Special delivery

A question for priests who use their homily to rant about the dire state of our society by raising their voices in anger, would you use that same tone if you were speaking one-on-one with a parishioner in a private setting?  I listened to a homily today where our priest spoke of the evils of abortion, assisted suicide, and demonic indoctrination of our children.  He told us as Catholics, we need to stand up and speak out.  Now, I do not necessarily disagree with anything he said, but it sounded like he was blaming us for our lack of action.  

As he sat down, I tried to imagine how I would have felt had I been the only person he was speaking to in his living room.  I am certain his tone would have been completely different delivering the same message in a private conversation.  Those same words he used could be much more effective spoken with peaceful sincerity.  Why be any different speaking to an entire congregation?

I wonder how much time is spent teaching seminarians how to deliver a good homily.  Many years have passed since I took a speech class, but one technique I remember when giving a talk was to pick out various faces in the audience as if speaking to them one-on-one.  It helps the speaker to relax and connect with the audience thereby holding their interest.

While perusing the internet later that day, I stumbled across Paul Harvey’s 1965 radio commentary titled “If I were the devil”.  It is an eye-opening prophecy of life in this 21st century written more than sixty years ago.  It actually foretells much of what our priest bemoaned today at Mass.  The difference is in the captivating way it was delivered.  Paul Harvey was one of the most talented broadcasters to every grace the airwaves.  Now, I do not expect every priest to hold an audience like Paul Harvey did, but taking a lesson from his delivery could not hurt.  

Speaking of critiquing one’s delivery, I did something last night that I have not done since I began writing this little blog twenty-four years ago.  I wrote a completely different article on a completely different subject to post this month.  I had it uploaded and ready to post when I decided to make a few edits.  The more edits I made, the more disenchanted I became.  Finally, instead of hitting post, I hit delete.  Sometimes scrapping an entire idea is better than delivering a product not up to par.  Occasionally a homily might benefit from a delete key too.