Fr. Roger J. Landry
Interview with Aleteia
June 29, 2020
Aleteia asked to interview me on the subject of preaching, about how priests go about composing homilies, find inspiration from them, and so on. The interview was conducted by email. Here are the questions submitted by journalist Ray Cavanagh and my answers. I print them here especially in case they are helpful to those who are just beginning to preach as well as for those priests and deacons who regularly visit this site for ideas, to get a know a little bit behind the homilies found here.
I will link to the article when it appears.
In what ways do you get inspiration for your homilies?
I get inspiration for my homilies primarily from prayer over the four readings, the liturgical prayers of the Mass, from the saint of the day or the mystery being celebrated. When I was first starting, I would also get inspiration from some great preachers and Biblical exegetes: St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Archbishop Sheen, William Barclay, Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI and Fr. John Jay Hughes. I will often consult previous homilies I’ve given to see how the Holy Spirit inspired me then, especially with regard to the connections between various readings, to see what might still be relevant.
What sort of formula do you use for composing homilies? Do you draft an outline?
After meditation and a prayer to the Holy Spirit asking for help on what he’d like me to say to the particular people who will hear it, I then make some bullet points based on the readings, prayers, saint and mystery. Then I organize them into an outline. Then I type out the whole homily, which is always useful to know how long the homily will be. Then I deliver it and edit the homily after having given it, to see what pruning the Holy Spirit might do during delivery. Then I post.
Are there any particular books or websites you use for guidance?
After preaching for 21 years, my problem is not finding ideas on which to preach but pruning them. But for seminarians and permanent deacon candidates and the recently ordained, I generally refer them to some of the great new resources that are available: Scott Hahn and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, Bishop Barron and Word on Fire, Brant Pitre’s excellent commentaries, the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series, Barclay and then other preachers who approach Biblical themes and daily life similar to the way God inspires them
How much time do you typically need to compose a homily?
For a Sunday homily, I will generally start thinking about it on Monday and write it down on Saturday. In between, I let the various ideas marinate in prayer within, paying close attention to current events and areas in which the light of God’s word could shine in places of darkness. I also think about whatever fears, anxieties, questions and problems those coming to Mass might have to which God’s word would have a strong response that week. When I sit down to write based on the outline and the thoughts of the week, it generally takes me about two hours. The whole process however would involve at least five hours of prayer and then at least a few other hours thinking about ideas, approaches, etc.
Do you ever contend with a strong case of homily-writer’s block? If so, how do you overcome it?
I have only experienced homily-writer’s block a few times in preaching more than 10,000 Masses in 21 years. On those occasions when I have, I try to follow the advice I give to others. I pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance and then try to look at the readings, mysteries, current events, etc., from the perspective of fundamental Christian experiences: prayer, love of God, sacrificial love of neighbor, family life, faith, hope, mercy, passing on the faith, etc. Having preached a lot to kids as well as in foreign languages early in my priesthood has helped me to be able to find the “simple” applications more readily and, all other things failing, all of us can profit from a return to the basics. Normally the combination of the two — prayer to the Holy Spirit and a reexamination of the readings, prayers, feast, crisis from the perspective of the foundations of our faith — helps me find something that nourishes me and helps me try to nourish others.
In your view, what is the ideal homily length, in terms of minutes of speaking?
For most Sunday Masses, unless there’s a particular reason to go shorter, I’ll average 20-25 minutes. When the average American spends up to 30 hours a week on screens, it’s hard for the Gospel to compete if the homily is too short. When I start at a parish, if they’re not used to longer homilies, I’ll begin at 12 minutes and gradually increase the content and then the length. The longer a homily, the greater the need for stories and illustrations. For daily Mass homilies, for religious sisters and for those not in a rush, I’ll generally preach about 10 minutes. If it’s a worker’s Mass, I’ll try to keep it to five. In terms of the “ideal homily length,” I don’t think that there’s an “ideal” that can apply to every situation: preaching to children in a foreign language is different than preaching to women religious on a retreat in one’s native tongue. Even on the same Sunday, different lengths and takes might be given depending upon the times and the demographics of the Masses.
When, in 2018, Pope Francis said “be brief…no more than 10 minutes, please!”……Did this at all change how you approach homilies?
No, it didn’t. In general, I loved Pope Francis’ primer on preaching in Evangelii Gaudium and have followed many of his suggestions, written articles, and preached several clergy days on what he’s conveyed. With regard to his suggestions on length, however, which he generally says should be eight minutes and no longer than 10, I would first say that if you look at his own Sunday homilies, they are much longer than that. I’ve timed his homilies sometimes even at 38 minutes. What I think he was trying to emphasize was that if someone is a poor preacher, he shouldn’t torture the people by droning on, which is certainly a wise pastoral point for the Pope to make. Poor preaching is often cited as a reason why people leave the practice of the Catholic faith for evangelical Churches. But if you listen to great preachers — Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, Bishop Barron, Fr. Cantalamessa, to name just a few — they far exceed 8-10 minutes on Sundays and major occasions. Sometimes Catholic preaching professors will argue that people’s attention spans are such that they cannot process more than 8-10 minutes today, but I think that assertion is disproven by how evangelicals can listen to their pastors preach 45 to 60 minutes on Sundays. It’s not a question of attention span, but rather of the quality of the preaching and the hunger for the word of God among those who are listening.
About how many homilies have you composed at this point?
I have celebrated 10,325 Masses as of today and have preached at all but a few hundred of them. I have also preached about 100 during my transitional diaconate and many others at baptisms, gravesides, wedding ceremonies without Mass, days of recollection, retreats, etc. My guess is that I’ve had the privilege to preach about 13,000 times.
About what percent of them do you consider successful?
To evaluate success depends on the criteria used. The purpose of a homily is not — as some occasionally propose — to “hold the listeners’ attention” or “entertain,” or “give them something to think about,” all things that could theoretically be easy to assess. Vatican II (Presybterorum Ordinis) said the purpose of a homily is “conversion and holiness.” Pope Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini) said it was actualizing the word of God in the lives of listeners. Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium) said it was helping those listening enter more deeply into the covenantal dialogue between God and his people. Those are all goals that cannot be evaluated easily in the short term. When we look at Jesus’ homilies, whether the Sermon on the Mount, or the Bread of Life Discourse, or his Seven Words from the Cross, it’s hard to think that any of them were immediately successful, but long-term, they’ve obviously borne great fruit in those who meet the seed of the Word of God with good soil (Mt 13). I think that’s the same today for any homily. My experience has been that sometimes the homilies that I was not particularly happy with brought lots of people to the confessional and others that I thought were among my best seemed to bear little fruit. God’s ways are not our ways. When a homily is preached with faith in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, the word won’t return to God in vain (Is 55), but will produce good fruit in those with good soil, hopefully beginning with the preacher himself. So I like to look at every homily as both a success and a failure, depending upon the cooperation of the preacher with God, and the cooperation of the listener with God.
Have you ever noticed that one of your homilies was totally failing to sustain the interest of the parishioners?
My experience is that in every homily I sustain the interest of many and do not sustain the interest of others. I’ve never had one that sustains 100 percent and never had one, even at nursing homes, that failed to engage some. Normally, on Sundays, based on the live feedback I get from eye contact with those present and how they respond to certain things, I would say that about 70 percent seem to be paying attention. At daily Mass, sometimes it might be as high as 90 percent. If I’m losing the attention of some who would otherwise give attention, I mix things up, I use a story, I change the pacing or volume a little, etc. One of the easiest ways to help people return is a pause. If there’s silence for five seconds, almost all the heads will turn to you to see if you’re still there, if there’s a problem with the microphone, if you’re all right, etc. Everyone is subject on occasion to distractions, even when we’re trying to focus on God in prayer, and so little things like a pause, or a, “I’d like to share with you a story,” or even an “Someone might be saying to himself right now, ‘This doesn’t interest me in the least,’ but let me try to show why these words from Jesus are so important.” A preacher, like a good teacher, needs to develop some techniques to make it easier for people to pay attention. Preaching, like any good speech, is musical: most people will fall asleep during Debussy-like elevator music, but not during the energetic third movements of Mozart Sonatas whose dynamics make people sit up and pay attention. Priests, like good musicians, must vary the” dynamics” — the use of stories, repeating essential themes in different words, speeding up and slowing down, going loud or soft, using higher pitch or lower — to hold attention longer.
