What should preachers aim for in Sunday preaching? In 1982, the USCCB document Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly answered this question. Here, in a pastoral commentary on Fulfilled in Your Hearing, several Catholic scholars in homiletics, liturgy, and biblical studies both appreciate the abiding insights of Fulfilled in Your Hearing and also propose areas for continuing reflection. Following the four sections of the Bishops' document: The Assembly, The Preacher, The Homily, and Homiletic Method. This commentary emphasizes the document's continuing importance for the initial and ongoing formation of Catholic liturgical preachers, while also inviting conversation about present-day cross-cultural, liturgical, and communication concerns for Catholic preaching. Priests, deacons, seminarians, bishops, and all others engaged in the preaching task are invited to deepen their appreciation of the homily's unique role in the liturgical life of the church and to stir their enthusiasm for preaching and preaching preparation.

Effective Preaching: Bringing People into an Encounter with God is a practical collection of essays, featuring leading preachers, homilists and homily instructors. Compiled by Michael E. Connors, CSC, the Director of the John Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics at the University of Notre Dame, this imaginative book focuses entirely on the practical side of Catholic preaching. It will provide imaginative, hands-on, tested advice to help homilists develop preaching effectiveness, using techniques that will turn satisfactory preaching into exceptional preaching. This practical resource will be essential for priests, permanent deacons, seminarians in homiletics classes; retreat leaders, RCIA catechists; all who preach.

Provides a method of homily preparation that works.

Rites of Passage is a much-needed, practical homiletic resource for priests and deacons who preach Christian baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The three authors, a religious priest, a diocesan priest, and a permanent deacon, draw from the scriptural and liturgical resources available to the preacher for these three important ritual moments to suggest ways to build an effective homily. This book will serve as a helpful and engaging resource for priests and deacons in parish life and as a blessing to the faithful.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains the full text of volume one and two. Volume two contains primary source material on preaching drawn from the entire scope of the church's twenty centuries. Each chapter in volume two is geared to its companion chapter in volume one's narrative history.

A History of Preaching brings together narrative history and primary sources to provide the most comprehensive guide available to the story of the church's ministry of proclamation. Bringing together an impressive array of familiar and lesser-known figures, Edwards paints a detailed, compelling picture of what it has meant to preach the gospel. Pastors, scholars, and students of homiletics will find here many opportunities to enrich their understanding and practice of preaching. Volume 1 contains Edwards's magisterial retelling of the story of Christian preaching's development from its Hellenistic and Jewish roots in the New Testament, through the late-twentieth century's discontent with outdated forms and emphasis on new modes of preaching such as narrative. Along the way the author introduces us to the complexities and contributions of preachers, both with whom we are already acquainted, and to whom we will be introduced here for the first time. Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, Rauschenbusch, Barth; all of their distinctive contributions receive careful attention. Yet lesser-known figures and developments also appear, from the ninth-century reform of preaching championed by Hrabanus Maurus, to the reference books developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the mendicant orders to assist their members' preaching, to Howell Harris and Daniel Rowlands, preachers of the eighteenth-century Welsh revival, to Helen Kenyon, speaking as a layperson at the 1950 Yale Beecher lectures about the view of preaching from the pew. Volume 2, available separately as 9781501833786, contains primary source material on preaching drawn from the entire scope of the church's twenty centuries. The author has written an introduction to each selection, placing it in its historical context and pointing to its particular contribution. Each chapter in Volume 2 is geared to its companion chapter in Volume 1's narrative history. Ecumenical in scope, fair-minded in presentation, appreciative of the contributions that all the branches of the church have made to the story of what it means to develop, deliver, and listen to a sermon, A History of Preaching will be the definitive resource for anyone who wishes to preach or to understand preaching's role in living out the gospel. "...'This work is expected to be the standard text on preaching for the next 30 years,' says Ann K. Riggs, who staffs the NCC's Faith and Order Commission. Author Edwards, former professor of preaching at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, is co-moderator of the commission, which studies church-uniting and church-dividing issues. 'A History of Preaching is ecumenical in scope and will be relevant in all our churches; we all participate in this field,' says Riggs...." from EcuLink, Number 65, Winter 2004-2005 published by the National Council of Churches

Preaching in congregations with many children is one of the most difficult challenges many preachers face. Whether you are a priest, deacon, catechist, or prayer leader, this book offers practical help in crafting specific homilies for children. Drawing on insights gleaned within the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Garrido helps preachers understand key characteristics of childhood and children’s spirituality and presents ways to reflect on Scripture through the lens of the young child. Preachers will discover that they are preaching with children, rather than preaching to them.

In June of 2012, an astounding 360 people gathered at the University of Notre Dame for a major conference on Catholic preaching. With contributions by a wide variety of theologians and practitioners, We Preach Christ Crucified gathers the fruits of those days spent reflecting on the importance of the preaching ministry. Its release is timely, given the US bishops' promulgation of a new document on preaching, Preaching the Mystery of Faith: The Sunday Homily (January, 2013), and the renewed emphasis on preaching by both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. The challenges facing Christian preachers in our time are many and formidable ones. The authors in this collection take a fresh look at the task, the resources at hand, the contemporary context, and the preacher. The result is a refreshing and stunningly hopeful reconsideration of an ancient ministry. We Preach Christ Crucified includes essays by: Robert Barron Archbishop Robert J. Carlson John C. CavadiniArchbishop Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS Mary Catherine Hilkert, OPJan Michael Joncas Barbara E. Reid, OP Michael E. Connors, CSC, ThD, is a pastoral theologian and teacher of homiletics on the faculty of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame, where he also directs the John S. Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics. He is the author of Inculturated Pastoral Planning: The U.S.Hispanic Experience (Gregorian University Press, 2001).

Laypersons receiving a divine call to preach in the Roman Catholic Church may feel caught between a rock and a hard place--both figuratively and ecclesiastically. They may feel constrained between the Rock of Peter and the hard place of resistance to the preaching gift they believe they have and their desire to share it. At first glance, the Roman Catholic Church, with its two millennia of Sacred Tradition, seemingly offers little that favors the inclusion of lay preachers. In addition, many lay preachers may experience the bias of clergy and assembly members who unconsciously presume there is no role for laity to preach within the Roman Catholic Church. Preaching does not occur solely within liturgical settings, or only via pulpit preachers. All Dominicans, as members of the Order of Preachers, are called to embody the Sacra Praedicatio--the Sacred Preaching. In fact, canon law does permit laity to preach in certain liturgical settings. Setting the World on Fire details one Roman Catholic woman's experience of her own call to preach, the grace and gifts brought to both the preacher and the assembly, as well as her desire to help all Dominicans--and indeed, all Christians--embrace their rightful role as "preachers."

Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has encouraged, inspired, and delighted those who have heard him preach. Especially fascinating have been his plain-spoken and insightful weekday morning Mass homilies. He has also offered the church a substantial contribution on the theory and practice of homiletics in a large section of his first major teaching document, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). In The Preaching of Pope Francis, Gregory Heille, OP, introduces readers to the Pope's preaching, his insights about the preaching vocation of the ordained, and his call to all the baptized to go to the margins as missionary disciples and evangelists of the Word. Heille, a highly regarded professor of homiletics and preacher himself, offers an inspiring and practical resource for priests, deacons, and anyone involved in the ministry of preaching. He shares the Pope's vision and example for the preparation and delivery of effective and engaging homilies and for laity invested in the Church's ministry of the Word in a post-Vatican II pastoral context.