Starting this Advent season, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary’s Catholic Preaching Institute (CPI) launches a unique approach to enhancing parishioner engagement in each Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word.
A weekly email commentary series called “Hearing the Word” begins Nov. 27 featuring Gospel reflections from both the clergy perspective (the priest or deacon at the ambo) and that of lay people in the pews.
The purpose of the commentaries “is to help both the preacher and the listener,” said Oblate Father Thomas Dailey, the project director of CPI and the John Cardinal Foley Chair of Homiletics and Social Communications at the seminary.
Many preachers have expressed “the challenge of making their homilies applicable to the diverse people in the pews,” Father Dailey said. Giving lay people with varied perspectives the opportunity to reflect and write commentaries on the Gospels helps to address this challenge, he suggested.
CPI was established in January 2024 with the goal of enhancing preaching and generating compelling homilies across the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Mid-year, CPI conducted a survey to determine how parishioners felt about the quality of preaching and homilies at their parishes.
From 2024 survey results, CPI learned parishioners want to better understand the Word of God, but that preaching on Scripture must also be relevant to people’s lives today. Parishioners weren’t always feeling connected with homily messages, according to survey results.
“Our goal is to be exceptional,” said Father Dailey, reflecting on the survey results.
To address this need, CPI created the “Hearing the Word” weekly e-newsletter with two perspectives – scholarly and personal – to expand and enhance the message and meaning of each Sunday’s Gospel. Each issue of the newsletter contains two easy-to-understand Gospel commentaries.
“From the Pulpit” focuses on scriptural meaning with scholars providing ways to interpret the Gospel and explore God’s Good News.
“From the Pew” is a believer’s perspective on how the Gospel remains meaningful to Catholics today. Selected lay contributors will share their own experiences of how God’s Word speaks to each of us on a personal level.
Each newsletter will contain the upcoming Sunday Gospel reading, the two commentaries, and beautiful artwork that reflects the Gospel reading and its messages.
The newsletter series will cover the three-year Sunday liturgical cycle, including Years A through C. Year C will be covered in the first year, followed by Year A and then Year B.
The newsletter will be sent via email every Thursday so that readers have the opportunity to read and reflect before attending Sunday Mass. (The first newsletter will go out on Wednesday, Nov. 27 due to the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, Nov. 28.)
The newsletter will be sent automatically to all clergy in the archdiocese. Anyone else may also receive the newsletter by sending their email address to preaching@scs.edu or click here to visit the CPI website and sign up.
Next year CPI plans to offer more programs, including a mentoring program for preachers, video workshops, a neighborhood-based public preaching series from an ecumenical perspective, and a Festival of the Word celebration to be held at the seminary.
Any lay person who wants to write for the “From the Pew” section of the “Hearing the Word” newsletter should email preaching@scs.edu for more information.
More information on CPI is on the website at https://www.scs.edu/preaching/.
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