Father Simon Lobo speaking about Preaching on Purpose at the 2022 DR USA Conference (Photo: Mackenzie Palmer)
“We know…that both they and their ordained ministers suffer because of homilies: the laity from having to listen to them and the clergy from having to preach them! It is sad that this is the case.” –Pope Francis, Evangelii Guadium 135
Jacqueline Marie | August 11, 2022
“We are called to proclaim Jesus and His Kingdom and rouse people to follow Him,” states Fiona O’Reilly, Director of Global Strategy at Divine Renovation, “and every homily, in some ways, is doing those two things.”
This summer Divine Renovation launched the book Preaching on Purpose. Written by Father Chris Ryan MGL (Pastor of St.Declan’s Parish, AUS), Father Simon Lobo CC (Pastor of Saint Benedict Parish, CAN), Father Alex Colautti CC (Associate Pastor of Saint Benedict Parish, CAN) and Leadership Coach Rev. Rob McDowell (Pastor of the Windgate Site of Cornerstone Wesleyan Church, CAN), Preaching on Purpose offers a deep look into the cultural context priests are preaching into today along with a practical guide to homily preparation, planning and delivery. With further contributions from eight priests and one deacon, the book takes a from-the-trenches approach with insights from a diversity of contexts and geographic regions.
Fiona O’Reilly, Divine Renovation Director of Global Strategy (Photo: Mackenzie Palmer)
O’Reilly says, “This book was born out of our conversations with priests we coach. The same question kept coming up – my homily is one of the most important ways of reaching my people with the gospel…but how do I preach in a way that really helps us make disciples?”
What’s more, priests and bishops were repeatedly asking Divine Renovation for help in understanding and navigating the post-Christendom culture they found themselves in: “we need to speak in new ways so that we can actually help the Truth be heard, but how do we do that?”
“We felt more and more convicted that if we were truly going to help Catholic parishes become missional, we needed to help priests make their homilies missional”
O’Reilly relates, that they see, “priests experiencing all the pain and frustration of pouring themselves out Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month, year after year, and not seeing fruit” from their homilies. “Their deep desire is to preach in ways that pierce hearts, that enable personal conversion to Jesus, and which unleash people in their call to be missionary disciples to go out there and transform the world, and they were asking for help with that.” That’s what the book was written to help priests do.
“We were also very aware that the homily is part of the liturgy itself (Sancrosantum Concilium 52). Preaching has such a privileged place so in writing the book the co-authors tried to keep that front of mind throughout.”
Preaching on Purpose was published through Three Keys Publishing, a new in-house publishing venture at Divine Renovation. “When we originally had the idea for the book, we approached a number of publishing companies… and all of them gave us the same feedback, ‘Look this is probably a helpful book, but it only focuses on priests and those numbers are too small to make publishing viable.’”
“Our vision is for every Catholic parish in the world to be missional, and we exist to inspire, connect, and equip parishes in pursuit of that. So, for us, it’s not about will the book make money? It’s about can the book make an important contribution in helping the church move to mission…Our hope is that this book ends up in the hands of every priest and bishop that God wants it to.”
“ …to preach in ways that pierce hearts, that enable personal conversion to Jesus, and which unleash people in their call to be missionary disciples to go out there and transform the world ”
Preaching on Purpose is not just for priests and deacons but also lay people speaking in non-liturgical settings: small groups, youth ministry, sacramental preparation. Often these lay leaders are wrestling with many of the same types of questions as a priest preparing Sunday’s homily. Things like:
How do I effectively break open scripture and communicate in ways that help people hear God?
How do I create and structure the message?
How do I communicate the message in a way that sticks?
How can I collaborate with others to really make this as effective as it can be?
“Our vision is for every Catholic parish in the world to be missional, and we exist to inspire, connect, and equip parishes in pursuit of that. So, for us, it’s not about will the book make money? It’s about can the book make an important contribution in helping the church move to mission…Our hope is that this book ends up in the hands of every priest and bishop that God wants it to.”
Preaching on Purpose was released at the 2022 DR USA Conference last month in Dallas, Texas and sold out within 2 days. It will be available to order online through Amazon this month.
“We haven’t got all the answers on this, but we have emerging insights that have born fruit in enough places around the world, repeatedly, across enough different priests and parish settings, that we feel we’ve got some pieces of the puzzle that should be shared. Our greatest hope is that this will bless all those called to the awesome task of preaching and so bless the whole Church.”
Archbishop Brian Dunn of the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth has given Preaching on Purpose both a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur.
Preaching on Purpose will be available for purchase on Amazon this August. Click here to sign up for an email notification once it’s out!
