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.