The preacher has an awesome task. It is easy to see why the Church is so guarded in whom it allows to preach. We should always offer a silent prayer for the deacon, priest, or bishop who is preaching, asking God to send His Holy Spirit upon him so that through the homily, we will be moved to a deeper relationship with God.
Of course, a benefit that we will receive when we pray for the preacher is that we will listen with the expectation that God will answer our prayer and inspire the preacher to deliver a great homily.
If we prejudge the homilist and dismiss his ability because of the way we have perceived his abilities in the past, we ourselves will suffer.
I had a friend who did this on a regular basis. Once, when he saw who was preaching, he leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “This guy has never preached a decent homily in his entire life.” You can be assured that my friend did not hear a great homily that day. In fact, he didn’t really hear any homily at all—he pulled out a book he had brought with him and read it while the priest preached a “great” homily to the rest of us.
from The How-To Book of the Mass: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You
by Michael Dubruiel
by Michael Dubruiel
Cherub would love those boots too. Hers are pink, flowery ones – no eyes and smile!
I think Bella would have liked pink and flowery too. But the only pink ones were Dora or Hello Kitty or some such and I have a visceral aversion to dressing her in clothing that advertises any products or characters. So the green smiley boots it was. She’s wearing them now, stomping about the dining room.