Francis P. Donnelly, The Science of Theology and the Art of Sacred Eloquence (1911)

[11] The antithesis of science and art has been so often formulated that it would be idle and wearisome to rehearse the details. The title of this article will in itself clarify some ideas and point the way to practical corollaries. Without entering, then, upon the larger question of the contrasts of art and science, it might be well to single out some difficulties the preacher may be expected to meet with in transmuting the substance of his theological science into the material of his sacred eloquence, in translating a thesis into a sermon, in making Aquinas a Lacordaire or Suarez a Bourdaloue. It would seem paradoxical at first sight to affirm any difficulty whatsoever. Truth is one and the same whether couched in a syllogism or resonant in a period. Falsehood may assume a thousand disguises; but truth has but one expression upon its immobile features, one look in its sleepless eyes; eternally fixed upon eternal foundations, with unswerving gaze—the ideal of sphinxes, moored with shiftless fixedness upon the shifting sands of falsehood.

[12] But the difficulty in question does not come from truth. You have the same proportions of hydrogen and oxygen in the glacier as you have in the river, but in some cases it took geological ages, in all cases it involves the expenditure of immense energy, to strip ice of its accidental rigidity and frigidity and run it molten down the valleys of the world, conforming itself to every varying width and every varying depth of its proper channel. There is no substantial change in the truth, but its accidental form must put off the inflexible austerity of science and assume the flexibility and warmth of eloquence. In the famous statement of St. Augustine, which embodies the world-old tradition of oratory, theology puts a full stop after the first member; eloquence, leaving the commas, goes on to the end of the three clauses. "Ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat." [i.e. "That the truth be clear, that it please, that it move."]

ELOQUENCE IS UNTECHNICAL.

The technical term is something that must be left in the lecture-room. Science could scarcely exist without the technical term. Such terms constitute the shorthand of science. One phrase in theology is sometimes an index to volumes, condenses ages of church history, expedites scientific discussion and is the gravestone of a thousand heresies. Pelegianism, transubstantiation, hypostasis, circum-insesssion, and all the terminative's and formaliter's of the theological disputation are absolutely essential to science, very nearly fatal to eloquence. The reason is not, because shallow thinkers or careless students make the technical term a substitute for knowledge and think they have theology because they have mastered its language, as though the mere murmuring of x, y, z, entitled one to a degree in algebra. A terminology is the scaffolding needed to erect the temple of truth. A certain amount of acrobatic skill will enable one to scale its bare boards or tread securely its precarious rafters, but while irresponsible youths are playing hide-and-seek on the scaffolding, the builders, resting on that necessary structure, lay the stones of the temple in solidity.

It is not, therefore, because of its abuse that terminology is unserviceable to eloquence; it is precisely because of its [13] scientific utility. Technical terms constitute a language, and a very difficult language. It is a language which saves valuable time for the teachers. It is comprehensive, precise, severely intellectual, but it is a foreign language to people who listen to sermons and scarcely serviceable for even a congregation of theologians. Its very condensation makes it indigestible within the brief time given to the spoken word, and even the Bread of the Lord must be leavened, though not with the leaven of the Pharisees. Sometimes the very terms of ascetical theology likewise need leavening before being dispensed to the multitude. Mortification and the spiritual life and the interior spirit and supernatural motives, these and many another term that has come to us from the good books we read, are stereotyped formulas of asceticism and may be idle words for many hearers.

The sacred orator must melt down the stereotyped and run his language into new molds for his audience. He must leave the glacial period of science where "froze the genial currents of his soul" and thaw out in the pulpit. Estimate, if you will, the energy of heat required to convert a world of ice into a sea of fire, and you will have some idea of the labor required to change a small quantity of theology into the palpitating flexibility of a sermon. Modern inventions have been able by high-pressure machines to force air bubbles into baking dough and so shorten the leavening process by dispensing with the slower release and permeation of yeasty vapors. The work calls for time and energy. If you shorten the time, you must increase the energy. Sometimes it is only after years of thought and familiarity with the solid truth of theology that it has become light and wholesome for public consumption in the pulpit; sometimes the intense application of special study will force at once technicality and density into freedom and grace; but always either by expenditure of more time or more energy in the mastery of thought, must the prime matter of truth be made to doff the form of science and assume the form of art.

Suppose you should try to bring home to the audience the personality of God. You would have visions from theology of pantheism and agnosticism. You would recall shattered fragments of discussion about hypostasis and the individual. [14] Perhaps half-forgotten heresies would struggle into consciousness with other flotsam and jetsam. All that would be quite unleavened for the audience you have in mind, and you might say to yourself, "I will talk to my good people about going to Mass and confession." But perhaps with longer meditation you would feel that the personality of God might give a meaning to religious life, might comfort a lonely soul, might take prayer out of the region of the clouds, making it, instead of what would be deemed as senseless talking to the air, rather the loving converse with one who knows and loves, whose ear is ever at our lips, as Fr. Farrell puts it somewhere; and moved by these many advantages your thoughts of God's personality would shed its technicalities. Fr. Pardow, who died but recently, was a preacher who had in his life a vivid realization of the personality of God and made many attempts to formulate his knowledge for the pulpit. He often tried to make his hearers realize what he felt. One illustration had some success. "A government," he would quote or say, "is impersonal. 'I cannot shake hands with the United States', was the cry of the soldier. My Colonel is my government for me." But Fr. Pardow's most successful attempt at making his audience realize God's personality was closely allied to one which Christ Himself used for a similar purpose. Not far from where Fr. Pardow lived at Poughkeepsie he saw on one of his walks an incubator whose source of heat was an oil-lamp. His mind was ever alive to spiritual analogies, and one suggested itself at once. The lamp would represent the impersonal idea of God as a force in the universe and would be contrasted with the mother-hen the embodiment of the personal idea. The illustration is crude as here presented, but it was not so in his development of it, and his fine sense of humor was able in a delicate way to make much of the absurdity of an oil-lamp masquerading as a mother-hen. whatever may be the thought of it, it certainly was, with other explanations, effective in securing a realization of God's personality. One good, shrewd Irishman was full of the idea after the sermon, and prayer became for him a new thing. Another person wrote to Fr. Pardow in English which is rude but in enthusiasm which is unmistakable: "Dear Father on Good Friday night Will you please give us the Leture [sic] you gave [15] down at the 16st Collige [sic]. About the Chicken who had a Mother. And the Chicken who had the Incubator for a Mother. Father I am trying to get some of the Boys who do not know what the inside of our church look [sic] like and I know if they was to hear about the Chicken it would set them to think of God in this holy season of Lent." The note is unsigned. 

Assuredly it would seem to be a far cry from the personality of God to an incubator, yet it made the writer of that note think of God and with the zeal of an apostle he wanted the boys to think the same way. Similar but greater enthusiasm was aroused, we may feel sure, by the supreme eloquence of, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?" We feel the Great Theologian and Sacred orator would not have disdained the incubator with its homely oil-lamp. There are few technical terms in the eloquence of the Gospels.

ELOQUENCE IS IMAGINATIVE.

Scientific truth differs from artistic truth in its presentation. The truths of science are general. Science works from the particular and concrete back to the general and abstract. The truths of art are embodied in the concrete. Contrary to science, art begins with the ideal and works toward a concrete presentation. Geometry will reduce a flower-garden to a blueprint; landscape gardening will turn lines into borders and blank spaces into mosaics of flowers. The architect must have his blueprint to keep him from going wrong, but art finds its realization in the cathedral. Science gives an anatomical chart; art produces a statue. Principles, deductions, conclusions, classification, systems, these are processes of science and valuable they all are for art, but all these operations are facing the abstract and general. Art faces the concrete and particular, and after its survey of heaven and earth it is not content until it gives "airy nothings a local habitation and a name." Science is ever climbing up the tree of Porphyry; art is ever climbing down it.

[16] Apply all this now to theology and preaching. Anyone can see the two opposite processes exemplified in such works as Corluy's Spicilegium Dogmaticum, and in most commentators who are looking to the essential truths of Scripture. The sermon on the Mount is reduced to a series of general propositions where everything local, particular, and concrete is set aside to arrive at the essence, to classify the product and codify a system. Take again the sermon on prayer (Luke 11). "Lord, teach us to pray", said one of His disciples. The first part of the sermon advises the recitation of the Our Father; then follows a famous parable, a picture with all its details, local, actual, and contemporary; the perfection of the concrete. In the crucible of science these details are all swept away. "Friend, lend me three loaves," is generalized into "prayer". "If he shall continue knocking," is the artistic expression for the scientific "persevering". So with the rest: the midnight hour, the shut door, the children in bed, the continual knocking, the reluctant rising, the triumph of the visitor, all disappear, and this piece of eloquence becomes a theological conclusion asserting "the efficacy of persevering prayer; for if selfishness and indolence yield to importunity among creatures, how much more is this true of God?" 

Think a moment of all the great truths of our faith which have been embodied in exact terms and defined and made perspicuous by reason and authority; and set them aside by side with the gospel which is sacred eloquence and from which these great truths arose; and you will understand the marked difference between the scientific and artistic form of the same truth. The providence of God and the lilies of the field, the papal supremacy and the keys, the infallibility and the rock and the sheep, unity and the one fold, grace and the wedding garment, charity and the Good Samaritan, humility and the little child, perfect contrition and the prodigal, torments of hell and unquenchable fire without a single drop on a parched tongue—there is no need of prolonging the catalog. The parable, the example, the story, the similitude, the epigram, the brief description, these are rarely employed in the textbooks of science, where clearness of truth is looked for: "ut veritas pateat". These, however, always enshrine the truths of eloquence where the charm of truth is sought for: "ut veritas placeat".

[17] ELOQUENCE IS EMOTIONAL.

Finally, scientific truth is unemotional. Earnestness may galvanize a chapter of Suarez into momentary life, but that life is only galvanic and extrinsic. It comes from flashing eye and thrilling tone and vigorous gesture, but the truth itself is unemotional. Science wants it so. It excludes emotion as distracting and out of place. Imagine a professor of geometry tearfully and exultantly announcing in tremulous tones his Q. E. D. Science does not amplify, does not enforce its truths with emotional vehemence, does not perorate. If you do not understand, it gives another proof, or another exposition. When you catch the fact or principle, the work of science is done. The mind is equated with objective realities; it is vested with the truth. You have a perfect mental fit. It is no part of science to comment on the beauty of the vesture or its goodness. It has already passed on to fit your mind with another truth. Ah, but art does not pass on. In its mental vestures, art dwells upon their beauty and is attracted or repelled by their goodness or evil. The truth of art is transfigured by the imagination into a thing of beauty and is shown to be stained with evil or flowing with goodness, because in eloquence the truth must pass from the mind through the imagination to the heart: "ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat".

One glance of the opened eye sees the flash of truth; the gaze must be riveted to behold its beauty; the looks must be fascinated to thrill with truth's emotion. "Veritas stat in indivisibili", our philosophers tell us, but "pulchritudo non stat in indivisibili nec malitia nec bonitas." So the orator amplifies and is diffuse. He deepens the dark shadows of the picture that you may hate it more and more; he emphasizes the light areas that you may like the picture more and more. He will never be content with your merely seeing it. In a sense, therefore, the sacred orator must know theology better than the theologian. He will not be content with a surface knowledge but will feel the pulse of truth and listen to its heart-beat. He will get down below terms to realities. Before his imagination general truths will marshall [sic] the multitudes of their individuals, and disclose the significant individual which will best represent the class. His knowledge [18] of theological truths will widen out into the myriad relations and analogies in history, art, and nature wherein the profoundest theology may be presented and illustrated in the simplest object-lesson familiar to every audience. Part of Chesterton's success consists in his power of bringing his philosophy, as much as he has, down to the lowest common denominator. He sees philosophy in the veriest [sic] trifles of life. I know, too, a chemist who has so mastered his science that I really believe he could give a complete course in chemistry with experiments and illustrations from the stains and paints and what not of his room. So must the preacher have mastered his theology for the pulpit. He must be able to see sermons in everything, discern the great round orb of God's truth reflected in countless shades and tints from all the creatures in God's universe.

His truth will be apostolic, will become all things to all men to save all, will avoid the scientific language which appeals to the expert and the trite language which appeals to no one, will keep its language from degenerating into mere symbols, and so will be ever on the lookout in realms of the imagination for new forms in which to body forth the old thoughts. The truth of the orator must be apostolic; it must win its way by beauty and charm and ensure its progress to its destination, the human heart, by filling itself with emotion, by manifesting its goodness or evil. "Ut veritas pateat, ut veritas placeat, ut veritas moveat".

Francis P. Donnelly, S.J.

St. Andrew-on-Hudson, N. Y.

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Source: Francis P. Donnelly, "The Science of Theology and the Art of Sacred Eloquence," Ecclesiastical Review 45, no. 1 (July 1911): 11–18.

Repost: Discretion Necessary in Preaching Against Immodest Dress of Women (April 1930)

[751] Question: In dealing with the matter of modesty in dress, is not the indirect method far more effective? We have heard numbers of sermons in which it was evident that the preacher was thoroughly enjoying his own talk, and the members of the congregation—especially the ones referred to—nearly or quite as much. For the chief reason for wearing such clothes was to attract attention by startlingness [sic], and they were receiving abundant and vociferous assurance that the object had been attained. Furthermore, they knew that they would be still more closely scrutinized by the men of the congregation. A theatrical manager would have paid handsomely for such an advertisement. Would not a sermon on the Blessed Mother or the Little Flower delivered with equal vigor and enthusiasm have produced far better results in promoting modesty?

PASTOR.

Answer: There is a great deal of truth in the remarks of our correspondent. If all preaching requires careful preparation and study as to what to say and how to say it in order that the discourse may be worthy of the sacred place and the holy purpose, preaching about modesty of dress of women and denunciation of sins committed by immodest apparel need careful weighing of words and expressions lest the serious-minded Catholic people be scandalized and the superficial ones be amused.

The seriousness of this particular form of immodesty is evidently very grave at the present time, for our Supreme Teacher of religion, the Vicar of Christ, remarked in his discourse to the Lenten preachers of the City of Rome (February 11, 1929) that the first thing he would request them to bring into their Lenten course of sermons is the shamelessness in the manner of dressing of so many disgraceful women and girls, who nevertheless call themselves and wish to be considered Christians. The preachers should endeavor with fatherly kindness, with patience and perseverance to convince them of the wrong they are doing, for many of them are slaves to this fashion, which is unworthy not only of Christian countries but of any civilized people. Very many, the Holy Father remarks, know that they are slaves to the fashion and are ashamed of it, but do not have the strength to rebel against a tyranny that exploits their [752] modesty as the slave trader does the blood of the slaves. Against those who do not only not feel their disgrace but glory in it and boast of it, the preachers should inveigh with all the vigor of their apostolic zeal.

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Source: "Discretion Necessary in Preaching Against Immodest Dress of Women," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 30, no. 7-12 (April to September, 1930): 751–752.

Repost: Young Preachers Careful and Careless

[180] My best sermon is the one I know the best.—Massillon.
Many a wandering discourse one hears in which the preacher aims at nothing and hits it.—Dr. Whately.
I have always noticed that the best extemporaneous speeches are those which have been carefully written out beforehand, the manuscript being conveniently within reach in the orator's waistcoat pocket.—J. R. Lowell.

How long should a young priest continue the practice of writing and memorizing his sermons? The question was recently put to a scholarly Catholic prelate and author, and his unhesitating reply was: "Ten years at least." Had the inquiry been as to the length of time during which the average young priest does continue the practice, it is probable, and regretable [sic], that the true answer might have been widely different. As a matter of justice and propriety, no other form of public discourse is entitled to so elaborate a preparation as the sermon; as a matter of fact, one is often tempted to believe that for no other is the preparation so inadequate.

No extended argument is necessary to convince even the youngest of those who have been elevated to the priestly rank that the ministry which they exercise in preaching the Word of God merits their most profound respect, and calls for the best efforts of their intellects and hearts. It is sufficient to remind them that, after the adorable Sacrifice of the altar and the administration of the sacraments, no function is so sublime in itself, or so potential in its results, as that for the performance of which their warrant is the commission of Jesus Christ: "Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature."[1] That Moses and Jeremiah proclaimed themselves unworthy and incapable of this sacerdotal function; that Isaias, to be equipped for its exercise, needed an angel to purify his lips; that St. John the Baptist prepared himself therefor [sic] by the most austere penance and solitude; that St. Teresa declared that she would willingly give her life a thousand times over for the happiness of being charged with so noble a mission—these [181] are considerations well calculated to impress us with  a due sense of its dignity, while the prime fact that preaching was the chief occupation of the Saviour [sic] during the three years of His apostolic life is not only a proof of the intrinsic excellence of the work, but an indication as well of its relative importance among those duties which the priest, "another Christ," has contracted the obligation of performing.

Were any further considerations necessary to imbue the preacher with an exalted idea of his ministry, they would be found in the magnitude of the results—the glory of God and the salvation of souls—which it is the purpose of the spoken word to accomplish, and in the tremendous responsibilities incurred by those who neglect to do what in them lies toward the achievement of those results. It has been well said that, in practical importance, the sermon scarcely yields to the sacraments; for, although these latter are the divinely ordained channels of God's grace, it commonly happens that preaching is the only means by which those who stand most in need of that grace can be brought to the tribunal of penance and to the Holy Table. There is nothing fanciful or exaggerated in the statement that, as often as the priest announces the Word of God to his people, the interests involved in his discourse, and the results dependent on its force or its feebleness, are incomparably greater than those which confront the advocate appealing to a jury on behalf of a fellow-creature's liberty or life. Theoretically, indeed, it is almost impossible for the preacher to have too lofty a conception of the dignity and importance of his office; practically, however, it is quite possible that in his hands the dignity may be compromised and the importance disregarded,—quite possible that he may come to merit not only the epithets "traitor" and "wretch" with which Quintilian brands the lawyer who fails to do his best for his client, but the terrible anathema of Holy Writ: Maledictus qui facit opus Dei negligenter.[2]

Admitting that the genius essential to the formation of a [182] pulpit orator of the highest grade is nature's dower to but very few, and that notable excellence even in lower grades is due in a considerable measure to natural faculties whose lack can be supplied by no amount of industry, there still seems to be no valid reason why the sermons of every man whom God has called to the ministry of His divine word should not be useful, effective, and, in the truest sense of the much abused term, eloquent. Whether the discourses of any given preacher merit this characterization or its opposite, will be found to depend principally on the degree of thoroughness with which he prepares himself for their delivery. And what is meant here is not the remote or general preparation, essential as that undoubtedly is, not the acquisition of an abundant store of knowledge, the leading of an exemplary and a holy life, a habit of study, the spirit of prayer, ardent zeal, purity of intention, and all those other qualities of head and heart that go to form the character of the man "behind the sermon;" [sic] but the measures taken and the means employed in the actual composition of a particular discourse. Concerning this proximate preparation of the sermon, it may be taken for granted that according as it is thorough or inadequate during the first few years of the preacher's ministry, so it will commonly continue to be throughout his career. Initial carefulness in this respect sometimes lapses into subsequent negligence; but very rarely will it be found that the contrary is the case, that a negligent young preacher makes a careful old one.

Much, then, depends on the manner in which the young priest prepares his sermons; and the remainder of this paper will be given up to a brief discussion of the several methods of preparation that are open to his choice. It may be well to premise that by a "young priest" is meant one whose ordination dates back not further than a decade; and that what follows is based on the supposition of his having, as in the majority of cases he undoubtedly has, ample time to devote to an adequate preparation.

The least complex, and one of the least commendable, of all methods of making oneself ready for the pulpit is that which [183] consists wholly and solely in an exercise of the memory, the preparation being restricted to the simple process of getting by heart the discourse of another. Viewed as a manifestation of altruistic sentiment, such a course is perhaps not absolutely indispensable, and it must further be admitted that those who adopt it follow the letter of at least one portion of St. Paul's advice[3]—they assuredly do not preach themselves; but even at the risk of sacrificing altruism to egotism, the young preacher will do well to eschew the practice. Apart from all higher considerations, it would seem that a proper self-respect should be sufficient to deter a clergyman from playing in the pulpit the rather questionable role of another man's proxy. He becomes at best only a species of improved phonograph; and, do what he will, his utterances, like those of the phonographic cylinder, will be mechanical rather than vivified or vivifying.

If there is one dictum on the subject of public speaking that may be accepted as the expression of an ultimate truth, it is this: The orator, be he of the first-rate or the fifth-rate class, must be in earnest. Earnestness in the public speaker, like charity in the Christian, is a supreme quality, supplying at need the lack of many others, but itself replaceable by none. It is, moreover, a quality that cannot be successfully feigned or counterfeited. The most illiterate, as readily as the most cultured audience, perceive when the speaker's tones ring false; and once the discovery is made, his further speech, while it may please the fancy or tickle the ear, will be radically impotent to stir the heart or persuade the will. Now it is obvious that there is a very great, if not an insuperable difficulty in the way of preaching the sermon of an another with the genuine earnestness that naturally accompanies the delivery of one's own; and hence the clergyman who adopts this first method of preparation can scarcely hope to speak effectively.

It is conceivable, of course, that form sterility of invention, barrenness of imagination, defective mental training, or other similar causes, a preacher may be really incapable of [184] composing a fit discourse; and in so extreme a case, St. Augustine and other writers on the subject say that he may avail himself of the sermons of another; but it is quite safe to assert that, of every twenty who do so avail themselves, nineteen are lacking, not in talent, but in industry. In composition, as in every other art, facility comes with practice, and inability to write is due far more frequently to the non-exertion of mental powers than to their non-existence. That the young priest finds the composition of an original sermon a hard, tedious and irksome task may possibly be his fault, or perhaps only his misfortune; but in either case the difficulty of the work certainly does not exempt him from its performance, especially as this difficulty will surely be found to decrease with each successive trial. Aversion to intellectual labor and sustained mental effort is quite intelligible to most men, but that it forms a valid reason for neglecting plain duties will hardly be urged by any.

If we suppose the preacher to be actuated, in using the discourses of another, by a motive still more ignoble than laziness, if we conceive that he is the slave of vanity and follows this course simply to acquire the fraudulent reputation of being a great preacher, we place him at once beyond the pale of every worthy man's sympathy or respect. Of all the ridiculous mortals that "play such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep," none, we take it, is so thoroughly and contemptibly ludicrous as the clerical jack-daw, strutting about the altar or the pulpit in the borrowed plumage of another man's eloquence. The discourses of such a preacher cannot well be other than nugatory in themselves and ultimately disastrous to the speaker; for, while on the one hand it can scarcely be expected that the blessing of God will sanctify the ministry of a plagiarist from vanity, on the other it is more than reasonably certain that sooner or later his plagiarism will be detected and his claims to genuine eloquence discredited. "What a grand sermon Father Blank preached to-day!" said an emotional lady to a companion, a few years ago, as they were leaving a city church after High Mass. "Yes," was the somewhat critical [185] and quite unemotional reply; "yes, I have always liked that sermon and I read it frequently; but I confess I prefer that other one of Father Baker's, on 'The Lessons of Autumn.'"

Viewed from the standpoint of effectiveness in the preacher, or of utility to the congregation, a fifth-rate original sermon is worth at least five times as much as a first-rate borrowed one.

The second method of preparation is substantially the same as the first, and is open to the same general objections. In this second method the process is still plagiarism, but it is the patchwork system of plagiarizing, the preacher borrowing from several sources instead of one. This plan commonly entails more labor than does that of appropriating a complete discourse, and is so far, perhaps, less reprehensible; but it is questionable whether the results achieved are at all preferable. It is certain, in fact, that many of the so-called sermons that are the outcome of this method, far from being coherent discourses in which there appear a natural connection of parts and a logical sequence of thought, are mere literary crazy quilts, wherein all order and unity are conspicuously wanting. In endeavoring to adjust properly to each other passages that were never intended to be so adjusted, the writer almost unavoidably encounters the difficulty that beset a certain preacher who once consulted Father Potter of All Hallows. "I have taken great pains," said he, "to write out twelve or thirteen pages from the various French sermon books, and now, after all my trouble, I can't make them fit."

While neither of the foregoing methods of preparing oneself to preach can be recommended as calculated to produce sermons instinct with the life and vigor that impresses men's minds and move their hearts; still in each there is positive preparation, and, at worst, the young preacher who adopts either will be likely to say something, to announce correct doctrine, and to speak in a style not unbecoming God's Word.

There is a third method, negative rather than positive, from which it is too much to expect even these meagre [sic] results. This is the summary process that precedes extempore preaching, whether that process be the reading up of a [186] subject for an hour or two previous to speaking upon it, or the meditation of the proposed discourse during a like period of time, with the possible determining of the main ideas to be developed. As for strictly extempore speaking, speaking absolutely on the spur of the moment, it is so difficult to imagine that any young priest can have the hardihood to tempt Providence by its practice, that it need not be here considered.

As a justification or an excuse for the cursory preparation given to the quasi-extemporaneous sermon, it is sometimes contended that this plan approaches more nearly than any other to the apostolic method. The answer, if answer be needed, suggests itself: the method may be an excellent one—for apostles, or for those favored with apostolic gifts and surrounded by apostolic conditions; but it is probably not the best method for even the most experienced ordinary preacher, and it is certainly the worst for the young one. Only long years of careful practice in speaking and writing can form such habits of orderly thought and clear, forcible expression as will enable a preacher to improvise a sermon bearing any claim to the title of good. As a rule, such improvisations show an utter want of order, unity, force and clearness; and not rarely they lack most of all the quality which most of all should characterize them, brevity. It can scarcely be doubted that to this radical evil of preaching without sufficient premeditation, are to be attributed fully nine-tenths of those interminable monologues, without pith or point, which a suffering laity have learned to deplore as "long" sermons—rambling discourses in which, straying from their particular themes, the speakers range in haphazard fashion over the whole field of morals; fall into continual digressions; recover themselves by innumerable repetitions; and, aiming at nothing, take an unconscionable time in hitting it. Who has not listened for an hour to a preacher who with adequate preparation could have said his say and said it far more effectively too, in twenty minutes? Lacking this preparation he delivered a "bald, disjointed chat" in which indeed may have appeared the crude, undigested materials of a discourse, but which no more merited the name [187] of a real sermon than a confused heap of bricks and mortar, boards and shingles deserves to be called a house.

Perhaps no greater service could be rendered to the long-winded extempore preacher than to present him on Monday with a verbatim published report of his discourse of the previous day. Could he be prevailed upon to read the faithful transcript of his "eloquent sermon," to peruse at leisure just what windy nothings and prosy platitudes he said, and remark just how wretchedly he said them, it is tolerably certain that his next effort would be briefer, pithier, and in every way worthier of his office. The rebuke which a Scotch preacher once received from a half-witted member of his flock is oftener merited than administered. The parson's soporific truisms, long drawn out, had gradually produced their legitimate effect of lulling the congregation one by one into placid slumber. Rousing the delinquents by a smart blow on the desk before him, the indignant preacher reprimanded them severely for their gracelessness and inattention, adding that the only one of his hearers who had not been asleep was "the poor fool, Sandy."—"Yes"; interjected Sandy, "and if I were not a fool, I'd have been asleep, too."

A young priest cannot well make a graver mistake in the matter of preaching than to adopt this off-hand style of announcing God's Word. He owes it to the sanctity of that Word, to himself, and to his auditors, be they ever so unlettered, to make each of his sermons as good as is compatible with the measure of talent with which God has dowered him. He is bound in honor and justice to become, in the degree that is possible to him, one

"whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence;"

and no course will so surely prevent his attainment of that ideal as preaching without due reflection and previous study.

The fourth method of preparation, and the only one thus far considered that merits approval, is that followed by probably the great majority of conscientious preachers. Briefly it consists in thinking out the whole sermon, but in writing merely its substance. What it supposes and involves may, [188] perhaps, be best understood from Fénélon's description of the pulpit orator whom he commends for preaching without having written his discourse. He speaks "of a man who is well instructed and has great facility of expression; a man who has meditated deeply, in all their bearings, the principles of the subject which he is to treat; who has conceived that subject in his intellect and arranged his arguments in the clearest manner; who has prepared a certain number of striking figures and touching sentiments, which may render it sensible and bring it home to his hearers; who knows perfectly well all that he is to say and the precise place in which to say it, so that nothing remains, at the moment of delivery, but to find words with which to express himself." There can be no question as to the thoroughness of such a preparation as this; and for the experienced preacher who has had years of practice in his ministry, it is, every thing considered, probably the best of all plans. For the young preacher, however, who has not yet had this practice, there is a still better method, that indicated in the initial paragraph of this paper.

Whether the arguments urged in general against the delivery from memory of written sermons be solid or flimsy (and flimsy some of them assuredly are), few will deny that this writing and memorizing is by far the best plan of action that the young priest can adopt. Even St. Liguori, who inveighs so strongly against preachers that are slaves of their memory, took good care to allow none of his younger Fathers to ascend the pulpit without their having previously written all that they were to say. The inconveniences to which this method is liable may be real, but, at least in the case of the youthful preacher, they are more than compensated for by the sterling advantages which it undoubtedly possesses. And the more gradual is the transition from this full and complete preparation to the less elaborate method mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the greater is the likelihood of the priest's eventually becoming a ready, forcible and effective minister of the divine Word.

A good formula for the actual composition of the sermon [189] is: some reading, more thinking, careful writing, and no "cribbing." Once the subject has been chosen, and the particular point of view from which it is to be treated determined, it will generally be found beneficial to read what has been written on the same theme by one or several good authors, and to study with the aid of a concordance those portions of Sacred Scripture which bear a special reference to the matter in hand. Having thus acquired an abundance of ideas relative to the subject, our young priest will do well to put aside his books and meditate these ideas, turning them over in his mind, observing how they adjust themselves to his preconceived notions, dwelling on the cognate sentiments which they suggest—in a word, digesting what he has read until it assimilates with his previous knowledge and becomes his own. Whether it be carried on currently with the writing or before that is begun, meditation is the most important and should be the lengthiest process in the building up of a discourse. It is superfluous to add that the more care the writer gives to the expression of his thought, the better will be his sermon. Knowing the mental status of the congregation whom he is to address, and the general culture, or want of it, that characterizes them, he will, of course, adapt his language, figures, allusions and illustrations to their particular capacities; but no degree of illiterateness in a prospective audience justifies negligence, either in the form of the discourse as a whole, or in the structure of its component parts. There is no more pernicious mistake than to suppose that a plain, simple, "common sense" instruction is removed from the sphere of rhetoric, or is not amenable to the laws of thought and expression. Apart from Scriptural texts, quotations should not be multiplied, and those employed should be credited to their proper sources. Stripped of all euphemistic phraseology, plagiarism is theft. No man, perhaps, can be original in what he says; but every man can and should be original in his way of saying it. Let the skeleton of his thought come from where it may, the flesh and blood that clothe it should be a part of himself.

On the degree of originality, thus understood, that a sermon [190] possesses, depends in a great measure the facility or difficulty of committing it to memory. The more of one's own and the fewer of other men's sentences it contains, the more readily will it be committed. And here it is to be remarked that the stereotyped criticism, "the preacher who delivers his sermon from memory has the appearance of a schoolboy reciting his task," if applicable at all, applies to those only who follow the first or second method of preparation which we have discussed, those who preach the sermons of others. Between the man who delivers his own sentiments and the schoolboy who recites the words of his text-book, there is no parallel, deadly or otherwise. The difficulty of learning a sermon after one has composed it has been a good deal exaggerated. Not a few preachers experience no difficulty whatever; they know their sermon as soon as they have completed its revision. These, perhaps, are exceptional cases; but, given a discourse of ordinary length, representing the outcome of a man's own earnest thought and studied composition, and a very few hours will suffice to memorize it so thoroughly that its delivery may be characterized by all the grace, ease and apparent spontaneity that mark the best extemporaneous speaking, so thoroughly, indeed, that the preacher may interpolate any striking thought that occurs to him on the spur of the moment, and then resume the thread of the original discourse without trouble or hesitation.

In any case, however great the difficulty experienced, either in writing or memorizing his sermon, the young priest will be amply rewarded therefor [sic] by the consciousness that, in ascending the pulpit to acquit himself of one of the most august of sacerdotal functions, he is free from the irreverence that cannot but attach to careless preparation, and is doing his best to promote the glory of God and secure the salvation of souls. True, after all is said and done, it is God alone who fructifies the sermon; but it is to be remembered that, if God gives the increase, the planting and watering is the work of the preacher. Fac tua, Deus sua faciet.

A. B. O'Neill, C.S.C.

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Footnotes:

1. Mark xvi, 15.

2. Jerem. xlviii, 10.

3. II Cor. iv, 5.

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Source: Arthur Barry O'Neill, "Young Preachers Careful and Careless," American Ecclesiastical Review 8 (March 1893): 180–190.

Pope St. Leo on the Common Priesthood

[Originally preached on September 29, 444:]

Although the Church of God as a whole has a hierarchical structure, so that the completeness of the sacred body consists in a diversity of members, “we are,” nevertheless, as the Apostle says, “one in Christ” (Gal. 3:28). No one functions so independently of another that even the lowliest part does not have some relationship with the Head to which it is connected. In the unity of faith and Baptism, we have an undifferentiated fellowship, dearly beloved, and a uniform dignity.

So proclaims the most blessed apostle Peter when he says with these most sacred words: “And you yourselves should be built up like living stones into spiritual dwellings, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 2:5). And later on he says: “You, however, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart" (1 Pt. 2:9). All who have been regenerated in Christ are made kings by the sign of the cross and consecrated priests by the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Apart from the particular service that our ministry entails, all Christians who live spiritual lives according to reason recognize that they have a part in the royal race and the priestly office. What could be more royal than the soul in subjection to God ruling over its own body? What could be more priestly than dedicating a pure conscience to the Lord and offering spotless sacrifices of devotion from the altar of the heart? Since this has been given to everyone alike through the grace of God, it is a devout and praiseworthy thing for you to take joy in the day of our elevation as if in your own honor. Let the episcopacy be celebrated in the entire body of the Church as one single mystery. When the oil of benediction has been poured out, the mystery flows, though more abundantly onto the higher parts, yet not ungenerously down to the lower ones as well.

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Source: Pope St. Leo the Great, "Sermon 4," in Leo the Great: Sermons (The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation), trans. by Jane Patricia Freeland and Agnes Josephine Conway (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 25–26.

Some Commonly Repeated Biblical Myths

Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.

The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

2. The high priest tied a rope around his ankle so that others could drag him out of the Holy of Holies in case God struck him dead.

Various versions of this claim have been repeated by pastors, but it is a legend. It started in the Middle Ages and keeps getting repeated. There is no evidence for the claim in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud, Mishna or any other source. Furthermore, the thickness of the veil (three feet) would have precluded the possibility of a priest being dragged out anyway. [...]

6. Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem.
I’ve used this illustration many times. But there isn’t evidence to support this idea. Still, because it seems like a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as “hell,” commentators and preachers have accepted it. It’s possible that the verdict may still be out on this one, but not if Todd Bolen is right: 

“The explanation for the ‘fire of Gehenna’ lies not in a burning trash dump, but in the burning of sacrificed children. Already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked.  That the valley was just outside the city of Jerusalem made it an appropriate symbol for those excluded from divine blessing.”

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Source for the above: Trevin Wax, "Urban Legends: The Preacher's Edition," TGC, April 27, 2011, accessed May 30, 2015, http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2011/04/27/urban-legends-the-preachers-edition/.

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[Further information on Gehenna from various sources:]

“Gehenna is presented as diametrically opposed to ‘life’: it is better to enter life than to go to Gehenna. . .It is common practice, both in scholarly and less technical works, to associate the description of Gehenna with the supposedly contemporary garbage dump in the valley of Hinnom. This association often leads scholars to emphasize the destructive aspects of the judgment here depicted: fire burns until the object is completely consumed. Two particular problems may be noted in connection with this approach. First, there is no convincing evidence in the primary sources for the existence of a fiery rubbish dump in this location (in any case, a thorough investigation would be appreciated). Secondly, the significant background to this passage more probably lies in Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 66:24.”

Source: Peter Head, “The Duration of Divine Judgment in the New Testament,” in The Reader Must Understand: Eschatology in Bible and Theology, ed. by K. E. Brower and M. W. Elliott (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 1997), 223.

Ge-Hinnom (Aramaic Ge-hinnam, hence the Greek Geenna), ‘The Valley of Hinnom,’ lay south of Jerusalem, immediately outside its walls. The notion, still referred to by some commentators, that the city’s rubbish was burned in this valley, has no further basis than a statement by the Jewish scholar Kimchi (sic) made about A.D. 1200; it is not attested in any ancient source. The valley was the scene of human sacrifices, burned in the worship of Moloch (2 Kings 16:3 and 21:6), which accounts for the prophecy of Jeremiah that it would be called the Valley of Slaughter under judgment of God (Jer. 7:32-33). This combination of abominable fires and divine judgment led to the association of the valley with a place of perpetual judgment (see Isa. 66:24) and later with a place of judgment by fire without any special connection to Jerusalem (see, for example, 1 Enoch 27:1ff., 54:1ff., 63:3-4, and 90:26ff).

Source: G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), 376-377, footnote 92.

The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189

Source: Hans Scharen, "Gehenna in the Synoptics," Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (January-March 1998) 328, footnote 17.

The traditional explanation for this seems to go back to Rabbi David Kimhi’s commentary on Psalm 27 (around 1200 C.E.). He remarked the following concerning the valley beneath Jerusalem’s walls:

Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which account, by analogy, the judgement of the wicked is called ‘Gehenna.’

Kimhi's otherwise plausible suggestion, however, finds no support in literary sources or archaeological data from the intertestamental or rabbinic periods. There is no evidence that the valley was, in fact, a garbage dump, and thus his explanation is insufficient. [...]

Even after the valley ceased to function as a cult center, it continued to be regarded as the location of an entrance to the underworld over which the sole God was sovereign. This is clear from the following statements in the Babylonian Talmud: (Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eleazar further stated:) Gehenna has three gates; one in the wilderness, one in the sea and one in Jerusalem. (According to Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai's school:) There are two palm trees in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and between them smoke arises..,. and this is the gate of Gehenna? (Babylonian Talmud, Erubin, 19a-see Slotki 1938: 130-31)

Source: Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archaeologist 49, no. 3 (1986): 189, 191.

It seems that the location of the city-dump of the late Second Temple period in this particular part of the city had a previous long history in the late Iron Age II. The Book of Nehemiah mentions several times a gate called Saar ha-Aspot/Sopot (Neh 2, 13; 3:13-14; 12:31). This toponym is usually translated as ‘Dung Gate’, based on the analogy with 2 Sam 2,8 and Ps 113,7 (Simons 1952, 123). These verses mention the city’s poor people, who most probably were foraging the city dump for food. Even if we accept B. Mazar’s suggestion (1975, 194-95), to relate spt to tpt – the Tophet – which was an extramural high place in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Kgs 21, 6; 2 Chr 33,6), we remain in an area of dirt. This place involved an extensive use of fire, which produced burning waste such as ashes, soot and charred wood. Also the location of the Gate of the pottery sherds (Sa’ar ha-Harsit), in the south (Jer 19,2), might point to a pile of garbage (Simons 1952, 230), as pottery vessels were the type of household item broken and discarded in antiquity more than any other type of artifact.

All the various types of city-garbage (ashes, pottery shards, waste of human occupation, etc.) were moved and dumped at the southeastern side of the city of Jerusalem, in the Iron Age and Persian periods. This was the city dump to where also the debris of the smashed cult objects and related material that was created during the Josianic religious reform, were moved and dumped, mentioning particularly the Kidron Valley (2 Kgs 23,4,6,10,12)”

Source: Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “The Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period," Israel Exploration Journal 53 (2003): 17.

What to Expect from Lukewarm Clergy

“Many [...] Catholics think they know what to expect from clergy — a now-familiar mix of soft social criticism and gentle moral encouragement,” says Robert Kennedy, chair of the Department of Catholic Studies at St. Thomas. “But many of the younger clergy take a very different approach. Their voices will not be soothing and predictable, but challenging and supported by personal witness. They are out for souls, not social change.”

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Source: Katherine Kersten, "A Youth Movement in the Priesthood," StarTribune, February 6, 2015, accessed February 8, 2015, http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/291114671.html.

Fr. Antonio Royo Marin on Applause and Preaching

I really like this quotation from one of my favorite theologians:

“Employing tactics to procure applause from the pulpit is a sacrilege. I have always dreaded this.” - Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, O.P.

Source: http://donalucilia.heraldsusa.org/?page_id=57

Language as Communication, Big Words, Liturgy, Preaching

First watch this video:

I haven't read the study itself, nor do I plan to, but I think Derek's break down of the study shows clearly how deeply embedded is our modern society's emphasis on language as communication rather than expression. We like language that communicates clearly and succinctly. Even further, we prefer clear communication that uses small words than big words, even if it takes more small words to communicate the same thing.

Case in point. In the English translation (2010) of the Roman Missal for the Novus Ordo liturgy, "one in being" was replaced with the more Latinate "consubstantial" in the Nicene Creed. People asked, "What does 'consubstantial' mean?" The response: "one in being" (ish). Why was the change made, then, it was asked. People dislike the new translation because it has bigger words, more complex sentences, and unusual phrasing that follows the way the Latin language works more than the English.

So, as Derek pointed out, this goes to show that as a society we prefer and (unconsciously) assume that language is mostly supposed to be about communication.

And yet we cannot get rid of language as expression, under which "style" falls. Even Derek's presentation of this Princeton study required a certain style that was "simple." Language distilled to the most basic elements of communication is still itself a way of expressing meaning, and its furthest reduction is the input/output of a computer program reading code. Code is language in its purest communicative form.

But if we simply wanted language as communication, why don't we speed this whole thing up and bring it to its logical conclusion by changing English into code instead? Texting and online chat has been a huge catalyst in pushing this transformation of language into pure communication.

The question must be asked: can people who both regularly text and realize what their texting is contributing to (that is, the whole process of the reduction of language into pure "code" communication) actually appreciate language as expression?

It seems to me that there is a dichotomy when these two aspects of language are pressed further and further. They have to exist in balance, not as ends but as principles, as a framework. The balance seems to be determined by factors like context and circumstances, audience, message, time, etc.

Thus, of course, people who are accustomed to seeing and using language as communication will be repelled by expressive language and an evocative style, such as the style intrinsic to liturgical form as it has organically evolved through the centuries in all of the rites. Just look at how the Blessed Mother is described, for example, in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom: "... our most holy, most pure, most-blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary...." All of this description would seem to the modern man useless and its inclusion incomprehensible. "OK," he might say, "It's nice that Mary is obviously revered with all these titles, but why can't we just say something like, 'Blessed Virgin Mary'," and if he's generous, he might add, "Mother of God."

This distaste for bigger, more complicated words also suggests to me that the default reaction of a person towards the Holy Mass, especially if it is in, say, Latin, would be one of utter boredom, confusion, and perhaps contempt. Everything about the Holy Mass—the words, the gestures, etc.—are expressive. Why the incense? Why not simply just quote Revelation and recall that our prayers rise like incense? Isn't that enough? Why face "East"? Why a quiet voice now and a loud voice then? Why bells? Why kneel? Why consubstantial (or rather consubstantialem Patri)?

And then we see that the Holy Ghost, as a soul becomes more sensitive to His inner movements and promptings, teaches a soul the sensitivity and reflexivity required to appreciate such things, not only intellectually, but affectively and effectively—with the heart and will. The Holy Ghost's groanings within us—aren't those a form of lingual expression that transcend our understanding? And yet prayer is still made on our behalf to the Father. This is a deeply mystical reality. Even the mystics say that they cannot say what they experience in contemplation. How can it be communicated or even expressed in human terms? But something meaning-full is still happening, something still directed and perfused by the Logos. 

But there can be a way to overemphasize language as expression. It is the rhetorical flourishes that serve to obscure and dilute a communication. It's the Baroque taken to its extreme, to the point that what is fundamental has been lost sight of for the lesser, smaller things.

Perhaps this is why holy preaching is the most effective preaching. I suspect that, no matter what people culturally believe about language as communication, expressive language is still so fundamentally human that it can't be avoided, and because of that fact, effective preaching from a Saint can pierce straight to the heart and will. As long as preaching isn't holy, there is the danger of speaking too tersely, speaking with a barren quality, or there is the danger of speaking too eloquently, with such abundance and redundance of flourishing that it must be questioned if the speaking is a matter of pride. But holy preaching will reach the right balance because the Holy Ghost, the breath of the Perfect Speaker (or perhaps Spoken?), is directing.

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Addendum:

Another thought struck me—as our society moves away from expressive language (to the extent that it can), our language has become increasingly banal and, paradoxically, full of superfluous interjections.

Example: "I just...like....um...want to...you know...go to the...thing...I don't know...."

It is as though we are trying to make up for the lack of expression by inserting filler words. The poet Taylor Mali was very observant on the effects of this rapid change in language:

St. Thomas Aquinas on Offending the Wicked in Preaching

Objection 1. It would seem that Christ should have preached to the Jews without offending them. For, as Augustine says (De Agone Christ. xi): "In the Man Jesus Christ, a model of life is given us by the Son of God." But we should avoid offending not only the faithful, but even unbelievers, according to 1 Corinthians 10:32: "Be without offense to the Jews, and to the Gentiles, and to the Church of God." Therefore it seems that, in His teaching, Christ should also have avoided giving offense to the Jews.

Objection 2. Further, no wise man should do anything that will hinder the result of his labor. Now through the disturbance which His teaching occasioned among the Jews, it was deprived of its results; for it is written (Luke 11:53-54) that when our Lord reproved the Pharisees and Scribes, they "began vehemently to urge Him, end to oppress His mouth about many things; lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch something from His mouth, that they might accuse Him." It seems therefore unfitting that He should have given them offense by His teaching.

Objection 3. Further, the Apostle says (1 Timothy 5:1): "An ancient man rebuke not; but entreat him as a father." But the priests and princes of the Jews were the elders of that people. Therefore it seems that they should not have been rebuked with severity.

On the contrary, It was foretold (Isaiah 8:14) that Christ would be "for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to the two houses of Israel."

I answer that, The salvation of the multitude is to be preferred to the peace of any individuals whatsoever. Consequently, when certain ones, by their perverseness, hinder the salvation of the multitude, the preacher and the teacher should not fear to offend those men, in order that he may insure the salvation of the multitude. Now the Scribes and Pharisees and the princes of the Jews were by their malice a considerable hindrance to the salvation of the people, both because they opposed themselves to Christ's doctrine, which was the only way to salvation, and because their evil ways corrupted the morals of the people. For which reason our Lord, undeterred by their taking offense, publicly taught the truth which they hated, and condemned their vices. Hence we read (Matthew 15:12, 14) that when the disciples of our Lord said: "Dost Thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?" He answered: "Let them alone: they are blind and leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, bothfall into the pit."

Reply to Objection 1. A man ought so to avoid giving offense, as neither by wrong deed or word to be the occasion of anyone's downfall. "But if scandal arise from truth, the scandal should be borne rather than the truth be set aside," as Gregory says (Hom. vii in Ezech.).

Reply to Objection 2. By publicly reproving the Scribes and Pharisees, Christ promoted rather than hindered the effect of His teaching. Because when the people came to know the vices of those men, they were less inclined to be prejudiced against Christ by hearing what was said of Him by the Scribes and Pharisees, who were ever withstanding His doctrine.

Reply to Objection 3. This saying of the Apostle is to be understood of those elders whose years are reckoned not only in age and authority, but also in probity; according to Numbers 11:16: "Gather unto Me seventy men of the ancients of Israel, whom thou knowest to be ancients . . . of the people." But if by sinning openly they turn the authority of their years into an instrument of wickedness, they should be rebuked openly and severely, as also Daniel says (Daniel 13:52): "O thou that art grown old in evil days," etc.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, trans. by English Province Dominicans, NewAdvent.org, accessed March 27, 2013, 3.42.2, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4042.htm#article2.

St. John of the Cross on Apostolic Work, pt. 2

[N.B.: Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange quotes and agrees with the following excerpt of St. John of the Cross, writing: "This teaching of St. John of the Cross demonstrates how necessary it is that the preacher greatly purify his intention that his words may truly bear life-giving fruit, which will last for eternity. To effect this purification, his soul must live according to the spirit of immolation or of sacrifice, which assures the first place in the soul to the love of God and of souls in God" (Three Ages of the Interior Life, vol. 1, p. 376).]

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The second kind of distinct delightful goods in which the will can vainly rejoice comprises those that arouse or persuade one to serve God. We call these provocative goods. Preachers belong to this class, and we can speak of them in two ways: with reference to the preacher himself, and with reference to his hearers. It is needful to counsel [the preacher] as to how joy of will should be directed to God in this practice.

As for the preacher, in order to benefit the people and avoid the impediment of vain joy and presumption, he should keep in mind that preaching is more a spiritual practice than a vocal one. For although it is practiced through exterior words, it has no force or efficacy save from the interior spirit. No matter how lofty the doctrine preached, or polished the rhetoric, or sublime the style in which the preaching is clothed, the profit does not ordinarily increase because of these means in themselves; it comes from the spirit. God's word is indeed efficacious of itself according to David, who says that God will give to his voice the voice of power [Ps. 68:33]; yet fire also has power to burn but will not burn if the material is unprepared. [...]

[Christ] is opposed to those who preach the law of God yet do not keep it, and who preach to others the good spirit yet do not possess it themselves. He admonishes consequently through St. Paul: You teach others, but you do not teach yourselves. You who preach that others must not steal, steal [Rom. 2:21]. And the Holy Spirit says through David: God said to the sinner: Why do you preach my statutes and take my law in your mouth though you have abhorred discipline and cast my words behind you? [Ps. 50:16-17]. From this we deduce that he will not give them the spirit from which they may bear fruit.

We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine. For the living spirit enkindles fire. But when this spirit is wanting the gain is small, however sublime the style and doctrine. Although it is true that good style, gestures, sublime doctrine, and well-chosen words are more moving and productive of effect when accompanied by this good spirit, yet without it the sermon imparts little or no devotion to the will even though it may be delightful and pleasing to the senses and the intellect. For the will in this case will ordinarily be left as weak and remiss as before, even though wonderful things were wonderfully spoken; and the sermon merely delights the sense of hearing, like a musical concert or sounding bells. But the spirit, as I said, will not leave its natural ties any more than previously, since the voice does not possess the power to raise a dead man from his sepulcher.

It is of little significance that one kind of music is more pleasing to me than another if it fails to move me to the practice of works more than the other. Although the preacher may speak remarkable truths, these will soon be forgotten since they do not enkindle the will. Besides the fact of their unproductivity, the sensory adherence to the gratification provided by the doctrine hinders any effect the doctrine may have on the spirit, and people are left only with esteem for the mode and accidents of the sermon. They praise the preacher and listen to him for these reasons more than for the motivation they receive to amend their lives.

St. Paul gives an exceptionally clear explanation of this doctrine to the Corinthians: I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come preaching with sublimity of doctrine and wisdom, and my words and my preaching were not in the rhetoric of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of the spirit and of truth [1 Cor. 2:1-4]. Indeed, it is neither the Apostle's intention nor mine to condemn good style and rhetoric and effective delivery; these, rather, are most important to the preacher, as they are in all matters. Elegant style and delivery lift up and restore even those things that have fallen into ruin, just as poor presentation spoils what is good and destroys.

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Source: St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), 347-349, 3.45.1-5.