Augustine’s Way of Preaching

Augustine’s Way of Preaching

Introduction: Preaching in the 21^st Century

In 2010 a bishop from South Africa was very much concerned with his priests’ homilies and this concern came not from himself but from the people attending masses.

Bishop Mariano Crociata, the secretary-general of the Italian bishops’ conference, has said that many congregations’ minds are not sufficiently nourished by the quality of the homilies they hear at Sunday Mass. “Too often, sermons are just boring mush, unappetising fare, and certainly not too nourishing,” the bishop said, urging priests to pay greater attention to their sermons.[1] Moreover, it’s a common stereotype and assumptions that some homilies delivered are extra-biblical or outside biblical context.

‘The problem seems to extend across the world.’ Consequently, there had been numerous means to at least help and equip priests in delivering homilies at the altar. There are also aids to support preachers develop their preaching style through the availability of technology. As the life of the Church continually tries to explore new means to preach the Word of God, so let us re-examine the kind of preaching that was developed in the past particularly in the time of Augustine. Perhaps this is a way of revisit in order to know the kind of preaching Augustine delivered. We might as well get a little piece of advice and inspiration from this great father of the Church.

The intent of this short paper is not to solve the perennial problem of preaching but rather to give a little exposition of how Augustine defined the meaning of preaching in his time.

Augustine’s Preaching

In the early life of the Church, the task of preaching was normally entrusted to a bishop. It is a primary and important responsibility of a bishop since he is seen as the spiritual link between the apostles and the contemporary disciples of the period, like that of Augustine, the bishop of Hippo.

What did Augustine preach?“Augustine’s preaching is Christocentric.”[2] According to Doyle this is the thematic concept of all of Augustine’s sermons. He could be Theocentric or anthropocentric yet his preaching always runs on the salvific act of Christ. He further adds that Augustine reflects again and again on the central importance of the Word made flesh in John’s Prologue more often than any other biblical text. In fact over 1000 times in his surviving works that he used this term repeatedly.[3](S. 187; 189; 212; 215; 272,1). As William Griffin quotes Pope, author of Saint Augustine of Hippo, ‘It was the Bible all the time’ that Augustine preached.” “It is the quarry for all his doctrine; it is the Word of God that feeds his soul and out of which he ‘provides old things and new’ for the spiritual needs of his flock.”[4]Augustine as preacher acclaims that “They aren’t my sermons, anyway; I only speak at the Lord’s command” (S. 82,15). And also he is only a caretaker of the Word of God and it’s not about himself or even ideas. (S. 114,1)

            How did Augustine do his preaching? There is an estimate of 8,000 sermons that Augustine preached in his priestly and episcopate life, which is according to Verbraken that includes Saturday and Sunday liturgies, daily liturgies of Lent and Eastertime and not to mention sermons in honor of saint and martyrs.[5]With this given figure, we can picture an image of Augustine as a ‘long-winded’[6] preacher. According Alvarez, OSA “mahahabaangkanyangmga sermon, umaabothanggangdalawa o tatlongarawnakabanata!Bihirang-bihira and maikling sermon niya (tuladng S. 320 at S. 321) natumagalnangdalawang minute langyata dahlia siya ay may sakit noon!”[7] Moreover, scholars have estimated that the average length of his sermons ranged from a half-hour to as long as two hours in some instances.[8]

 [This article is not yet done.]

---

[1]http://www.scross.co.za/2010/01/preaching-problem/

[2] Augustine, The Works of Saint Augustine, A Translation for the 21^st Century: Essential Sermons, transl. Edmund Hill, OP, ed. BonifaceRamsey, (New York: New York Press, 2007), 13.

[3]Ibid., 13.

[4] Augustine, Augustine of Hippo: Sermons to the People, trans. And ed. William Griffin, (New York: Doubleday, 2002), xxiii.

[5] Pierre-Patrick Verbraken, “Saint Augustine Sermons: Why and How to Read Them Today?” Augutinian Heritage 33 (1987), 110-122. This work was quoted by Daniel E. Doyle, OSA, who wrote the introduction and Notes inAugustine, The Works of Saint Augustine, A Translation for the 21^st Century: Essential Sermons, transl. Edmund Hill, OP, ed. Boniface Ramsey, (New York: New York Press, 2007), 13.

[6]Ibid.,13. 

[7] Emmanuel Czar Alvarez, OSA, “Paanoba mag-Sermon?” in In Deum (Quezon City: Pacifico F. Manalili Printing Press, March 2011), 25. 

[8]The Works of Saint Augustine, A Translation for the 21^st Century: Essential Sermons, 13.

Defining and keeping the Christian Faith in the Church

Defining and keeping the Christian Faith in the Church

(A reflection on Porta Fidei)

In the 1500s, the Catholic Church had finally reformed herself after a long struggle of reform. Reforms at the ranks and at below were unsuccessful since there was no universal desire to undergo such change. Reform had been separately dealt by few secular clergy, few temporal rulers, few religious congregations and others. However, in 1545 the Catholic Church had finally settled the struggle of reform after the havoc and distortions that had been caused by the Protestant Reformation. The Ecumenical Council of Trent was primarily a reaction against the controversies and inquiries raised by Martin Luther and his followers. In the first phase of the Council, 1545-1547, one of the issues discussed was the opposition of Luther against the source of faith. For Luther there is only one source that is the Holy Scripture or Sola Scriptura. However, the Church responded to it that there is only one source or deposit of faith. It was revealed to mankind and channeled into two ways, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Trent did not cater the two-source theory that was being accused of to the Church. This is one of the significance of Trent in the history of the Church by defining finally through a decree. Nevertheless, faith was kept in this matter into two ways, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

On October 11, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI wrote the Muto Propio, Porta Fidei, by declaring a Year of Faith starting October 11, 2012. He called for a year of faith at the anniversary of the convocation of the Vatican Council II in 1962. He wrote some of his personal reasons on why he declared a year of Faith, “It often happens that Christians are more concerned for the social, cultural and political consequences of their commitment, continuing to think of the faith as a self-evident presupposition for life in society.” (Porta Fidei, 2). He further adds that in reality, this presupposition has been openly denied. At the same time, he had convoked for a Synod of Bishop on that same day on October 11, 2012 to rediscover and reflect faith using the documents of Vatican II as the point of departure in the synod. He gave the theme, “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”. Benedict XVI also believes in the same purpose of Paul VI, his venerable predecessor, to declare another Year of Faith in order for all Christians to have the “exact knowledge of the faith, so as to reinvigorate it, purify it, confirm it, and confess it” (Porta Fidei, 4). Nevertheless, in context with the realities of the 21^st century, the Church tries to find ways on how faith should be kept by looking for new evangelization and how Christian faith should be transmitted to people.

            Our faith has been defined already long since the foundation of Christian faith through our Lord, Jesus Christ, but it was later only proclaimed and clarified in Trent. However, knowledge on faith wasn’t enough to make people live a holier and fulfilled Christian life that until now it is still the constant call of the Church. Keeping the faith is nonetheless the need to be addressed in the Synod of Bishops of October 2012 calls for.

            This faith then that we constantly yearn for is “to profess faith in the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is to believe in one God who is Love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8): the Father, who in the fullness of time sent his Son for our salvation; Jesus Christ, who in the mystery of his death and resurrection redeemed the world; the Holy Spirit, who leads the Church across the centuries as we await the Lord’s glorious return.” (Porta Fidei, 1).