“Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!” This is how Kim Harris starts her homily for the Second Sunday of Easter—in joyous song. “When Thomas first the tidings heard / How they had seen the risen Lord / He doubted the disciples’ word. Alleluia!...” Such daring from the ambo has long struck a controversial chord with preachers and liturgists alike, prompting “Preach” host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to ask Kim about her choice to start her homily in song. Kim, an assistant professor of African American Relig...
Apr 01, 2024•34 min
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God often makes Godself known through sound: be it a voice from a burning bush, a resounding clap of thunder or the blast of a trumpet. “God is revealed through sound,” affirms Ed Foley, O.F.M. Cap. “I think of a homily as sound theology,” he adds, “it’s acoustic engagement.” When preparing to preach, Ed, the Duns Scotus Professor Emeritus of Spirituality and a retired professor from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, first writes his homilies word for w...
Mar 25, 2024•36 min
When reflecting on the life, death and resurrection of the Lord while living in a state of military invasion and active war, Andriy Zelinskyy, S.J., says that “everything becomes more authentic.” For this Jesuit priest, who serves as the chief military chaplain of the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church, the task of preaching to those suffering in Ukraine, “from the trenches to the President,” has brought the challenge and promise of preaching hope on Good Friday into stark relief. To authentically ...
Mar 18, 2024•32 min
The liturgies of Holy Week need to be seen as a unity. With two weeks remaining before the start of this summit of the Christian year, the “Preach” team sought the expertise of two esteemed liturgical scholars and practitioners to give preachers a whistle-stop tour of the readings and liturgies for this sacred week. In conversation with “Preach” host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., Kim Harris and John Baldovin, S.J., discuss the connection of present-day social issues like antisemitism and state-sanctio...
Mar 11, 2024•43 min
“Explain the resurrection to me in two minutes without using any church language.” This is the challenge that Father Rob Galea sets for his staff to ensure they can easily relate to the young people they serve. “That takes practice, and that takes hanging out with the kids and understanding the way they speak, the way they reason.” Rob, originally from Malta, is now a priest in the Diocese of Sandhurst, Victoria, Australia. He has amassed a hundreds of thousands-strong following across social me...
Mar 04, 2024•33 min
The best formation Deacon Steve Kramer has ever received were the four summers he spent as a taxi and limo driver. “It really prepared me for pastoral counseling,” he says of his year’s shuttling people back and forth. “They sit, they open their heart, and pretty much they figure out that they’ll never see you again. So they open up in a different way. On “Preach,” Steve delivers a homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, initiating the Scrutinies for catechumens in the O.C.I.A. process. Departing f...
Feb 26, 2024•44 min
“Effective preaching is like good butter sinking into warm toast,” says Karla Bellinger. “You’ve gotta give the Holy Spirit a little bit of time to do some work.” As the founding executive director of the Institute for Homiletics at the University of Dallas and president of the Catholic Association of Teachers of Homiletics, Karla is filled with bits of wisdom like this for homilists. “The God of the universe who is infinite also wants to be the God who is intimate and close,” Karla says in her ...
Feb 19, 2024•35 min
Russell Pollitt, S.J., approaches his homilies in a manner unlike any other preacher the “Preach” team has yet seen. While some rely on verbatim manuscripts, detailed linear plans, or simply loose notes, when this South African Jesuit priest sits down to write his homily after praying on the Scriptures, the first thing he does is produce an org chart (or organogram, as it’s better known outside the U.S.).” But, by the time Russell stands in front of the congregation to deliver his homily, the or...
Feb 12, 2024•43 min
Cardinal Roche opens the Lenten season on “Preach: The Catholic Homilies Podcast” with a heartfelt message taken from the Scripture readings for Ash Wednesday: “Come back to me with all your heart.” When asked by host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., why he chose the theme of “Welcome Home” and not to preach “in a heavier way,” to emphasize the penitential nature of the season, the cardinal, who is the most senior Vatican official to appear on the show, simply replies: “Well, because I think, really, tha...
Feb 05, 2024•46 min
You may have seen that we haven’t had any episodes for the last two weeks. We are taking a break after the bumper set of episodes we put together for you during the Advent and Christmas seasons. We are reviewing the results of our survey—which you can still respond to here — and planning our offering for Lent. In the meantime, in this great week when we celebrate the extraordinary contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, to racial and social justice in the U.S. and beyond, we’re re-airing an...
Jan 19, 2024•39 min
Preaching on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, David Neuhaus, S.J., explores a curiosity in the story of the Wise Men’s journey from the East to the Bethlehem manger. “Why didn’t the star take them straight to Bethlehem? Why did it take them to Jerusalem?,” he asks. "I think it took them to Jerusalem, as we are always taken to Jerusalem, because we must encounter the scriptures of Israel,” he continues. “It is from the Scriptures of Israel that they will receive the precise destination ...
Jan 01, 2024•34 min
Yunan Frédéric, a Syriac Catholic priest living in Bethlehem with his Latina-American wife and their three children, preaches on the Feast of the Holy Family, even though the Syriac Church does not observe this feast in its liturgical calendar. For the past two years, he has served as the pastor of the Syriac Catholic community in Bethlehem; a small, largely refugee, Arab-speaking group of about 100 people. [ Take a quick listener survey: Tell us what you love about “Preach” and what you’d like ...
Dec 25, 2023•35 min
The anticipated joy of Christmas unfolds against a backdrop of pain and violence this year. “I think one of the most important things in these extremely troubled times is that we do have the lights, both metaphorically and physically,” says Barbara Reid, O.P. “Our most important gift and our most important approach, not only to the advent and Christmas season, but to our lives overall, is never to let hope dim.” [ Take a quick listener survey: Tell us what you love about “Preach” and what you’d ...
Dec 18, 2023•35 min
This week on 'Preach,' the script is flipped: Ricardo da Silva, S.J., the regular host, becomes the guest preacher, and Maggi Van Dorn, a usual producer, takes the mic as the host. Maggi and Ricardo, who work together extensively on “Preach,” “ Hark! The stories behind our favorite Christmas carols ” and “ Inside the Vatican ,” compare how preachers and podcasters alike craft stories to captivate their audience On this Gaudete Sunday, Ricardo invites listeners to identify where they have experie...
Dec 11, 2023•31 min
Despite his advanced studies in Scripture, it wasn’t until Victor Cancino, S.J., became the resident pastor at St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana that he properly grasped the Bible’s deep connections with Native American spirituality and practices. “The Bible is from a tribal world with a spirituality that is as old as the people that I’m living with,” Victor says. “We completely forget that and we think of this Roman-Greco society that looks like us, but ...
Dec 04, 2023•36 min
“How do we really enter into a season like Advent when the world around us is already celebrating Christmas?” This is the question host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., sets before his guests, Scripture scholars Barbara Reid, O.P., and Victor Cancino, S.J., at the start of this episode, which breaks the usual mold of the podcast. Instead of the usual show where we hear a homily for a given Sunday and then talk to a guest preacher, we’ve invited Sister Reid and Father Cancino to share ways into the Script...
Nov 27, 2023•48 min
The Scripture readings for the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, invite us to interpret the Scriptures through a lens that is perhaps less common for this celebration. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, S.J, tries to imagine ways in which the readings for the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar, “can be perceived less as a hierarchical, patriarchal or monarchical depiction of who God is in Christ through the Spirit, and more about how God relates to us; in humility, in care, in...
Nov 20, 2023•32 min
This November, as we remember our beloved dead and our liturgy begins to contemplate the end times, the stark reality of war is even more pronounced. In times, like these, “sometimes, the best thing you can do,” says Bruce Botha, S.J., “is acknowledge someone else’s pain and say, ‘I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.’” Father Botha, a priest of the Southern Africa province of the Jesuits, has been in parish ministry for the last 15 years. He serves as the pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church an...
Nov 20, 2023•28 min
Preachers face a delicate balancing act: while crafting homilies to draw young people to the pews, they must also engage the elders, who make up the majority of the congregation. The also deserve homilies that resonate with the particular joys and challenges of their lives. “I try to read the scriptures through their eyes,” says Jack Rathschmidt, an 80-year-old Capuchin friar. “Older people have this wisdom and these gifts, and so I just try to honor them.” Jack has been a friar for 62 years and...
Oct 30, 2023•37 min
As an undergrad at Boston College, Sarah Hansman was a self-described “retreat addict.” Today, she is a retreat leader in Boston College’s Kairos program and is often invited to preach in various settings. “When it comes to preaching, and when it comes to sharing my voice, one of my goals is to be a role model for those who either don’t feel like their voices are heard or don’t feel like their voices are worthy to be heard,” Sarah says, when asked about her vocation as a preacher. “Every time I’...
Oct 23, 2023•36 min
Until the early 20th century, the Catholic Church in the United States was “still young, growing and vulnerable,” and “the recipient of help from the church in other lands,” recalls Anthony Andreassi, C.O., in his homily for World Mission Sunday. “Now it is our turn to reach out to support others so that this important work of evangelization can continue as we continue to make our pilgrim way here on earth.” Anthony is a resident priest of the Brooklyn Oratory and serves its two parishes, but he...
Oct 16, 2023•33 min
Before the Rev. James Martin, S.J., set off for the Synod on Synodality currently underway at the Vatican, he shared some of his hopes for preaching the message of the Synod. “This idea of Jesus calling people from the outside in is very much something that the synod is doing,” he said. “I think it’s reminding people that these groups, whoever it is—refugees, migrants, the poor, disabled, divorced or remarried Catholics, women that might be disenchanted with the church, L.G.B.T.Q people—that the...
Oct 09, 2023•31 min
Brett Williams tries to connect his homilies from week to week. “Our discipleship isn’t limited to Sunday to Sunday,” he says; it needs to be seen “within the context of our ongoing journey.” He cautions that this path may include moments when “it seems dark, and there doesn’t seem to be any progress,” as well as times when it’s “fantastic, easy, wonderful to be a disciple of Jesus.” He believes that “when we create either a series or a linkage between Sundays, people start to see this journey m...
Oct 02, 2023•31 min
Synodality is not always an easy thing to describe. But for Iván Montelongo, “It is so concrete. It means walking together, but it means accompaniment. It means being there for somebody else, just as the Lord himself has decided to walk with us, has become a man and lived our same life with our struggles, with our issues.” Iván Montelongo is a priest and canon lawyer serving in the Diocese of El Paso, Texas. Ivan was raised in Mexico but completed high school in the U.S. Though he was ordained i...
Sep 25, 2023•27 min
“I had the great privilege of never having a man formally teach me preaching,” boasts Manuel Williams about his training for the priesthood. One of his teachers was Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A.; the other was Joan Delaplane, an Adrian Dominican sister and the first Catholic woman president of the American Academy of Homiletics. “What both of these great women stressed,” he said, “is you have the privilege each and every Sunday of standing before the people of God. And they would m...
Sep 18, 2023•35 min
Preachers and those in ministry confront a common dilemma: “We never live up to what we want to be,” says Patricia Bruno, O.P. “However, I think the preaching helps direct our own lives,” she adds. “It’s hard to say something in public that you don’t really believe.” Patricia Bruno, is a Dominican sister of San Rafael in California. She is an experienced teacher and has served her congregation as both promoter of justice and preaching. She directs retreats at which she preaches often with fellow...
Sep 11, 2023•33 min
When Jude Siciliano, OP, sits down to write his homily, he always has a Venn diagram in mind. “It is one of the theories of preaching that there should be three stories,” Jude says, “The story of God, the story of the preacher, and the story of the listeners, the congregation.” And it is in the overlap of these three stories that Jude preaches. Jude Siciliano, OP, is a member of the Southern Dominican Province, USA. For fourteen years he taught Homiletics at the Graduate Theological Union in Ber...
Aug 28, 2023•27 min
How does a preacher best connect with college students? “I think the challenge for me is just being authentic, right?” says Brian Ching, C.S.C. “They know that your experiences and their experiences are not the same. And when we try to make our experiences relatable to their experiences it can often come off as gimmicky or trite. So just acknowledge the fact that, look, this didn't hit me the same way it hits you.” A native of New York City, Father Ching now serves as Rector of the Basilica of t...
Aug 07, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 10
“What's happening today in American society is the label of Christian is being applied to forces that are really deeply unchristian and certainly within the Catholic community, are very much in violation of our Catholic social teaching,” says Walter Modrys, S.J., reflecting on the challenge that preachers face today when their homilies touch on neuralgic political issues. “You don't have a right to label it Christian unless it really meets a very high standard that is reflective of the gospels.”...
Jul 31, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Preachers can be tempted to ask themselves the wrong question when starting to prepare a homily. “The question is not ‘What do I want to say,’” but ‘God, what do people need to hear?’”, says Kayla August. “When we start there, the thing that’s ruminating in our hearts, I think, brings out a really good sermon.” Kayla is a Black Catholic preacher. Born and raised in New Orleans, she is presently pursuing doctoral studies, with a focus on preaching as a form of education, at the School of Theology...
Jul 24, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 8
