way at the beginning is to write it out, learn it and deliver it from
memory. But this laborious process is only a means to an end. It will in
the first instance help the priest through his initial shyness and
diffidence in speaking of God and holy things in public; and it will lay
the foundation for the methodical composition of a discourse. For he
will soon learn the sequence of ideas which sound at first artificial,
though eventually they become part of the instinct of the preacher--
text, introduction, statement, development, explanation, illustration,
peroration, etc. But it bears the same relation to preaching that the
old autumn manoeuvres did to war. His sermons in future will not be
written out: in the present hard-worked state of our clergy, it would be
impossible; and in any case, it would be ineffective. A sermon written
and repeated by heart _must_ sound unreal and dead. [3] As Cardinal
Manning puts it, "The written word is what we thought when we wrote it;
the spoken sermon is what we think at the moment of speaking. It is our
present conviction of intellect and feeling of heart: it is therefore
real, and felt to be real by those who hear it." [4]
It is not intended to discourage a careful preparation, so far as
circumstances will permit; quite the contrary. But it will not be of the
nature of writing a set discourse. It will be a far more simple
preparation. Cardinal Manning instances the preaching of the Apostles.
"We cannot," he says, "conceive these messengers of God labouring to
compose their speech, or studying the rules and graces of literary
style. The records of their preaching in the New Testament are artless
and simple as the growths of nature in the forest, which reveal the
power and beauty of God. Their words and writings are majestic in their
elevation and depth and pathos and unadorned beauty, like the breadth
and simplicity of the sea and sky. Their whole being was pervaded by the
divine facts and truths, the eternal realities of which they spoke." [5]
Let us fix our ideas by a definite instance. In all St. Paul's career
there was no one sermon which would have needed greater care than his
sermon at Athens. He had to speak to a highly educated audience, of
people without belief even in God, most of them eaten up with pride,
listening to him with a supercilious curiosity; and he knew that for
most of them his sermon would be the one opportunity of their lifetime.
If any sermon of his would have needed previous thought and preparation,
it would have been this one. Of course we have no authority for saying
how much preparation he gave to it. We can well imagine his carefully
thinking over what he was going to say, thinking of his initial outburst
about the Unknown God, carefully considering his line of argument about
the Resurrection of our Lord, his reference to the Greek poet with whom
both he and they were familiar, and so forth. But equally we most
assuredly cannot for a moment imagine him writing out and learning his
discourse. Had he done so, it would have lost all its force and reality.
Any gain in the artificial rhetoric, or the choice of words, or the like
would have been far more than compensated for by the hollowness and want
of fervour _hic et nunc_. Other instances might be adduced and the same
reasoning applied to them: St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost,
St. Stephen's speech to his murderers, and many others. From internal
evidence we can see that these were thought out and prepared beforehand;
but we cannot even imagine their having been written out and committed
to memory.
Our future preparation may perhaps be something of this kind. First we
have to fix on our subject--not always the easiest part of our work. Let
us suppose that on reading through the Sunday Gospel some aspect of it
or some incident in it appeals to us from a particular point of view,
and that point we decide to develop. Possibly something we have read in
the past occurs to mind, and we get out a book--or perhaps several
books--to suggest to us a few ideas. Then the first stage of our work is
done.
The next process is to think. We have to make the ideas our own, and
develop them according to the bent of our own minds. This cannot easily
be done as we sit at our desks. Thoughts will not come to order.
Developing a subject in one's mind is a gradual process, and takes time.
It can well be done as we walk from place to place, or exercise any
light employment. It is specially suitable to do it as we go about our
pastoral work. The words we use in our visits to members of our flock
are the reflection of our mind and will bear close resemblance to our
words in the pulpit. If we find plenty to say, and are conscious of the
consolation we give by saying it to the poor individually, why should it
not be so likewise when we address them from the pulpit?
In order to complete our preparation, we must then sit at our desk and
write out the substance of our thoughts and put them in methodical
order. We should also look up the texts of Scripture on which we rely,
and frequently the context will suggest further thoughts. All this will
vary between man and man, and between day and day. Some will write long
notes, others short. On some days thoughts come easily, on others only
with difficulty. Some people may find it useful to write a fair copy
when the matter has been rearranged, others will arrange their matter
methodically at the outset, and so forth. When we have done this, we can
leave the sermon to the time, presumably not far distant, when we are
going to preach it.
In the case of many of our less formal sermons, the delivery follows
close on the first preparation, and even that has to be much curtailed.
Such are the few words which we deliver to Holy Family meetings, or
other Confraternities, and short addresses at weekday evening services.
The Sunday catechetical instruction forms a subject by itself, and the
idea that it can be efficiently performed with little or no preparation
should be strongly deprecated. It is an opportunity of doing great
things for the children, and implanting in their minds ideas which will
last them through life, and often be, as it were, their sheet-anchor to
keep them to their religion in after years, in times of stress and
temptation, or call them back to it if they have unhappily fallen away.
The responsibility of such an opportunity is great, and no trouble
should be too great to secure its effective performance.
We now come to the time of the sermon's delivery. To some the quarter of
an hour immediately before ascending the pulpit is the most important
part of the preparation; to all it is an important part. It is essential
that we should begin with our mind full of our subject. A very little
practice will enable us to feel at home in the pulpit once we have
begun, and we shall soon acquire self-command and power to collect our
thoughts there. Nevertheless, we shall often forget many things which we
have thought of during our preparation, while other thoughts will
suggest themselves in most unexpected fashion. A celebrated French
preacher once said that he had never ended a sermon without finding that
he had omitted most of what he had intended to say, and said much that
he had not intended. [6] It matters not: what matters is that when the
priest is speaking he should be full of his subject, earnest,
enthusiastic, speaking straight from his heart, and above all things
zealous for the good of his hearers.
Then let his declamation be simple, earnest, natural. The inflated and
artificial style of oratory, current until almost modern times, would
to-day be wholly out of place. At best it was ill-suited to so lofty a
purpose, and St. Alphonsus only followed the lead of many saints and
others in warning the preacher against the style it naturally led to.
The present simplicity of taste is far more in keeping with the
sacredness of the work. Let the priest say what he means and mean what
he says, and the intrinsic force and sacredness of his words will be
better than all rhetoric. Above all, let there be no affectation of
manner or self-consciousness, which does so much to mar the effect of a
sermon. By all means, however, let him practise clearness of utterance.
It is very trying to a congregation to sit before a preacher whom they
cannot hear; and especially when such happens through the preacher's
neglect of the ordinary rules of elocution. Nor does it usually require
any greater effort on the part of the preacher to make himself
intelligible. Clearness does not always necessitate loudness, nor is it
always achieved by it. A careful utterance in a suitable pitch is really
all that is required; and the people should be spared the annoyance of
listening to a preacher who clips his words, or only partially
pronounces them, or drops his voice so that the last syllable of a word
or the last word of a sentence is inaudible: all these faults make it an
effort to follow him. And if there is any weakness in the initial _h_ or
the final _g_ of a word, the effect is far from pleasing. In order to
draw fruit from a sermon, one wants to be able to follow it _without
effort_, and to be undisturbed by fault or peculiarities of enunciation.
These ends cannot be attained unless the preacher will take some
trouble; but with a little trouble it can easily be done. Nevertheless,
it often is _not_ done. [7]
The preacher should likewise make an effort to get over his natural
shyness and disinclination to use his hands. This will go of its own
accord as soon as he has had sufficient practice to feel at home in the
pulpit. We do not wish to gesticulate so much as the French priests do--
it is not in accordance with the genius of our people; and what is
suitable in one country is out of place in another. Still less do we
want any forced or unnatural gesticulation. At first we should do with
very little. Many Englishmen do always with very little. But in most
cases, it comes natural after a time to use the hands, and when it is
natural, it increases greatly the force of our words.
A few remarks should be made as to the length of time at which to aim.
It is safe to say that the pressure of modern life calls for shorter
sermons than our fathers were accustomed to. The practice of five-minute
sermons at the Sunday low masses, which first emanated in systematic
form from the Paulists of New York, is now fairly common, and of great
service to those who cannot attend the principal mass on Sundays. But
the curtailing of the chief sermon may easily be overdone. People will
never venture to complain of the shortness of a sermon, but in truth one
of eight or ten minutes does not satisfy them, nor allow time to develop
the matter properly. It may be admitted, however, that shortness is a
fault on the right side, and people would not now tolerate the length of
sermon that used to be imposed on them. As a general rule, it would be
well to be under twenty minutes rather than over, unless the occasion be
an important one, with a special preacher, who may allow himself longer.
This applies to the chief sermons only; that at the evening service on a
weekday, or at Holy Family or Confraternity meetings or the like would
naturally be shorter; eight or ten minutes might in many cases be
enough. The length of time that we can hold their attention will of
course vary somewhat from day to day. One is able to tell at once when
the listeners are getting weary. But even when we are conscious that
this is so, there may be more good done than we are aware of. Frequently
such has afterwards come to our knowledge; in numerous other cases it
may have occurred without our knowing it.
Moreover, the good done by a sermon depends on what has been said in the
body of the discourse. A good beginning or a good ending may round it
off as a literary composition; but they will not appreciably affect the
value of the sermon from the point of view of gaining souls. The same
applies to the methodical development of the subject throughout. It is
useful to aim at it, but if we fail to attain it, or go astray from the
scheme we had made out, no great harm is done. What is important is that
whatever we say should come from our heart, and that we should be so
united to God as to fulfil our Lord's words, "It is not you that speak,
but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." [8] This is the way
to reach the hearts of our congregation, and to make our sermon in truth
part of our pastoral work.
[1] St. Matt. x. 19.
[2] Acts iv. 20.
[3] That is, an ordinary parish sermon. In the case of a sermon on some
special occasion this remark must be modified. Such sermons partake of
the nature of a pronouncement, and it is important that the language
should be carefully weighed, and no point of importance omitted. They
usually find their way into print, and are therefore addressed to a
larger and different audience besides that in the church, and must be
treated on a different footing.
[4] _Eternal Priesthood_, p. 187.
[5] _Ibid_., p. 179.
[6] Perhaps a remark may be here made respecting the eventuality which
from time to time occurs to every preacher. All those who have been in
the pulpit are familiar with the sudden feeling of blank coming over the
mind, and the momentary complete forgetfulness of the scheme of the
sermon. The great thing on such an occasion is not to stop. Once one
stops to think, ideas go further away, the silence and expectancy of the
congregation become oppressive, and the pause seems interminable: it is
a question whether we shall ever recover ourselves at all. Whatever
happens, one must not stop. One can repeat what one has just said in
slightly different words, or give forth any religious sentiment, or the
like: this gives time for thought and conditions favourable for
thinking, and ordinarily one's ideas will return in plenty of time. And
only those who have themselves had experience in preaching are likely to
detect what is happening. One can occasionally notice even the most
experienced preachers losing their thread in this way, and it is worth
noting as an antidote to discouragement.
[7] A similar remark applies to the notices, and the Epistle and Gospel,
which are sometimes read with quite painful carelessness. This is a
point which many laymen feel very much.
[8] St. Matt. x. 20.
CONFERENCE X
THE RECREATIONS OF A PRIEST
IN the rules of every religious order are to be found special
provisions with respect to recreation. These are both positive and
negative. On the one hand there is usually a daily recreation which
all take in common; and besides this, there are other times on feast
days or other occasions when the ordinary rule of silence is relaxed
and recreation by conversation is possible. On the other hand there
are the negative rules, that a subject must not seek recreation
outside his monastery, and must not go out for social intercourse with
his neighbours without the leave of his superior, for which he must
adduce a good reason.
The prominence attached to such regulations shows the important place
which the subject holds in the life of the Order or Congregation. With
the secular clergy this is no less so; and as is so often the case in
comparing the two states, we find that the secular priest has in one
sense a harder task, for he has no limitations of rule to guide him
and no superior at hand to counsel him. He has to depend on his own
strength of will and his own judgment.
But at the beginning of his priestly career, he has even greater
difficulty, for it comes at a time when he has just thrown off the
restrictions of seminary life, and also when he is reaching the
fulness of his manhood. The world which has been kept from him to a
great extent up to then now seems to open out and smile before him. It
used to be a frequent question to seminarists, "How soon do you hope
to be out?" Now he has come out. He is at once made much of by his new
parishioners, who shower upon him invitations to lunch, dinner,
supper, or other social gatherings. He needs no small self-control to
avoid being carried off his legs at the outset, and being drawn into a
daily life such as he never looked forward to when picturing to
himself the priesthood.
His personal freedom also tends to increase the difficulty of his
state. He has no wife or family to think of, he is alone, and is for
the first time in the enjoyment of outward liberty, for his actual
priestly duties can in the majority of cases be postponed or adjusted
or even omitted to facilitate his recreation. It is very easy for his
boy's outlook on life, which he should have put away before entering
philosophy, to persist in considerable measure not only during his
seminary course, but even after he has begun his career as a priest.
Such an attitude is simply to take anything pleasurable or attractive
which comes in his way, provided it is not sinful, and to enjoy it.
The state of the newly ordained priest in this respect is vividly
depicted by Cardinal Manning:--[1]
"To a priest who enters for the first time upon the sacerdotal life
the first danger is the loss of the supports on which he has so long
been resting in the seminary. As in the launching of a ship, when the
stays are knocked away, it goes down into the water, thenceforward to
depend on its own stability; so a priest going out from the seminary
into the field of his work has thenceforward to depend under God upon
his own stedfastness of will. The order, method and division of time
and of work; the sound of the bell from early morning through the day
till the last toll at night; the example and mutual influence and
friendship of companions in the same sacred life; and still more the
nature, counsel and wise charity of superiors--all these things
sustain the watchfulness and perseverance of ecclesiastical students
until the day when invested with the priesthood, they go out from the
old familiar walls and the door is closed behind them. They are in the
wide world, secular as the Apostles were--that is, in the world for
the world's sake, not of it, but at war with it; of all men the least
secular, unless they become worldly, and the salt lose its savour."
A little later he continues:--
"A life of unlimited liberty is encompassed with manifold temptations.
A priest coming out of a seminary needs fellowship, and he often seeks
it in society. He does not as yet know the character of those about
him, or the reputation of the homes to which he is invited. Before he
is aware he is often entangled in relations he would not have chosen
and in invitations which, if he had the courage, he would refuse.
People are very hospitable and pity a priest's loneliness and like to
have him at their tables. Sometimes the best of people are least
circumspect and most kindly importunate in their invitations. How
shall a young and inexperienced mind hold out against these facilities
and allurements to relaxation, unpunctuality, self-indulgence and
dissipation? The whole of a priest's life may be determined by his
first outset. He has been in it too short a time either to gain or to
buy experience."
It is not meant to be inferred that all social invitations should be
refused and all intercourse with one's neighbour avoided. Such would
be both impossible and undesirable. Nor, indeed, can it be allowed
that such invitations are by any means always accepted from motives of
recreation at all. Such is of course often the case; but often it is
not. In many instances the priest may be fulfilling a duty of charity,
or finding a means of spreading his pastoral work, and the recreation
may be a secondary consideration, or may even be absent altogether.
Indeed, as a priest gets into years he will find more and more that
many of his duties will bring all that is necessary for him in the way
of recreation without his seeking it by any special act; and this even
though he has to face much which is dull or unattractive or monotonous
to him. The late Canon Oakeley, in his lectures at St. Thomas's
Seminary so far back as the year 1870, lays stress on this point:--[2]
"A priest," he writes, "especially in some of the less populous
missions, will soon find that social intercourse with his parishioners
is quite as often a duty of charity as a means of personal recreation.
He must either refuse invitations altogether, or participate in some
festivities which will tax his good nature and exercise his self-denial
quite as much as many of his severer duties. He may have to sit
out a dull dinner-party, with uncongenial companions, on a hot day in
summer. He may have to carve a round of beef for thirty hungry
children at a Christmas party. He may have to adapt himself to the
tastes and manners of the poorer members of his flock at some rural
entertainment where his presence will tend to promote innocent mirth
and to check dangerous excesses. On these and similar occasions he
will find it necessary to put a restraint on his natural inclinations,
in order to confer on those for whose happiness he is responsible that
especial gratification which good Catholics of every class derive from
the sympathy and society of their priest."
Yet, apart from duties of charity, _some_ recreative society can
lawfully and advisably be sought in the houses of the laity; but it
should be strictly under control and subject to narrow limits. Above
all things, a priest must not be a slave to it, so as to be driven by
human respect often to accept invitations which his reason may tell
him to be inordinate. A priest should not be a pleasure-seeker; and if
he is not ready to deprive himself of much society which has an
attractive appearance, for the sake of his work and for the
recollection of his life, it is an unfailing sign of the loss of the
priestly spirit. But precisely what limits to lay down for himself,
cannot be stated in general terms, for it depends not only on a
priest's own personality and temperament, but also on the
circumstances in which he is placed. Canon Oakeley, however, adds one
restriction which should certainly be adhered to, for we live in an
ill-natured world, and our best friends are ready to be captious in
their fault-finding:--
"The priest in society," he writes, "must never forget that he is a
priest. Even if he forgets it, others will not. The ambiguous jest,
the anecdote of questionable propriety, the loose and unguarded
manner, with other such indications of the unpriestly character, will
be remembered and perhaps quoted against him when the evening is over,
and when its warping influences have given way to calmer thoughts and
cooler judgments. The same persons who in the spirit of hospitable
good nature have placed in his way the inducements to those excesses
which at least weaken morality, if they do not occasion scandal, will
be among the first to criticise the indiscretions to which they have
helped to give rise. The demeanour of a priest in society should
always be marked by humility, modesty, courtesy and prudence. He
should be swift to hear and slow to dogmatise. He should avoid
arguments except when necessary for the vindication of truth; and when
thus necessary, he should maintain his side with meekness and in the
spirit of charity."
There is one kind of social intercourse that should be an unmixed
good, and often is so--the meeting with our fellow clergy. It is
difficult to get them together for merely social gatherings; but any
part of their work which brings them across their fellow priests is to
both parties a source of strength as well as recreation. One of the
great advantages of the monthly Theological Conference is that it
brings groups of clergy together and is often made the occasion of a
dinner or other social gathering. In like manner, not the least of the
benefits which the Clergy Fund confers on its members is the bringing
together of all the clergy of the South of England once a year to
spend an evening in each other's society.
Even gatherings of the clergy, however, are not without their abuses.
The sight of a party of priests playing at cards hour after hour, till
late at night, with its usual accompaniments, is happily more rare
than it once was; but it is hardly obsolete even yet. Of course there
is nothing in itself wrong in a game of cards, or in playing for
money, provided the stakes are low; but it is well known as leading to
much abuse. The excitement is of an unhealthy kind, and whether one is
winning or losing, it is difficult to break off when a suitable hour
arrives. Indeed, the whole question of card-playing needs treating
with caution; both because it so often leads to what is undesirable,
and because the recreation it affords is at best out of proportion to
the time consumed. After a long session one ends less fresh than one
began. A game of whist, or to some extent bridge, in which
considerable skill is required, rests on a somewhat different footing:
but even of that we should be wise to exercise a careful control.