‘Boring sermons unfair to God’

MANILA, Philippines - Delivering boring homilies is unfair to God.

This is the reminder of incoming Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas to the clergy.

In a post yesterday on CBCPNews, Villegas said that priests should always prepare and think carefully about the content of their homilies because boring homilies are unfair to the people attending mass, the priest giving the homily, and the Maker.

“It is unfair to God. It is unfair to the people. It is also unfair to me because I’m depriving myself of the good encounter with God... The Mass is the highest form of prayer for every Catholic and I, as a priest, should go into the Mass with the utmost preparation,” said Villegas, the current CBCP vice president.

He admitted that there were instances when he gave less than inspiring homilies. This happened when he failed to prepare for the liturgy and did not pray before the mass.

“I have done that a few times in the past when I rush into the Mass because of the many schedules that preceded it,” Villegas said, adding that his long and winding homilies could also be attributed to his failure to “know my people well.”

“In other words, I was speaking about hunger when I did not feel the hunger myself. I was speaking about death, sorrow and loneliness but I have not felt the loneliness, the death and the sorrow that the parishioners are going through.

“We priests can preach to empty stomachs but only if our stomach is as empty as our parishioners. When our life is so different from our parishioners, then we end up giving long and winding homilies. I don’t speak about anyone. I speak about myself and I’m guilty,” he added.