Homilies: What makes for a good one?

Published: 2004-07-15

WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- In the Diocese of Wilmington, a 2001 survey of 10 parishes found that "the No. 1 way adults get information on faith is from homilies," said Edmund F. Gordon, director of religious education. "Homilies are far and away the single most important source for like 97 percent of our adults," he said. So what makes for a good homily? The new Vatican instruction on the liturgy, "Redemptionis Sacramentum" ("The Sacrament of Redemption"), specifies that homilies should be "based upon the mysteries of salvation, expounding the mysteries of the faith and the norms of Christian life from the biblical readings and liturgical texts." Their interpretation of Scripture, it says, should refer "back to Christ himself ... so that the light of Christ may shine upon life's events." The document also reiterates that church teaching bars anyone but ordained ministers from preaching. A good homily is "something that resonates with my faith, something that makes me go a little deeper and connects to the faith with honesty," said Mary Louise Chesley-Cora, a theology teacher at Padua Academy in Wilmington.

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