How Can You Preach Unless You Are Sent?

Is there such a thing as a Catholic street preacher? Well, the apostles did it long before people stood on a corner holding a sign saying, “Repent!” I think you can safely say it started at Pentecost.

Deacon Michael speaks about how he prepares to meet the challenge of a daily homily. Some people say that each priest or deacon only has one homily, which he gives over and over.

Not so. Michael had such a broad store of knowledge from different disciplines that he was, with the help of the Holy Spirit, able to present many different homilies, which the “six thirty crazies” looked forward to hearing each morning. He enriched his listeners with his varied presentations of ideas about the faith using different approaches to the one enduring Truth that is Jesus.

And he used the same irresistible approach that the apostles did.

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING:

The Feast of St. Andrew

You probably would be appalled by how many times I give a homily and certainly by the time I walk into the chapel to set everything up, but many times by the time I am walking to the ambo itself, I don't have a clue of what I am going to say.  And, this is actually one of them, but as I was sitting there I came up with what I want to talk about.

And every once in a while on a Sunday, I will watch a little bit of a Protestant preacher.  And just trying to pick up points.  And I almost feel like I should go back and watch the movie Elmer Gantry.  Just being a fiery preacher.  And I've listened to them and I am just going, "Ugh!  There's nothing there.  It's just nothing there."

I'm reading a book by Chesterton about Thomas Aquinas.  And he's obviously writing in a different period of time, and he was talking about how wonderful it was for edification, certain aspects of the way that the Protestants preached and lived their lives.

I look around now and go, “What happened?” There’s just nothing there. Well, except for Joel Olsteen, who’s just repulsive. But, there’s just nothing there.  And you've heard me many time pointing out the pulling of the thread with the issue of giving Communion to the divorced. The Lambeth Conference in the 1930s in the Anglican Church.  That had a major impact. But right now, if you listen to a Protestant preacher basically there is no substance whatsoever.

And you look at the reality of St. Andrew.  He was a fisherman.  He ends up going into the Greek part of the world, obviously preaching in Greek, because no one would go to the trouble of learning Aramaic when you are living in a Greek area of the world, spreading the Word.

We see St. Paul being the apostle to the Gentiles.  He asks the question. He says, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  How can they call on Him in whom they have not believed?  And how can they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone to preach?  And how can people preach unless they are sent?" 

And the question is, "Okay, we are all sent out into the world.  Each and every one of us is sent out into the world to evangelize.  To bring Christ to the world.  How do we do it?  What do we do? 

We see in the Responsorial Psalm, the response was, "The judgments of the Lord are true, and all of them are just."  How do we know that?  How do we know that the judgments of the Lord are true?  And how do we articulate what is necessary, what is true?  How do we know to go out to the Gentiles, or go out to the world and preach Jesus Christ?

If you are going out to the world and you are a Protestant: once saved, always saved. Cluck.  Believe in Jesus, He is your Savior.  He's your personal God and Savior.  Okay.  What else?  Where is it?  How does that change the way I act?  How does it change the way I am supposed to think?  How does it change the way I approach the world?

Well, love thy neighbor.  Yeah, but don't worry about the ones who don't have much money, because you are supposed to be doing this to get yourself wealthy, because that is what Joel Osteen says. 

What do you preach?  What did St. Andrew go out to preach to the world?  What do we preach to the world?

That there is salvation through Christ?  Yes.  He died on the cross for us?  Yes.  Wholly human; wholly divine.  The Blessed Mother.  Catholics are nice people, they even drink wine at a religious service.  They have fun.  So what?  There are other people that have fun.  How do we preach what it is to be Catholic? 

And to me it always comes back to a very simple fact.  Truth. It is right.  It's true.  It is the depository of the faith.  The depository, the knowledge that human beings have that is correct, is found within the Catholic Church.  In the teachings of the Catholic Church, it is True.  Capital "T" Truth, the Magisterium, it’s there.

So how does someone like St. Andrew go out to preach?  He obviously speaks with an accent in the Greek world even if he is fully fluent in Greek.  How does a bumpkin from another country speaking Greek to a bunch of people who view themselves as sophisticated, how does he get their attention?  How does he proselytize?  How does he evangelize the world?  How are we to do it?  How are we to do it exactly the same way that St. Andrew did it… and all the apostles?

They told the truth.  Real simple.  If you are not telling the truth, you have to remember what you've told somebody.  It gets really complicated when you engage in not telling the truth.  Because I told Beth something; I told John something; I told Penny something.  I told somebody something different.  I have to remember.  Okay, I see Frank coming along, "Oh, I remember what I told him, I gotta be careful."  "I gotta remember what I told Bob because he'll remember."

You tell the truth.  It's real simple.  You just tell the truth.  Where do you find the truth?  In the Holy Catholic Church.

So he goes and tells the truth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Wholly human; wholly divine; died on the cross for us; was resurrected; taught us to love God and taught us to love neighbor.  And this is how it impacts your world, and you personally.

That is what it is.  That is what each and every one of us is called to do.  That is what each and every preacher called to… called to evangelize the world by the Catholic Church. The missionaries and everything else, that is what they did.  And that, quite simply, is how I can wake up at four o'clock in the morning, read something on the readings for the day, which is just usually the readings if I can get my eyes to focus, go back to bed, fall asleep, wake up, come in and go, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to say?"  Well, its real easy.  Tell the truth.  Talk about the truth.

And that's what we are call to do in each and every situation that we face.  If you don't know what to say to someone who is asking about your faith, why you did something that is outside the norm, tell them the truth.  "I believe in Jesus Christ, wholly human, wholly divine, suffered His Passion, His Death, His Resurrection, and the depository of the truth is in the Holy Catholic Church established by Christ, and that is what I am telling you about, and that is the reason I act the way I act.”

November 30, 2018 3