Tips from the USA Dominicans Preaching Contacts

On November 17, 2023, the Preaching Contact Persons from the USA Dominican Communities shared pointers they suggest make preaching events memorable…! We thought you would like to know what they said:

•      ·       Connect with history as appropriate; help us understand whatever is being celebrated (i.e. Translation of remains of Dominic, Triumph of the Cross).
• ·       Share just enough appropriate historical background.
• ·       Know your audience and remember that holidays are times of joy and sorrow; speak to both realities…!  
• ·       Know context: What is happening in the world?
• ·       Use a line from Scripture and repeat it appropriately for emphsis.
• ·       Just the right length - not too long and not too short…!
• ·       Never ramble…!
• ·       Challenge your audience (Avoid serving ‘Let us…’)
• ·       Draw people into a personal encounter with Christ Jesus.

Keep tuned…! We’ll be sharing more on the final point soon…!

The Preaching Committee, Kathy, Lisa, Lois, Clarice, and Carla Mae

Let Your Light Shine?

 We have experienced the shortest day of the year, and the light is growing stronger each day. Liturgically, we have just celebrated the season of lights. But as we listen to the evening news, we often feel anything but lightsome. What are we to make of this contrast? Often we sense that the Church lives in its own faith-world, while I live in the real world. But after a bit of thought, maybe what we really all live in, is the tension between light and darkness. There is a tug-of-war, and I have to decide daily what side I’m on…!

 Interestingly, this is exactly what the Dominican shield captures. Whether viewed from the bottom up or the top down, the light is piercing the darkness. Maybe that is just the point: we live in the tension between light and darkness, between truth and lies, between peace and war, between the now and the not-yet.

 The scriptures for this time right after Christmas assure us of one thing: the Light has come, and the darkness is not going to overcome it. So, on our part we need to focus. Being wishy-washy will bring us only confusion. We need to make a decision to keep our eyes on the prize. But there is more. The Light has made its home in our DNA…our ‘stuff’…in our very flesh. There is nowhere to run when we look in the mirror. The deed is done. There is light behind our eyes…in fact, we are told we are the light of the world, because the One who has taken our flesh is the Light of the world. The darkness might try to snuff it out, but it doesn’t have a chance against that Love-light. We didn’t put it there, and even if we cover it with a bushel, we are not going to kill it. This is to be our focus. This is our constant gratitude, no matter how the darkness tries to smother it. Yes, do let your light shine for me and all to see…

 Little One,

Veiled in my flesh,

Expression of the Father’s Glory

wrapped in swaddling clothes,

my light is hidden too.

My skin hides my light from me.

But you see what I cannot see.

You have given Yourself to me.

Help me to remember

when the darkness closes in…

to let your light shine.

 

While Waiting in the Dark

Advent is a time of immense waiting. We wait for what we cannot yet see. It is growing…coming to be, but we wait in the darkness of unknowing. The liturgy gives us a woman during this season to teach us how to trust that something is going to emerge from the darkness. The darkness is going to give way to the light. We can learn much from Mary during this Advent time, especially because the present darkness around us is so intense.

The woman is aware that her very being is shaping something, yet the design is being woven by an unseen hand. Her humanness is providing the ‘stuff,’ the DNA, the cells, the tissue, the bone, but she does not see what it is becoming. But SomeOne else has the plan. She assists the plan. She eats, sleeps, speaks, and waits.

It sounds like us, the Church, doesn’t it. We so long for all the bickering to stop. We long for the corruption to end. We want the immigrants to find a home. We want the wars to cease for lack of interest. Yet all the while our longing is weaving something. Our desires strain to be realized and like the woman, we sense that SomeOne has a plan for what shall be. Advent is our time of longing for what grows in us, among us, from us. Advent is our time to assist…it is the time of active waiting. We too will eat, sleep, and wait. We will listen to the news…watching for signs of hope, signs of what is coming to be in the dark.

And just as sure as that newness will emerge from Mary’s longing, so will the reign of God emerge from the darkness of our Advent longing. We do not know what it shall look like…we only know that its coming is as sure as that birth. We assist. We do the ordinary things with extraordinary active love, and in due time, it comes. It comes from the time of our active waiting in the fertile dark of our faith.

Come, Lord Jesus…Do not delay.

From our longing and our tears,

Weave the flesh of our peace.

Build the blocks of unity from our differences.

Shape us into a people after your own heart.

Teach us, Weaver of plans, how to assist you.

Be it done unto us according to your Word

As we wait in the dark.

When All is Said and Done…

November brings us into the close of the liturgical year and the end of Ordinary Time. The Church, in her wisdom, has been instructing us on how to be a disciple in light of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ dying and rising is ever before her eyes, and ours too.

The rhythm of our lives flows from struggle and pain to joy and celebration. No one is excepted, be they believer or non-believer. The difference is that believers and disciples have a clue as to why life is that way. It was that way for the One who came to be with us and who loves us so. Our faith in him shows us how to ‘hang on.’ The ‘seat belt’ that keeps us secure in this roller coaster of life is his gift of Easter peace. He has us tight and safe…we need not fear, though the storm rages around us and in us.

The readings explore this wild ride coming to an end. They reveal the final victory of his Kingship. He is the king who suffers with us and brings us through the storm.

 Servant King,

Your arms are stretched out wide…

No one is excluded from your wide embrace.

 There is room for the most wretched,

the most abandoned, the most hopeless.

Is there room for me?

+

Your heart is open,

like a window without shutters,

Catherine says…

Where I can climb in and hide safely anytime.

+

Your hands are wounded…so are mine.

I’ve used them to grasp, to hold with tightened fists.

Gently pry open my clenched fists

and kiss them…

So I grasp and hold on to nothing but yourself.

+

Your feet are wounded…so are mine.

They’ve taken me to places you would not go.

They’ve taken me far from you,

Until I felt lost and alone.

+

Your head so wounded, pierced and aching,

has plans for me…and in your will is my peace.

Kerygmatic Preaching in Song

 Sometimes sung theology can be an example of Kerygmatic preaching. This earliest form of preaching, before theology was developed, was centered on a relationship with Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Word, as the core of Christian identity:

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
 For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Getty and Townsend

Ongoing Formation 2

 Last month we reflected on the fact that the Liturgy is the source of our ongoing formation as disciples. This month we will focus on the very heart of the Gospel, what is called the kerygma. What is the central truth that is at the core of our lives as people of the Word?

Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (The Joy of the Gospel, 164).

For many Christians, this is just something about Jesus. They have been catechized, but they have not really been evangelized. To be evangelized is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. It is a form of friendship. This is when we become a disciple. We follow him and he becomes our teacher. For example, on the 24^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we learned how we need to forgive. We are presented with the God of unbelievable mercy, and are called to the same kind of bigness in our forgiving. To keep rehearsing old wounds is to keep self-inflicking all over again, poisoning our souls. Jesus is a wise psychologist!

The October Sundays give us five pointers that serve to deepen the personal relationship we are deepening with Jesus: We need to listen for his voice; we are to be a fruitful vineyard; we are to be amazed at being ‘chosen;’ we are shown how to be present in the world; and we are presented with the ‘Golden Rule’ that fulfills the law. Time to check on our personal relationship!

 You want to be friends…?

with me…?

But that means we need to spend time…

together…

OK…!

 

The Heart of the Gospel

 Once we Dominicans realize our distinct approach to preaching as contemplative, incarnational, communal, and sacramental, we can zero in on what is known as Kerigmatic preaching. This is the way we fuse these elements together: We gaze in wonder at this Word-in-our-flesh, in the humanity of the entire human family, as he daily transforms us, just as he transforms the bread into his living presence. This is the kerygma. The early Christians worded it simply by saying, “Jesus is Lord.”

Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (The Joy of the Gospel, 164) How is it that throughout our catechesis no one ever proposed these most basic truths to us? Or if they did, the truths were ‘out there’ not ‘in here’ finding a home in my deepest heart? This is the basis for a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Kerigmatic preaching leads the listener to this personal relationship with Jesus. Most of us in our religious instruction were taught about Jesus. There is a very great difference.

Kerigmatic preaching should give the hearers the impression that this Jesus is someone the preacher knows personally. This authentic type of relationship comes from immersion in the Word, scripturally and personally. It plunges the person into ongoing conversion, the daily transformation that is most explicitly experienced in Eucharistic transformation. We do not leave the Eucharistic Liturgy the same. We are different as we seek to influence the communities in which we move and live and have our being.

We proclaim the Word in our praise-prayer (laudare), in our presence (benedicere), and in our formal verbal preaching (predicare). We are a person in relationship with Christ Jesus. We are women and men of the Word. As such, we preach always from the pulpit of our lives, even when we are in a hospital bed. This is the heart of the Gospel.