One of the viewers on YouTube brought up question about my homily for 9/21/08. He mentioned that what I preached did not match necessarily the commentaries. There is a reason for this. A homily is not a class lesson. It is a teaching of a spiritual truth based on one of the readings. It is designed to break open the reading for the hearers.

If I preach homilies based on just the historical situation without any spiritual reflection then this is not breaking open the word it it teaching a history lesson. Jesus’ words although spoken to those in his historically contemporary time are actually  timeless words and must be reflected upon not only in light of the situation in which they were originally spoken, but also in the situation in which they are heard many centuries later.

So we use the history as a background and then reflect on the homily as it applies not only to us this day, but also to the congregation to whom we are speaking.

I was warned in the seminary, for that reason, to be careful of taking a homily wholesale from a book of commentaries. Besides the fact that is plagiarism, such homilies may be intensely inspiring, but they were written without any knowledge of the person who will hear them. So what I might preach to a suburban community in English and to a city community in Spanish might be two different homilies. What I might say to the YouTube audience and what I might say to my own congregation also might be two different homilies. So you will never see me using anything wholesale from a commentary because to do so address the needs of the congregation to whom I am speaking.

Thanks to You Tube viewer Devotions4u for the question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCpOqtww5tg