Diary of a Preacher: Guidelines for Preaching[1]
I. Summary
The book written by Fr. Enrico D. Gonzales, OP, entitled, “Diary of a Preacher; Guidelines for Preaching” was divided into five chapters. The first chapter speaks of the demands of preaching as “Naming Grace.” The second chapter explains the simple virtues of the preacher or the preacher’s character. The third chapter explicates preaching as inner grace in search of articulation. The fourth chapter lays down simple rules to guide the preacher in the exercise of the gift of preaching. The fifth and last chapter consists of simple exercises which are based on actual classroom experience. This gives incisive ideas on how to put into practice the theology preaching the word of God.
In Chapter 1, the demand of preaching as “Naming Grace” depicts the dynamics of preaching. It evokes the historical process where God the Eternal entered into time. “Naming” was the Creator’s first act after he created the universe. For instance, man calls God Jesus and Jesus in turn, in bringing God so near to man, calls them no longer slaves but friends. In naming them friends, Jesus affords the apostles and experience of communion of life with God – a continuing event of grace. Grace was restored to humanity and became universal as it was in God’s original plan. Grace restored friendship between God and man. To live out and proclaim this grace is to preach the abiding presence of God in our midst. Preaching indeed is naming grace.
In the first chapter’s first point, the author explained preaching as the testimony of God’s friendship with the preacher. The gift of preaching is grace as it is essentially friendship. It is grace, specifically the gift of preaching, is free but never cheap. Friendship is grace because first of all it is free. Nonetheless, preaching implies a special form of friendship with God, preaching likewise is a special grace.
The second point of the first chapter, the author explained the preacher’s formation from empathy to a life of study and prayer. Empathy empowers the preacher to bridge the world of God and world of man. To develop this, the preacher should be united with God and man in the assiduous study of the word of God and the word of man, in silence and prayer in the presence of God, in dynamic integration with the community of the present-day apostles.
Going to the third point of the discussion in the said chapter, the author gave importance to the preacher’s need of study. The author emphasized the incessant link between study and preaching.
The fourth and last point here in this initial chapter gives explanations regarding the preacher’s need of prayer. The author explained that the preacher is not just any kind of teacher. The preacher is a teacher of life and for this reason, a prayer leader for life and prayer are one in the most dynamic unity.
In Chapter 2, the author explained about simple virtues which must be acquired by a preacher. The virtues shape the character of a preacher. Preaching itself requires the preacher to be disciplined because discipline is the very essence of a virtuous life. Self-discipline should be viewed as the process where the “marble slab”, the preacher, submits itself into the artistic bent of the “sculptor”, God. God in his wisdom knows how to create a beautiful character from the seemingly rough native endowments of the man who eventually will evolve into a preacher. Moreover, the author enumerated some virtues that the preacher must consider in his formation. These are humility and the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.
The fundamental virtue of the preacher that he must possess is humility. In all these persons, humility shone as a peculiarly Christian virtue. Joined into service, humility is no longer a vice but a virtue. Divorced from service, humility will cease to be a virtue. Linked to service, humility becomes the key that opens up everything, even heaven. Moreover, the preacher at the service of the Word should be a paragon of humility. The preacher’s words should be shaped by the Revelation of the Word and not purely by the fiction of his imagination.
When it comes to the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, preaching becomes an activity centered on God. It can be empowered by the theological virtues. The theological virtues of faith, hope and love should find their way into the dynamics of preaching lest it becomes pure rhetoric which exalts the preacher more than proclaim the word of God.
The theological virtue of faith enables the preacher to see grace. It explains that faith so enlightened the intellect to see God as the ultimate mystery, the eternal truth. Faith in this sense is “grace” – the gift of inner life – without which nothing, much less the supernatural, will ever be visible. It is precisely the task of the preacher to challenge his audience to retrieve the good there is in the world by first looking at it in the light of faith, then, acting on it through the guidance of God’s word, helping restore creation so that in the end, it may become the matter out of which the Church offers its perfect sacrifice. Because the study is indispensable to faith, study is indispensable to preaching
The theological virtue of hope strengthens the will to perseveringly reach out for God as good possible of attainment. To hope against hope is what the theological virtue of hope is all about. Hope is founded on faith which accepts God as the eternal truth, which in turn is the embodiment of the eternal good intended for man to enjoy forever. It is necessary compliment of faith.
If preaching is naming grace, then, preaching is naming love. This is the third theological virtue. God appropriates for himself the name love. That God is a triune God reveals to man that God is a substantial relationship, in short true love. Love is the very essence of God. He is love by definition. That is why he is the Holy Trinity who embodies substantial relationships which are in themselves persons existing in the unity of Godhead. Since he cannot deny his very self, the love of God is redeeming. Redemption is possible and fulfilled. Such is the love God has for man who even if he sinned still finds God persistent in loving him.
Jesus explains the love of God in its three forms: (1) the love of brother/ sister, (2) the love of neighbor, and (3) the love of friend. Perpetuating the proclamation and profession of this threefold love, the preacher advocates forgiveness, service and commitment. Moreover, love is called theological since it is grace-borne and grace-filled, indeed, the mystery of man’s participation in the life of God himself.
In Chapter 3, Fr. Gonzales taught that the preaching is the inner grace in search of articulation. The idea is primarily linked with the definition of rhetoric as the logic of persuasion. It is the logic of creative imagination. Ideas, when it is well-organized provide us a solid subject matter for rational argument. Ideas which are abstract do not move. Here, one may start the conversion introducing a strong attraction. Ideas can only touch but as warm as human flesh and blood. Ideas can touch only when they are enfleshed with images. Moreover, the author explained this chapter by drawing back to the primeval language, returning to the roots, teaching in preaching, the right to preach, questions spawned by shifting paradigms, the emerging paradigm, the order of preachers, the perfect preacher, the gift of preaching, word events, two don’ts and sacramental imagination.
The “returning to primeval language” point refers to the language of the first intention, the language what we hear, see, taste, smell, touch, the language of our sensitivity which renders even the most abstract and metaphysical explanations near, in fact, touching our humanity. The primeval language is the language of the hearth which was used precisely at a time when the family gathered around the household stove or the campfire to share their heirloom of myths, legends, and other stories, or to improve on it by contributing more of its store.
Vatican II in its theological approach and language has in the same token returned to the primeval language of religion. Its method and expression reflect affinity with those employed by the Fathers of the Church. Vatican II prefers to use expressions which for being more biblical, are image-creating more than just concept-provoking.
The approach which Vatican II adopts reflects a kind of teaching which is not strictly academic. Teaching as preaching – the pastoral approach of the Fathers of the Church and of the Apostles is the pedagogical approach of Vatican II which encounters man not just as a pure intelligence but as historical whole whose understanding is not purely speculative but also historical.
There are obligations because there are rights. The author explained that the obligations are prescribed on communities in order that both in the level of the individual and of the community rights can be freely exercised. Right to preach there is an obligation to listen to the word of God. With this, one must also know the shifts that pertain to the right to preach. The first shift happened during the 6th century which was led by Pope Gregory the Great. Here, the Pope laid down the foundation for the eventual resolution of the forthcoming controversies affecting preaching. Praelatio (Church leadership) is the root of praedication (preaching). The second shift which was started from the 9th century up to 10th century speaks of the abbeys that became fierce “competitors” of the parish centers as locus of religious education and of the preaching of the lay people. There was already a clash between the clerical and lay preaching in the Middle Ages. The third shift, from 11th century and after, speaks of the new phenomena in the Church – new religious orders, evangelically based lay preaching, which often heretical, parish priests was living in community as “canons regular” – sprouted. In principle, preaching remained a priestly function.
There were questions spawned by shifting paradigms. The argument or theologies operative in the shifts varied: the right to preach is based on the imitation of Jesus in an evangelical way of life, or this right is based on being sent, either by a bishop or the pope; or the right is based on being in the clerical state by receiving tonsure, or the right is based on priestly ordination.
The emerging paradigm happened because of the competitive struggle among the clergy, laity and the religious, alarm due to heretical lay preaching, and the medieval view of the lay person as uneducated.
The order of preachers was understandably the Order of Bishops. Pope Innocent III put into service a newly-founded order, which later on his successor, Pope Honorius III would name “Order of Preachers:” a clerical order, with mission canonica directly from the Pope, and living in evangelical vows.
Pope Innocent III and Honorius III, in approving and confirming respectively the Order of Preachers, transcended the controversial issues which the search for the basis on the right to spawned. Preaching is a matter of apostolic and evangelical witnessing. The right to preach is an enabling right; it is an office, a task to be fulfilled and for this reason, presupposes an ability. The right to preach presupposes also some of natural inclination towards that gift. The supernatural, after all, builds only on the natural and perfects it. Rhetoric as the natural logic of persuasion should therefore be elevated to Sacred Eloquence in order that one’s inclination and native power to communicate may be integrated to the gift or grace of preaching.
There are three levels of communication which need this kind of communication, namely: attention getting, instruction giving and rituals. Moreover, the preacher brings sheer sound bytes into events. It requires from the preacher theological life and education, humanities, especially the skill in the usage of relevant language, up-to-date knowledge and appropriate analysis of current events.
The author also gives two Don’ts, namely: (1) Don’t preach to empty stomachs and (2) Don’t preach to empty heads. In preaching, the Church uses all means to enter in the entirety of man. To enter into our emotions, the preacher should learn to use a language that is image-laden but at the same time thought-provoking. The strategy of the preacher is to invite the Holy Spirit to come upon his audience today no longer as tongues of fire or in the form of a dove, but simply as psychic energy that permeates the ups and downs of man’s whole psychological make up and thus effects his personal conversion.
A creative imagination that is likewise imaginative. Through it, the theology once abstract finds its expression in language more concrete and picturesque. Such concreteness however does not imply that the mystery which preaching purports to proclaim is lost in the imagination. This concreteness for taking roots and orientation from the dynamism of the biblical language is more symbolic than grossly material. This concreteness is the true sense of the word sacramental.
In Chapter 4, the author explained some simple rules of preaching. Preaching is at once grace and art. In the same way that grace is built on nature, preaching is perfected by art. Art is the right reason for the composition of something. Through this, it lays down simple rules to guide the preacher in the exercise of his gift. The author divided this chapter into the following points: preparatory stage, putting one’s imagination to word, starting your piece, developing the picture, ending, delivery and summary.
In the preparatory stage, the preacher must keep his journal. He must include reputable biblical commentaries, dictionaries in one’s personal library. The preacher makes relevant passages from the Bible the subject matter of daily meditation. The preacher doesn’t rely on moods in preparing for preaching. He knows his audience. He must let his preaching flow from and not just be triggered by the scriptural readings. He does not build his preaching on an accommodated sense of the Scriptures. The preacher must plan the preaching to be brief, coherent, and precise. He develops a professional attitude as a preacher. He always bears in mind the purpose of preaching.
In putting one’s imagination to words, the preacher is invited use his imagination. He must use hi imaginative language. He writes his piece. He writes for oral delivery and not for reading enjoyment alone. There must be the testing of the sound of the words he use individually and in the context of the whole. He must see whether delivering the sentences he constructed will leave him breathless.
In starting the piece, the preacher takes a picture of his message. He does not make his beginning the sole concern of his preaching and the rest. He develops the picture by not retelling the scriptural reading. In working the text, the preacher observes the following steps: listen attentively to the text, explore the text, view text through different eyes, ask what the text is doing (narrating, explaining, exhorting, etc.), doing scholarly and critical exegesis to discover whether what he has done. The preacher preaches from experience. The preacher does not belabor to tell one’s story. He displays a clean sense of humor. He does not play a joke at the expense of others. He must not nag in the pulpit.
In the ending, the preacher must not add anymore insight when ending. He ends with challenge. He must not express the challenge with a ready-made “lettuce” (“let us”) recipe. He must challenge his audience with a pointed question. He must try a one-line strong and intense adage. He must not use the sign of the cross to indicate the end of the preacher’s piece. After reading the chosen or assigned scriptural text, he must not start immediately. If the preacher’s already greeted with his audience formally in the earlier part of the celebration, do not greet them anew by saying “Good Morning.” The preacher must not deliver his piece by reading from the paper. He must facilitate memorization of his piece by structuring the beginning of each paragraph into acrostics. The preacher must not adopt a Ciceronian tone in delivering the piece. The preacher must anticipate the fidgety threshold of his audience by practicing his piece before a smaller gathering of some assorted members of his parish or community.
In the summary, the preacher must take of his message, describe it, entitle it, translate the picture of his message into words, write your piece and edit it, rehearse your piece before a gathering of assorted members of your parish or community, and deliver your piece.
In the Chapter 5, the author give some simple exercises which covers the following activity: picturing your message, scrolling, empathy exercises, developing a dynamic vocabulary, working with the text exercise, telling stories, exploring jocular and memory aid.
II. Critique
A. Agreeable Points
The book written by Fr. Gonzales gives a lot of practical ideas regarding preaching. He used simple words so that the reader may understand it better. His book actually is good book for those who are seeking for application or practice. Besides almost all of the contents in the book are agreeable points. However I will emphasize some of its agreeable statements.
* The Need of Study and the Need of Prayer
Through diligent sacred reading and careful study, especially the ordained ministers of Christ and lay faithful, such as deacons and catechists who are legitimately active in the ministry of the word. This is to be done so that none of them will become "an empty preacher of the word of God outwardly, who is not a listener to it inwardly"[2] since they must share the abundant wealth of the divine word with the faithful committed to them, especially in the sacred liturgy. The sacred synod also earnestly and especially urges all the Christian faithful, especially Religious, to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the "excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:8). "For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."[3] Therefore, they should gladly put themselves in touch with the sacred text itself, whether it be through the liturgy, rich in the divine word, or through devotional reading, or through instructions suitable for the purpose and other aids which, in our time, with approval and active support of the shepherds of the Church, are commendably spread everywhere. And let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for "we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying."[4]
“There has to be some “quality time” set aside for prayer and study related to preparing the homily” and “…a preacher needs to be a theologian of sorts…” For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. Sacred theology rests on the written word of God, together with sacred tradition, as its primary and perpetual foundation. By scrutinizing in the light of faith all truth stored up in the mystery of Christ, theology is most powerfully strengthened and constantly rejuvenated by that word. For the Sacred Scriptures contain the word of God and since they are inspired really are the word of God; and so the study of the sacred page is, as it were, the soul of sacred theology.[5] By the same word of Scripture the ministry of the word also, that is, pastoral preaching, catechetics and all Christian instruction, in which the liturgical homily must hold the foremost place, is nourished in a healthy way and flourishes in a holy way.[6]
The Fathers acknowledged with joy that study of the word of God in the Church has grown in recent decades, and they expressed heartfelt gratitude to the many exegetes and theologians who with dedication, commitment and competence continue to make an essential contribution to the deeper understanding of the meaning of the Scriptures, as they address the complex issues facing biblical studies in our day.[7] Sincere gratitude was also expressed to the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, past and present, who in close collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith continue to offer their expertise in the examination of particular questions raised by the study of sacred Scripture. The Synod likewise felt a need to look into the present state of biblical studies and their standing within the field of theology. The pastoral effectiveness of the Church’s activity and the spiritual life of the faithful depend to a great extent on the fruitfulness of the relationship between exegesis and theology. For this reason, I consider it important to take up some reflections that emerged in the discussion of this topic during the Synod sessions.
The Synod attributed particular importance to the decisive role that the word of God must play in the spiritual life of candidates for the ministerial priesthood: “Candidates for the priesthood must learn to love the word of God. Scripture should thus be the soul of their theological formation, and emphasis must be given to the indispensable interplay of exegesis, theology, spirituality and mission.”[8] Those aspiring to the ministerial priesthood are called to a profound personal relationship with God’s word, particularly in lectio divina, so that this relationship will in turn nurture their vocation: it is in the light and strength of God’s word that one’s specific vocation can be discerned and appreciated, loved and followed, and one’s proper mission carried out, by nourishing the heart with thoughts of God, so that faith, as our response to the word, may become a new criterion for judging and evaluating persons and things, events and issues.[9]
Such attention to the prayerful reading of Scripture must not in any way lead to a dichotomy with regard to the exegetical studies which are a part of formation. The Synod recommended that seminarians be concretely helped to see the relationship between biblical studies and scriptural prayer. The study of Scripture ought to lead to an increased awareness of the mystery of divine revelation and foster an attitude of prayerful response to the Lord who speaks. Conversely, an authentic life of prayer cannot fail to nurture in the candidate’s heart a desire for greater knowledge of the God who has revealed himself in his word as infinite love. Hence, great care should be taken to ensure that seminarians always cultivate this reciprocity between study and prayer in their lives. This end will be served if candidates are introduced to the study of Scripture through methods which favour this integral approach.[10]
*Make relevant passages from the Bible (the Lectionary preferred) the subject matter of daily meditation… Let your preaching flow from and not just be triggered by the scriptural readings.
The challenge here for the preacher is partially met in understanding the texts themselves, in being familiar with them, in being able to relate them to one another, and in being able to bring the richness of the whole connections to bear even on two verses. Moreover, a preacher must be familiar with whole texts, whole letters. Knowing the whole of each text, a preacher may able to draw out the insights that are latent in the few verses proffered by the Lectionary for a given day.
B. Disagreeable Points
I think I cannot find anything that is disagreeable, because it is written in good foundations. The book serves as guidelines. For me, the book is highly recommended because of its practical value in preaching. The reader may find so easy to read this book.
[1] See Enrico D. Gonzales, Diary of a Preacher: Guidelines for Preaching (
[2]
[3]
[4] St. Ambrose, On the Duties of Ministers I, 20,88: PL l6,50.
[5] Cf. Leo XIII, encyclical "Providentissmus Deus:" EB 114; Benedict XV, encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus:" EB 483.
[6] Dei Verbum, 24.
[7] Cf. Propositio, 26.
[8] Propositio 32.
[9] Cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (25 March 1992), 47: AAS 84 (1992), 740-742.
[10] Verbum Domini, 82.
No comments:
Post a Comment