Pope Francis: Homilies Should Never Be Longer Than 10 Minutes
They also must be focused, he says: “Preachers must preach an idea, a feeling and a call to action.”
By Gary Gately
“Brevity,” William Shakespeare reminded us, “is the soul of wit.”
It’s also essential in a good homily, Pope Francis said Wednesday.
In fact, Francis said during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square, homilies should never exceed 10 minutes, and normally should be eight minutes or less.
“Beyond eight minutes, the preaching starts to fade; it is not understood. Never go over 10 minutes, ever! This is very important,” Francis said, drawing applause (perhaps from some Catholics who’ve endured too many lengthy, rambling homilies).
Francis noted that some homilies go 20 or 30 minutes long, and people sneak out to smoke a cigarette.
The 87-year-old Jesuit pontiff also said homilies should be focused: “Preachers must preach an idea, a feeling and a call to action.”
Francis also said homilies must always be centered on God, so those delivering them must resist the temptation to focus on their own pearls of wisdom rather than on Jesus.
“Not wanting to preach oneself also implies not always giving priority to pastoral initiatives promoted by us and linked to our own name,” he said.
It’s not the first time Francis has warned against long homilies.
In June, for example, he said homilies should be limited to about eight minutes to prevent members of congregations from nodding off.
In the early Church, elaborate homilies from priests including St. John Chrysostom often went on for hours, but they have grown much shorter in recent years, though still vary widely in length and style.
Pope Francis also said Wednesday that those preparing homilies must look prayerfully to the Holy Spirit for inspiration.
"Preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit means transmitting, together with the ideas and the doctrine, the life and profound conviction… with a demonstration of spirit and power,” he said.
"Woe to those who preach without praying," Francis said. “The Holy Spirit comes to those who pray because the heavenly Father — it is written — ‘gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’ (Luke) — especially if we ask him in order to proclaim the Gospel of his Son!”
Francis called on preachers, and all the faithful, to follow the example of Jesus early in his public ministry, again quoting from Luke: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.”
The pope also pleaded with the faithful gathered in the sunshine at St. Peter’s Square to pray for the people of war-ravaged Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and “the innocent killed in wars.”
”War is a human defeat, a defeat of humanity,” Francis said. “War does not solve problems. War is evil.”
Wednesday’s general audience marked the first to include a greeting and summary of the pope’s catechists in Mandarin Chinese. Aides to the pontiff deliver greetings and summaries of his words in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.
Surely advocating for an actual ‘length’ of a homily takes away the ability of a priest to respond directly to the needs of the congregation. Bishop Barron spoke of one of the failures of Catholic evangelism is that it was dumbed down. The length of a homily is not indicative of how good (or not) it is.