c) PREACHING THE WORD

"The divine Word became man and came as the ineffable word to speak to human beings"

Beloved sons and daughters, first of all, we must listen to the word of God.  Why?  Precisely because it is the word of God; because it is the word of him who is our creator, our lawgiver, our sovereign, our teacher, our master, our father; because his word is, above all, the truth, truth itself, absolute truth, supreme, unchangeable, and eternal truth; and because, after the Most Holy Eucharist, nothing on earth can equal the excellence, nobility, holiness, and greatness of this very word.

The holy books tell us that from all eternity, God contemplates himself and pronounces a word.  This word, as measureless as his immensity, as infinite as his being, as powerful as his omnipotence, is the living, substantial, and absolute expression of all that He is.  It is the Word of God, the Second Person of the most august Trinity.  The divine Word became man and came as the ineffable word to speak the word of eternal life to human beings.²⁷

"The word of God is as necessary as faith"

Dearly beloved, faith is the most precious of treasures, the source of all graces, the foundation of all virtues, the root of our Justification, the gate of heaven.  But how can we obtain this faith?  By the word of God.  This is precisely what the Apostle Paul teaches when he says: "Who will call on the name of the Lord and be saved?  Those who have believed.  But how will they believe in the truth of the faith if they are not taught?  And how will they be taught if someone does not preach to them?"  Hence, the faith of Christ comes through hearing, and the hearing of the faith comes through the word of Christ preached: "Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ." It follows then that, if faith comes through hearing the word of God, the word of God is as necessary as faith.

Yes, dearly beloved, this and this alone is the road that, as a general rule, God has set down for the salvation of believers.  He could have saved them in other ways: by heavenly apparitions, by supernatural

inspirations, by miracles, and so on.  Instead, he was pleased to save them by means of preaching: "It was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith."²⁸

"The word of Jesus Christ is not inferior to his body"

We must listen to the word and receive it not as the word of man but as the word of God.  Tell me, my brothers, says St. Augustine, according to you which of these two things has the greater dignity: the word of God or the body of Jesus Christ?  If you want to be honest, you will have to admit that, in the eyes of faith, the word of Jesus Christ is not any less precious or worthy of esteem than his body: "The word of Jesus Christ is not inferior to his body." If this is true, as in fact it is, it is easy to understand that we ought to listen to the word with attention, with respect, and with the firm resolve to put it into practice.

According to this same Doctor, we must listen to the word with such attention that the care we take lest any particle fall to the ground during the distribution of the body of Christ is to be used also with the divine word, making sure that, while thinking or speaking about other things, we do not lose any particle of the word or let it fall from our heart.  Nor is this a vain scruple, because ‑- St. Augustine concludes with frightening words ‑- those who hear the word of God with indifference are no less guilty than those who let the smallest particle of the body of Christ fall to the ground with indifference.  Besides, dearly beloved, we must never forget that, while the preacher speaks to us from the pulpit or the altar, it is Jesus Christ who speaks to us from heaven, that while the sound of the voice strikes the ears externally, the Teacher is within us.  Hence, rather than the ears of the body, we must open the ears of the spirit to his word.  He will make us understand in a mysterious but very clear way what he wants of us.²⁹

"The power of the word is tied to the divinity of the ministry"

The word of God does not lose any of its power and remains always the word of God even when it comes forth from the mouth of the lowliest priest, as long as he is legitimately commissioned. 

As long as he does not overstep the bounds of orthodoxy and has not renounced the faith, the Word of God commits himself to making himself present through his mouth, just as on the altar he commits himself to making  himself present through the hands of his minister, even though imperfect.

A celebrated orator says that, though God has chosen human beings to illuminate, evangelize, teach, and sanctify people, he did not want the efficacy of these ministries, entrusted to human beings, to depend on the virtue or the holiness of human beings.  Otherwise, human beings would owe their sanctification and their salvation to human beings.  Dearly beloved, keep this clearly in mind: the power of the word of God is not tied to the personal qualities, to the gifts or even the holiness of the minister but to the divine nature of the ministry.  It is tied to the word of a human being in so far as that word speaks of Jesus Christ and in the name of Jesus Christ or rather in so far as Jesus Christ speaks through the human being.³⁰

"The gospel word is like a letter sent to you by the Father"

The gospel word is like a letter sent to you by your heavenly Father.  Now, a loving child does not dilly-dally over whether the paper is expensive or cheap, whether the characters are neat or smudged, but rushes to see what his father has written.  So, even with regard to sacred preaching, we must pay attention not to the person speaking or his manner of speaking but only to the truth he proclaims.  There is no way, then, that your soul will not be filled with the most profound and loving respect (...).

Is the word of God meant to make us Christians at heart and in deed?  If so, then the word must be transformed into love.  Not only must we understand the truth but also love it, and not just love it but put it into practice as well.  "Living the truth in love," as the Apostle Paul teaches us.  The sign that the divine word has borne fruit in us is the works we perform because, if faith without love is dead, love without works is not love.  When he speaks, God makes us understand what we must do; but, at the same time, he helps us do what we have come to know.³¹

"Were it not for Eucharistic preaching, the Church would be a society of utopians"

Realize how important your preaching is.  Herein lies the whole salvation and well-being of the Church.  The fruit of this preaching is that it makes one leave infancy behind and begin to live and walk along the path of prudence.  What would the Church be without Eucharistic preaching?  A religion without sacrifice, a society of utopians, a house built on sand.  Christ himself would become a fable, a myth.³²

"Without the word, the Sacrifice would be a fruitless commemoration"

Christ in the Eucharist is the power and wisdom of God, and we preach Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Reflect on the concept of preaching.  When he instituted the Sacrifice and consecrated priests, Christ said: "Do this in memory of me" (1 Cor 11).  In his very action Christ himself joined together preaching and Sacrifice: without the word, the Sacrifice would be a fruitless commemoration.  You know with what sublime and divine eloquence Christ spoke to his apostles at the Last Supper before and after the institution of the Eucharist.  The apostles have continued his preaching (...).  They devoted themselves to the preaching of the word; and, listening to them, the faithful persevered as a community in the breaking of bread (...).

The divine Founder of the Church enjoined the preaching ministry on the apostles and, through them, on us his ministers: preach the gospel to all people, he said.  After the institution of the Eucharist, he commanded: Do this in memory of me.  Treasure the memory of what you see me doing by renewing the Sacrifice, and with your preaching keep alive the memory of me in the hearts of the faithful.  The kingdom of God becomes ever more perfect through the Eucharist.  You, chosen to share in this divine action, must devote yourselves untiringly to Eucharistic preaching so as to spread and consolidate the kingdom of God.  Never was this preaching more necessary than in our days, of which the prophet could say:"the table of the Lord has been despised."

Why is it necessary?  Because God's gift is so little known, for Christ's greatness in this sacrament is a greatness of love.  In a word, it is necessary because we rarely speak of Christ in his Sacrament.  Some instead might like to blame the times, the spreading errors, the vile publications, or the new scandals multiplying daily.  These people will put the blame on desecrations, on crass indifference, or on the decline of faith in so many people.  But where do these evils come from if not from the lack of preaching?  Listen to the Apostle Paul: "Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ" (Rom 10:17).³³

"Preaching and the Eucharistic Sacrifice: the two powers Christ has invested you with"

Ponder over the prophecy found in the Book of Wisdom: "I will proclaim your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you." Ps 22:23).   Christ fulfills this prophecy not with his mouth but with ours: through your preaching and through the Eucharistic Sacrifice.  These are the two powers Christ has invested you with (...).  With the priesthood and the Eucharistic banquet, the splendor of Christ will become like a light: "He stood firm and looked down on the earth.  He looked and the nations melted before him and the ancient mountains were rent and the heights of the mountains bowed before him" (Ps 3:6).  This is the triumph and conquest of the world promised by Christ.  We know the world has not yet been conquered.  But look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.³⁴

"In your preaching mix the useful with the pleasing"

In this banquet, Christ has mixed the useful with the pleasing: the useful, because, as the poet says, he revives man ‑- lost through the sweetness of the forbidden fruit ‑- with a more sublime food and destroys the serpent's poison with the sacred blood; the pleasing, because, as the spouse exclaims: "his fruit is pleasing to my mouth".

In your preaching join the two aspects: the useful to a good explanation of the Eucharistic mystery, according to the analogy of the faith, confirming it with the authority of the Church Fathers and Doctors; the pleasing, by supporting your arguments also with well-founded reasons

taken from science.

Do not get discouraged by the thought that the faithful will not understand.  Understanding the mysteries does not depend on natural intelligence but on the light of faith, which God infuses through preaching.  God himself will open the hearts.  Besides, by dint of being heard, even those points that initially seem less comprehensible ‑- precisely because they are preached so seldom ‑- soon become intelligible.

You were all introduced to this duty since early youth.  But only a few of you perhaps made any progress in this field because you did not heed the words of the Lord Jesus: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3).  We would fool ourselves if we were to be satisfied with giving the people commonplace knowledge, limiting ourselves to always giving them milk, never solid food.  The Eucharist is at once milk for children and food for the strong, the bread of the sturdy.  So, we must speak to Christians of the wisdom hidden in the mystery.

Above all, study Christ and his Sacrament.  We must preach not only Christ who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried, and ascended into heaven to be our advocate before the Father.  We must also preach Christ who daily takes away sins by his self-oblation and becomes wisdom of God, justification and redemption for us all.  We must preach the Christ who lives among us until the end of time, the Christ who lives in the Blessed Sacrament and draws all things to himself.  Christ is not an apparition that disappears at once.  Rather, Jesus is the Christ yesterday, today and the same forever.³⁵

"It is not the word of God some are preaching but the word of man"

Maybe there was never as much preaching as today.  But why is it, one might ask, that the fruits of this preaching are generally so meager?  We usually blame the listeners.  Frankly, too often the mystical seed does fall on poor soil where the rocks and thorns keep the seed from growing up and developing.  But very often is it not the fault perhaps of the one who is sowing this seed in the field of the Lord?

Yes, beloved brothers, unfortunately this is the case.  We must not

hide the fact that many, many sermons are unfruitful because it is not the word of God some are preaching but the word of man.  They want to show off fashionable learning, says an illustrious writer.  They want to amaze and astonish their listeners with rhetorical effects, with feats of memory, with an unending list of names, with quotations from all kinds of writers, with journalistic oratory, with references that titillate the unwholesome curiosity of the people, with giddy emotion (denounced by St. Jerome long ago), with theatrical posturing, with the power of the lungs, with screaming that hurts and injures the ears.  I shall never get tired of denouncing this kind of oratory, which some would want to make fashionable in our day, to the great detriment of souls and to the utter discredit of preaching; an oratory that is rich in figures of speech but poor in thought, fertile in expressions but sterile in sentiments, which is just a pompous display of fraudulent opulence that subjects the great teaching ministry to one's desire to please people and forces the word of truth to go begging for flattery; an oratory that titillates the listeners and leaves the passions in peace and which, instead of preaching Jesus Christ, preaches only itself; an oratory that is an empty show of hollow spirits and superficial souls; that gets lost in vague doctrines, frivolous descriptions, tender portrayals, extravagant ideas, turgid sentences, artificial phrases, ornate language, and flowers of speech which the most indulgent taste would tolerate only in a novel and for which holy truth is forced to blush, like a modest matron who sees herself wearing a dancer's dress; an oratory, finally, that is secular in substance as well as in form and reduces the sacred minister to a comedian and the divine ministry to a comedy.³⁶

"Debtors to the learned and the unlearned"

Preachers, especially pastors and their associates, must remember that they are not to speak with the beguiling words of human learning but with the testimony of spirit and virtue.  They must remember that they are debtors to the learned and the unlearned and, hence, that they must try to be simple, clear, and brief.  They are not to mount the pulpit unprepared or preach without having invoked the light of the Holy Spirit.  They should remember that their words must indeed enlighten the minds of their listeners but, more importantly, must inflame their hearts.  While we must never omit explaining the

deepest truths of the faith, nevertheless our sermons, even our eulogies, must always contain something that has to do with practical life.³⁷