Preach: The Catholic Homilies Podcast

“Effective preaching is like good butter sinking into warm toast,” says Karla Bellinger. “You’ve gotta give the Holy Spirit a little bit of time to do some work.” As the founding executive director of the Institute for Homiletics at the University of Dallas and president of the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics, Karla is filled with bits of wisdom like this for homilists. “The God of the universe who is infinite also wants to be the God who is intimate and close,” Karla says in her homily for the Second Sunday of Lent. “God wants to dazzle us.” In many ways, this is the mission of the homilist: helping people in the pews draw closer to God and prompting a dazzling encounter. Karla would know; as a lay woman and homiletician, she coaches and trains preachers—mostly ordained Catholic men—to give effective homilies. Preaching is a “pastoral act,” she says. Through every homily, “you want your people to come closer to God.”Listen to Karla’s homily on this week’s episode of “Preach.” After delivering her homily, Karla explores with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., some of the quick- and long-term fixes preachers can make to improve their homilies such that people in the pews can really hear what the preacher—and God—has to say.Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for “Preach,” Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russell Pollitt, S.J., approaches his homilies in a manner unlike any other preacher the “Preach” team has yet seen. While some rely on verbatim manuscripts, detailed linear plans, or simply loose notes, when this South African Jesuit priest sits down to write his homily after praying on the Scriptures, the first thing he does is produce an org chart (or organogram, as it’s better known outside the U.S.).” But, by the time Russell stands in front of the congregation to deliver his homily, the organogram has served its purpose and is nowhere to be seen. “I get a picture of that organogram in my head,” he says, “so that on a Sunday, I can stand up and I can preach without notes,” Russell is the superior of the Jesuits in Johannesburg and the director of the Jesuit Institute South Africa. For the First Sunday of Lent, Year B, Russell chooses to center his homily on a seemingly straightforward question: “What is Lent?” He offers three central lenses through which to consider the question. Think of Lent, he says, as a new start, a reminder and our desert.In his conversation with Ricardo after the homily, Russell elaborates on his organizational methods for preaching and reveals how his brother’s suicide and presiding over the funeral of a toddler who drowned, compelled him to rethink his “​own ​style” of preaching and even his “own ​theological ​framework,” he says. “It’s ​really ​heightened ​my ​own ​sensitivity ​to ​being ​with ​people ​who ​are ​bereaved, ​and ​preaching ​at ​a ​funeral.”Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for “Preach,” Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cardinal Roche opens the Lenten season on “Preach: The Catholic Homilies Podcast” with a heartfelt message taken from the Scripture readings for Ash Wednesday: “Come back to me with all your heart.” When asked by host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., why he chose the theme of “Welcome Home” and not to preach “in a heavier way,” to emphasize the penitential nature of the season, the cardinal, who is the most senior Vatican official to appear on the show, simply replies: “Well, because I think, really, that’s what Lent is all about.”Cardinal Roche serves as the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and is a former chairman of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). On the show, he not only imparts Lenten preaching wisdom but also shares his insights into Pope Francis’ synodal vision and emphasizes the need for preachers to meticulously prepare their homilies:“I would say, really, take preaching—take your homily very, very seriously. And don’t be the person who looks on Saturday night to see what he has to say on Sunday morning.”Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for “Preach,” Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may have seen that we haven’t had any episodes for the last two weeks. We are taking a break after the bumper set of episodes we put together for you during the Advent and Christmas seasons. We are reviewing the results of our survey—which you can still respond to here— and planning our offering for Lent.In the meantime, in this great week when we celebrate the extraordinary contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, to racial and social justice in the U.S. and beyond, we’re re-airing an episode with preacher Bryan Massingale, titled "Preaching the kingdom of God when justice is delayed on earth." This episode originally aired on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time this past July.Bryan is a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and presently lives and works in New York City as a professor of theology at Fordham University. He is a leader in the quest for faith-based racial and sexual justice, especially within the Catholic Church, and regularly presides and preaches at the The Parish of St. Charles Borromeo Resurrection and All Saints, the mother church for Black Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York. This year is the 40th anniversary of his priestly ordination. Listen to Bryan’s homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, on this week’s episode of “Preach.” After the homily, he shares with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., a less-rehearsed reading of the well-known parable of the sower in the Gospel of Matthew.Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readingsDo you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Preaching on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, David Neuhaus, S.J., explores a curiosity in the story of the Wise Men’s journey from the East to the Bethlehem manger. “Why didn’t the star take them straight to Bethlehem? Why did it take them to Jerusalem?,” he asks. "I think it took them to Jerusalem, as we are always taken to Jerusalem, because we must encounter the scriptures of Israel,” he continues. “It is from the Scriptures of Israel that they will receive the precise destination to which they are going—Bethlehem.”[Take a quick listener survey: Tell us what you love about “Preach” and what you’d like us to change]David, a Jesuit priest and Scripture scholar of the Near-East province of the Jesuits, was born into Judaism in South Africa but has lived most of his life in the Holy Land. Firmly declaring his roots, he states, “I was born a Jew and remain a Jew,” he states, firmly declaring his roots. “I didn't have any faith until I became a Catholic.” Over the course of his ministry as a Jesuit, he has dedicated himself to teaching Scripture in both Israel and Palestine. Notably, from 2008 to 2017, he served as the vicar for the Hebrew-speaking Catholic community in Israel. Presently, he splits his time between Johannesburg and Jerusalem. On this week's “Preach,” host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., delves into David’s questioning of the route  the Magi took to see Jesus and its implications for the Sunday Mass readings. “There is always some intimate connection between the first reading from the Old Testament and the third reading from the Gospel,” David notes. “​I ​would ​also ​say ​that ​it ​is ​very ​helpful ​when ​we ​realize ​that ​what ​we ​are ​called ​to ​do ​in ​a ​homily ​is ​to ​make ​Jesus ​alive, ​bring ​Jesus ​alive, ​and ​that ​Jesus ​is ​made ​alive ​by ​explicit ​texts ​about ​Jesus ​in ​the ​New ​Testament, ​and ​an ​implicit ​​promise ​of ​Jesus ​in ​the ​Old ​Testament.Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for “Preach,” Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yunan Frédéric, a Syriac Catholic priest living in Bethlehem with his Latina-American wife and their three children, preaches on the Feast of the Holy Family, even though the Syriac Church does not observe this feast in its liturgical calendar. For the past two years, he has served as the pastor of the Syriac Catholic community in Bethlehem; a small, largely refugee, Arab-speaking group of about 100 people.[Take a quick listener survey: Tell us what you love about “Preach” and what you’d like us to change]Yunan, shares his approach to preaching and contemplates the situation of war in which he lives. "It's like walking with a friend and talking together," he says. “I am very much listening as well. I am looking at the faces of the people. I’m trying to create a communion as we are one body during the Mass, and the homily is part of that communion.” As the conversation draws to an end, Yunan shares a prayer he has spontaneously found himself praying since war broke out, “O God, forgive us.”“When I was saying ‘us,’ I was including everyone. I was putting myself with the one who kills, and I was taking the one who killed into myself as well, as one family was human, one human family. God forgive us.”Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The anticipated joy of Christmas unfolds against a backdrop of pain and violence this year. “I think one of the most important things in these extremely troubled times is that we do have the lights, both metaphorically and physically,” says Barbara Reid, O.P. “Our most important gift and our most important approach, not only to the advent and Christmas season, but to our lives overall, is never to let hope dim.”[Take a quick listener survey: Tell us what you love about “Preach” and what you’d like us to change]On the Christmas episode of “Preach,” Sister Barbara Reid, President of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P. Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies at the C.T.U, preaches on the readings for Christmas Mass during the Day.In conversation with Ricardo after the homily, Barbara reflects on how she maintains Christmas joy in her preaching without shying away from the grim realities of the world, and encourages listeners to read Scripture commentaries from “perspectives that are postcolonial, Latino/a, Black Catholic, Asian, and Asian American.”Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on 'Preach,' the script is flipped: Ricardo da Silva, S.J., the regular host, becomes the guest preacher, and Maggi Van Dorn, a usual producer, takes the mic as the host. Maggi and Ricardo, who work together extensively on “Preach,” “Hark! The stories behind our favorite Christmas carols” and “Inside the Vatican,” compare how preachers and podcasters alike craft stories to captivate their audienceOn this Gaudete Sunday, Ricardo invites listeners to identify where they have experienced joy, even as he admits that we live in a world where joy is hard to come by. In his homily, Ricardo tells a story by Pedro Arrupe, S.J., who was the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. The story is about Arrupe's visit to a Brazilian favela, and it helps Ricardo explore the connection between joy and self-gift. “Joy cannot be manufactured. It's not something that we can create for ourselves,” explains Ricardo. “It’s something that sort of happens in a moment, in a flash, and then we catch ourselves in a joyful state.”Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite his advanced studies in Scripture, it wasn’t until Victor Cancino, S.J., became the resident pastor at St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana that he properly grasped the Bible’s deep connections with Native American spirituality and practices. “The Bible is from a tribal world with a spirituality that is as old as the people that I’m living with,” Victor says. “We completely forget that and we think of this Roman-Greco society that looks like us, but the Bible looks a lot like tribal people.”On “Preach,” Victor delivers a homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year B, focusing on the image of the desert presented in the first reading from Isaiah. In the conversation that follows the homily, host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., and Victor explore how the preacher might respond to generational trauma in marginalized communities, such as the people he works with on the reservation. Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“How do we really enter into a season like Advent when the world around us is already celebrating Christmas?” This is the question host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., sets before his guests, Scripture scholars Barbara Reid, O.P., and Victor Cancino, S.J., at the start of this episode, which breaks the usual mold of the podcast.Instead of the usual show where we hear a homily for a given Sunday and then talk to a guest preacher, we’ve invited Sister Reid and Father Cancino to share ways into the Scriptures for Advent and offer us avenues for preaching in each of the four weeks of this time. What do preachers need to keep in mind as we move into a new liturgical year, from Year A to Year B, and season, from Ordinary Time to Advent? What are the key themes that preachers can draw inspiration from for their homilies?Listen to “Preach” this week to hear what wisdom Barbara and Victor have to share about the Scriptures and the art of preaching to retell the Scripture.Read the full text of this week’s homily and Scripture readings.Do you have a preacher to recommend for Preach? Let us know here.Get daily Scripture reflections and support "Preach" by becoming a digital subscriber to America Magazine.“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices