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Most
of these homilies were originally written for Celebration,
the worship and preaching resource of the National
Catholic Reporter (visit their Web site at www.celebrationpublications.org). From
the beginning they were not published as part of that periodical’s
Sunday-by-Sunday section of sample homilies.The
editor, Pat Marrin, had asked for one example
each month of how a preacher might speak mystagogically
in the homily. We understood that these texts
would weave together three elements that need
one another: the Lectionary texts, the assembly’s
liturgy in which these texts are integral, and
the vigorous but ever-shaky world in which the
assembly lives.
I have a very simple but still elusive notion
of what mystagogy means: to unfold the liturgy
in the liturgy’s own terms. Who are we who
make this sign of the cross together Sunday by
Sunday? What do we mean, we who say Amen? What
does it say about us that we drink from a common
cup after giving thanks to God? What sort of a
church would cling to a season like Lent and what
is it to live out that season year by year? What
does it mean that we intercede? The homilies here
attempt to ponder questions like these.
Over all of this and throughout is the
understanding of liturgy made so clear in paragraph
14 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy:
that the liturgy is the deed of the assembly,
the right and the duty of the baptized people,
which, done in its rhythms throughout our lives,
makes us a church, makes us a gospel people. This
notion embraces not only the Sunday eucharist
but seasons and days, morning and night, the moments
of movement through life, always with our eyes
on the world God so loves.
The introductory paragraphs for the homilist or
other reader were intended, in the original publication,
to situate the particular Sunday homily within
the year and sometimes within a series of these
homilies. They may still be helpful.
We hoped that as written texts these homilies
would also be useful to those responsible for
Sunday liturgy, to discussions formal and informal,
to parish staff hoping to better understand and
express the place of liturgy and the place of
preaching in the whole life of the assembly.
- Gabe Huck
Gabe Huck is living now in Damascus, Syria.
He may be contacted at gabeandtheresa@gmail.com.
Anyone wishing to make a donation based on any
usefulness found in these homilies could send
funds to an organization founded in the summer
of 2007 to help young Iraqis continue their university
education at U.S. colleges and universities during
these times when higher education is nearly impossible
in their own country. Checks may be made out to
Iraqi Student Project and sent to: Michele Pistone,
299 North Spring Mill Road, Villanova PA 19085.
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