preach the salvation that comes from Christ

Too long and boring homilies? The subject always fascinates! The debate is relaunched after the Pope’s remarks, on Friday January 20, during an intervention at the Pontifical Athenaeum Saint-Anselme. Francis asked priests to limit their homilies to ten minutes, no more. Indeed, the homily should not be confused with a lecture, nor is it a course in philosophy, theology or exegesis…

“It must be clear to the faithful that what is in the heart of the preacher is to show Christ, on whom the homily is centered”, we read in Verbum Domini (2010). This post-synodal exhortation on the word of God in the life and mission of the Church signed by Benedict XVI recalls that “the preacher must be the first to be challenged by the Word of God which he announces”. He must therefore ask himself these questions: “What do the proclaimed readings say? What do they say to me personally? What should I say to the community, taking into account its concrete situation? »

The exercise is always demanding. He must help the faithful “to discover the presence and the effectiveness of the Word of God in the today of their lives”. This therefore presupposes a familiarity of the preacher with the Scriptures, which must be read and reread, meditated, prayed. For my part, when I prepare a homily, I ask myself these questions about the texts proposed by the liturgy: What good news of salvation do they contain? What is God coming to save? So what needs to be saved in me, in each of us, in our world, and from what? What capacities does God come to heal, renew, liberate, stimulate, enrich, arouse… to provide his salvation? What about the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ in the passages to be commented on?

Over the days, it is given to me to discover God who saves memory from oblivion, generosity from covetousness, speech from gossip, confidence from fear, truth from lies, brotherhood from jealousy, the authority of authoritarianism, the will of resignation, the hospitality of fear of the stranger… And, as a journalist’s reflex, I force myself to give a title to my homily.

On Sunday, the 4th in Ordinary Time, we will be given the opportunity to hear the text of the Beatitudes which opens the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 1-12). My homily will be entitled: “God saves happiness”. It saves happiness from an idealistic conception of the fulfilled life which does not allow for tears, lack, attention to others, the harshness of the fight for justice… The path to happiness traced by the Beatitudes is the very one that Jesus borrowed, right to the end, to the Cross. To preach on the Beatitudes is to preach on Christ. A Christ who never goes without the Cross. Like true happiness.

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