knew that current events and politics often had ethical ramifications which required comment. Cardinal Gibbons perhaps gave the best interpretation of the hierarchy’s veto on topical homilies. "The preacher. . . . he wrote, "does not discuss from the pulpit subjects of a political or transitory nature, unless some moral issue be involved in them.... The Gospel is not oil flowing on the surface of life’s turbid waters without commingling with them, but a leaven penetrating, fermenting, and purifying the social mass." (Not that Gibbons himself would have favored topical tirades. For instance, he abhorred political sermons as an abuse of the pulpit.63)

On the positive side, we can say with praise that the American hierarchy was heartily dedicated to carrying out its obligation of preaching according to the ideals set forth by the Council of Trent. Trent, in its measures for homiletic reform, had had to stem not only erroneous but inadequate preaching. Through its decrees it sought to provide constancy in the proclamation of the necessary truths and the necessary virtues. Through its Roman Catechism it sought to furnish authentic documentation for teaching these truths and virtues. The American bishops, more missionaries than scholars, showed an early preference for the catechetical aspect of their teaching duty. Was not this the primary need of their immigrant flocks: to be instructed in the Faith if they lacked religious knowledge; to be reminded of it if that knowledge faded; and to be armed with correct doctrine on those points denied or controverted by members of the American non-Catholic majority? Surely it was their staunch catechetical sense that prompted these American prelates to increase rather than reduce their emphasis on pulpit catechetics in the decades immediately preceding the Second Vatican Council.

While in Pre-Vatican II days the bishops of the United States strove to observe, even scrupulously, the Roman directives on preaching, still local conditions could at times prompt them to be innovative. Some of their caveats, for instance, were against grass-roots abuses, like money-preaching, pulpit billingsgate, and quasi-Jansenistic moralization. Among the American hierarchy’s positive contributions, the decree of the Third Plenary Council requiring instructions at all Sunday Masses was very important. This rule did not appear in the general homiletic legislation of the Church until the Code of Canon Law was promulgated, thirty-four years later.

It would be easy for today’s critic to fault the American hierarchy of pre-Vatican II days for entertaining a concept of pulpit preaching that was insufficiently related to scriptural and liturgical scholarship. But such a judgment would be anachronistic and unjust. Living and legislating in the Tridentine age, they deserve applause for cleaving loyally to the preaching norms which that age produced.

 

10. Vatican II and Sunday Preaching: the New Dilemma

The Second Vatican Council has generated many revolutions in Catholic theory and practice. One of them is the homiletic revolution. Not that Vatican II differed from Trent in its concept of the paramountcy of preaching in the Christian dispensation. In fact, Vatican II explicitly declared its purpose to fulfill Christ’s mandate by "proclaiming the gospel to every creature," so that those who heard the Word with faith and became part of the little flock of Christ might in that unity produce a fruitful harvest.64 Nor did the Council disagree with Trent’s assertion that preaching the Word is the principal task of the bishops, as successors of the apostles, carried out with the aid of their priests (and deacons).65

Where the Second Vatican Council differed from the Council of Trent, and very significantly, was in its interpretation of the Mass-time homily as an essential part of the Eucharistic liturgy. The primary statement of this interpretation came in article 52 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, promulgated on December 4, 1963. Speaking in the context of a directive that the "treasures of the Bible were to be opened up more lavishly" in the mandated revision of the Eucharistic liturgy, the Fathers said:

By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year. The homily, therefore, is to be highly esteemed as part of the liturgy itself; in fact, at those Masses which are celebrated with the assistance of the people on Sundays and feasts of obligation, it should not be omitted except for a serious reason.66

Article 35 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had already alluded to this Mass-time sermon:

The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources. Its character should be that of a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, that is, the mystery of Christ, which is ever made present and active within us, especially in the celebration of the liturgy.67

The Council also referred to this homiletic concept in two later documents. Verbum Dei, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (November 18, 1965), said that in the general ministry of the Word, which includes "pastoral preaching, catechetics, and all other Christian instruction, the liturgical homily should have an exceptional place."68 Presbyterorum Ordinis, the Decree on Priestly Formation (December 7, 1965), amplified somewhat the earlier description of the Eucharistic homily: "If it is to influence the mind of the listener mor fruitfully, such preaching must not present God’s Word in a general and abstract fashion only, but it must apply the perennial truth of the Gospel to the concrete circumstances of life."69

The homily, "a part of the liturgy itself!" When those words were proclaimed by the Council did the bones of John Carroll startle in the tomb? He had widened the wall of announcements and intercessions between the scripture passages and the sermon. Were American bishops and priests, alive or dead, bemused? They had not hesitated at times to authorize a course of catechetical conciunculae largely unrelated to the Sunday’s liturgy. And how did the canonists react who had espoused the contradictory opinion: "Certainly the homily does not belong to the essential rubrics of the Mass. It is rather to be considered a lawful interruption!"70

In describing the Eucharistic homily, the Council said "its character should be that of a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, that is, the mystery of Christ. . . ." This was understandably interpreted as a call to kerygmatic preaching: the announcing of the essential truths that God intended to be announced; or, in a sense, the announcing of Christ himself, the Father’s gift to us.71

Nine months after the promulgation of the Constitution on the Liturgy and still during the period of the Council, though not in its official utterances, there appeared a further document on the concept of the Mass homily. It was the instruction Inter Oecumenici of September 26, 1964, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Two paragraphs are particularly relevant:

54. By a homily from the sacred text is understood an explanation either of some aspect of the readings from holy Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or Proper of the Mass of the day, taking into account the mystery which is being celebrated and the particular needs of the hearers.

55.If plans of preaching within Mass are proposed for certain periods, the intimate connection with at least the principal seasons and feasts of the liturgical year (cf. Const. art. 102-104), that is, with the mystery of the Redemption, is to be harmoniously preserved: for the homily is a part of the liturgy of the day.72

When the revised Missale Romanum was formally issued on March 26, 1970, its General Introduction (Ins titutio Generalis) incorporated into the description of the Mass homily this broadened base:

41. The homily is strongly recommended as an integral part of the liturgy, and as a necessary source of nourishment of the Christian life. It should develop some point of the readings or of another text from the Ordinary or the Mass of the day [ex Ordinario vel Proprio Missae dieil. The homilist should keep in mind the mystery that is being celebrated and the needs of the particular community.73

We defer for the moment any comment on the background of the Council’s "novel" concept of the Mass-homily. Here we limit ourselves to two observations. 1. The notion of the homily as an integral part of the Eucharistic liturgy is a splendid one, and if properly understood and implemented it can inspire a truly Christ-centered preaching. 2. In taking this more kerygmatic view of the Mass-homily, the Council does apparently leave itself open to the accusation of ignoring the catechetical function of Mass-time sermons, and even of failing completely to explain how catechesis can be given on subjects which are not referred to in the sacred texts of the individual Sunday liturgies.74 (Even, we might add, after the publication of the scripturally "more lavish" Lectionary of 1969-1970).

This reputed neglect has posed, and continues to pose, a very serious dilemma. If our Mass-homilies are to be solely kerygmatic, are American preachers in particular, raised in a strongly catechetical tradition, to forego henceforth the systematic catechesis and re-catechesis of their people? Nor is this a vain fear, as one can easily gather from a random check of contemporary printed sermon-suggestions and sermon-series.

For example, suggested Sunday homily themes are given each year in the Paulist American Ordo. An examination of those provided in the 1975 ordo will quickly indicate that if these meditative kerygmatic suggestions were observed strictly throughout the current year, the listeners would hear precious little from the pulpit on the Sacraments, still less on the Commandments, and probably nothing on the Precepts of the Church. Or take the well-known homilies published regularly by the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. It is doubtful that any preachers use a series of this sort with absolute constancy and absolutely verbatim, even though it is the intention of the editors to provide annually "a complete ‘year-ful’ of homilies for present and future use."75 If, however, any priest should have preached only the Review’s sermons printed in volumes 64-75 (1963-1975), his congregation, however well indoctrinated in kerygma, would for twelve years have heard not a word about certain Sacraments, Commandments, and Precepts. Though the sermonic imbalance it criticised in 1884 sprang from less worthy causes, the Third Plenary Council had that long ago warned against pulpit styles "which pass over in silence some of the chief duties of the followers of Christ and some of the principal mysteries of the faith."

But a study of American Catholic sermon legislation since 1963 gives still stronger evidence of a disturbing imbalance of subject-matter.

Between the opening of the Second Vatican Council and 1974, only fourteen American bishops issued synodal or pro-synodal statutes.76 All but one of these statutory collections specifically re-state the Council’s norm that a homily be given at each Mass on Sunday and holydays. Several incorporate other relevant passages from the Council or subsequent papal documents, emphasizing that sermons must address the necessities of the people. The Council’s radical interpretation of the homily is therefore accepted, sometimes with the undue insistence that it be based only on the scripture readings (so II Bridgeport, 1971). Well and good: Vatican II had certainly favored a kerygmatic approach.

What is conspicuous by its absence from these regulations is any.. thing like the former dogged insistence on perennial catechesis in all aspects of Christian doctrine and duties. Only two synods re-echo the old solicitude. The Fourth Synod of Richmond (1966) says that pastors "should see to it that the full content of the Church’s teaching is carefully and systematically explained to the faithful." The Second Synod of Paterson (1971), declares: "Homilies and instructions should provide more concrete applications of the Creed, Sacraments and Commandments to the social order." Paterson’s was the only reference in all the post-1963 legislation to the Roman Catechism, and it was, of course, only implicit. Synod Six of Peoria did, however, recommend for "religious education courses" a contemporary source that offered a modest parallel to the Trent Catechism, the American bishops’ Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education, which had appeared on January 11, 1973.

In our questionnaire to the American dioceses, we asked if they had issued preaching syllabi since the Council. Their responses further confirm the impression of homiletic disorientation. Only twenty-four said that they had distributed syllabi after 1963; but most sermon plans were short-term, and dealt with liturgical, scriptural and social subjects rather than the traditional catechetical material. Of the twenty-four, only five had continued to take the Roman Catechism as guide, or at least to cover the principal Christian teachings according to the system it had developed. Only two chanceries reported that they had prepared, or were preparing, updated syllabi to provide for the repetition of the main teachings over a cycle of years.

In returning their questionnaires some chancery officials voiced their own opinions on the admitted dilemma that the Council has presented to American preachers. Here, too, the views were naturally divergent.

One diocesan official wrote: "Our primary concern is to preach on the Scripture texts which are given for the Sunday celebration. Syllabi could be arranged to fit in with these Scripture readings but only with some difficulty. And I believe the greater number of priests would like to have the freedom to speak on the Scriptures without the restrictions of certain schemas."

Others were less happy with the implications of strictly scriptural kerygma. The respondent from a midwest diocese considered it all a mixed blessing: "The result, I think, is Catholics who know a little more about Jesus Christ and the Spirit, but who have a deficient understanding of what they believe by faith." A chancery official from a third diocese reported an interesting trend among priests of his locality. "Some of the pastors," he wrote, "are returning on their own initiative to preaching on the Creed, Sacraments, Commandments, prayers, etc. They justify their doing so on the fact that the Sunday liturgy is the only occasion that is available to present to the parishioners (in largest number) the basics of the faith."

"The Sunday liturgy is the only occasion that is available to present to the parishioners (in largest number) the basics of the faith." At the beginning of this paper we quoted the 1974 Synod of Peoria as saying much the same thing. It is quite true that we have today, as we have always had, certain other times and occasions to instruct the faithful in the specific data of their faith. But the Sunday Mass-time still remains the prime available time for the instruction of the majority of the believing community.

In the foregoing pages I think I have proved that the American Catholic hierarchy cannot be faulted for its insistence on a staunch program of catechetical preaching in the generations before Vatican II. With a loyalty to Church directives comparable to that shown by their predecessors, our contemporary bishops have accepted the new concept of homily proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council. But they have accepted, along with that concept, the ambiguity of its relationship to continuing catechesis. The peril of this situation is that many contemporary American Catholics (I dare not guess how many), during the past decade, must have been told or reminded all too little, from the uniquely important Sunday pulpit, of some of the basic points of Christian doctrine.

Whether this is yet a tragic situation, it is a dangerous one; and I am convinced that it demands prompt study and remedy. Furthermore, I believe that there is a remedy at hand, and that it can be found under the very rubrics of Vatican II. Since this is a pastoral proposal, I shall discuss it briefly in the concluding section. Now, however, as a historian, I would urge the American hierarchy to unite in finding a corrective that will do credit both to their sense of pastoral responsibility and to our robust American catechetical tradition.

11. Toward a Pastoral Solution

If, as a church historian, I have shown an ecclesial concern about the weakening of our American catechetical preaching, I also have a strong desire, as a daily homilist, to see the dilemma resolved. Though I claim no expertise as a catechist or homiletic theorist, I shall nevertheless venture to conclude the present article with some suggestions based on a closer examination of the Council’s statements on homilies. First of all, I deny that the Council ignored the catechetical of Mass-time homiletics or questioned the value of systematizing it through preaching plans.

Let us look at the discussions that went on in Vatican II over the "definition" of the liturgical homily. In the relatively brief initial schema on liturgy (1962), the passage on the homily read, "Homilia, tam quam pars ipsius Liturgiae, valde commendatur praesertim dominicis et festis de praecepto": "The homily, as a part of the liturgy itself, is strongly commended, especially on Sundays and holydays of obligation." (No. 39) The idea that a homily is part of the liturgy was attributed to Pius XII’s Mediator Dei of 1947, paragraph 21.

Now, during the discussion of this article in the course of the first two sessions of the Council, a number of the Fathers indicated their desire that the Constitution express more strongly the catechetical element of liturgical preaching.77 To accommodate this evident pastoral solicitude, the Commission proceeded to expand the text of the article to its present form, so that it read: "By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year" (". . . qua per anni liturgici cursum ex textu sacro fidei mysteria et normae vitae Chris tianae exponuntur").78

While the key terms on subject matter, mysteries and guiding principles, are not so explicit as the general headings used by the Roman Catechism (Creed, Sacraments, Commandments and prayer), nevertheless they cover, between them, both the mystagogical and catechetical areas of preaching. The term "sacred text" was also carefully chosen. One of the Council Fathers had urged that "sacred text" be defined as meaning "scriptural lessons." No, the Commission replied, this would be too restrictive: after all, some of the Church Fathers based their Mass-sermons on liturgical texts other than the scriptural pericopes.79 Not that the Commission thought one could not normally find a basis for necessary catechesis in the pericopes of the Mass, especially as expanded in the proposed new lectionary. But by broadening the base of sermonic source material, the Council certainly did a good turn to those concerned about fulfilling their catechetical obligations within the liturgical context.

And what about sermon plans in the future? This practice was also brought up in the Council discussion, especially by bishops who were accustomed at home to a programmatic approach. One of the Fathers even recommended that the Council in some way authorize a "pastoral directory for teaching the people doctrine." But the Commission said that this would be inappropriate: the programming of sermons "pertains to the diocesan authority."80

If the instruction Inter Oecumenici of September 26, 1964 did not have the same authority as the conciliar decrees, nevertheless its remarks on the sources of Mass-homilies and on preaching plans were only clarifications of what had been agreed on in the discussion of the liturgical schema. The two relevant articles of this instruction deserve to be quoted again:

54. By a homily from the sacred text is understood an explanation either of some aspect of the readings from holy Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or Proper of the Mass of the day, taking into account the mystery which is being celebrated and the particular needs of the hearers.

55. If plans of preaching within Mass are proposed for certain periods, the intimate connection with at least the principal seasons and feasts of the liturgical year (cf. Const. art. 102-104), that is, with the mystery of the Redemption, is to be harmoniously preserved: for the homily is a part of the liturgy of the day.

The Council, therefore, made ample, if discreet provisions for a type of liturgical homily that would answer the ongoing catechetical "needs of the hearers." Later on, the term "sacred text" was further exegeted by Pierre Jounel, one of the consultors of the Commission that had prepared the Council’s schema on the liturgy:

The texts available for explanation [in the homily] are, in the first place, the readings, but also all the prayers of the Proper, and it is indispensable to return periodically to the most important formularies of the Ordinary, the Gloria, the Credo, the Pater, the preface, the narration of the institution of the Eucharist and the anamnesis, as well as to those words so frequent but so full of meaning, the Amen, the Alleluia, the Gratias agimus, etc.81

For mystagogical and catechetical preachers alike, Jounel’s is a liberating and richly suggestive exegesis. "Liturgical homily" and "homily on the ‘theme’ of lessons one and three" are certainly not synonymous!

The Council also wisely allowed the use of preaching plans as a means of insuring systematic coverage of the principal credenda and facienda. But by insisting that such plans respect the liturgy of the day, the Sacred Congregation established a norm that would correct the sometimes anti-liturgical features of the syllabi of yesteryear.82 Preaching plans henceforth should not only be subordinate to liturgy itself; they should be used only periodically. Furthermore, while permitting preaching plans thus conceived, the Council Fathers left their adoption up to the bishops who, as the chief diocesan liturgists and catechists, have always had final jurisdiction over the religious education of their flocks.

I get the impression that many who in the late 1960’s wrote on the "new" theory of the homily, reacted too strongly against any systematic approach to the catechetical aspect of Sunday preaching. While I agree that monolithic programming is now a thing of the past, I am convinced that our 1975 preaching predicament in this country demonstrates the real need of a modified type of syllabus.

On the basis of the foregoing considerations, I would therefore suggest:

1. That the American bishops as a body (for greater efficiency, and because this is a nationwide problem) entrust to a committee of experts in liturgy, Scripture and catechetics, the task of drawing up not one but several master-plans for courses of preaching that would cover, over a certain period of time, and in a manner related to the liturgy, the basic doctrines on the mysteries of the faith, the Sacraments, Commandments, prayer, etc. Let these be organized in such a manner as to allow the preacher as much freedom as is consistent with the total program.

2. That the body of American bishops then communicate these plans to the individual ordinaries, who will in turn mandate them, or at least propose them as essential models, to their diocesan preachers.

Who knows, this undertaking may inspire somebody to offer us as a further aid a modern counterpart of the Roman Catechism?

I fully believe that such a measure would be consonant with both our past traditions and our present necessity.

I feel that it can also contribute to the reconciliation, which must at length be achieved, of the passionate catechetical spirit of Trent and the kerygmatic charity of Vatican II. In such a reunion "kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss" (Ps. 85, 11).

 
Part 5, Notes