This post continues the Obsculta Preaching Series, sponsored by the Obsculta Preaching Initiative at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary. In these posts, our authors engage a variety of ways in which scripture, preaching, and liturgical worship interact with the life of the faithful.
No preacher in any liturgy has sole responsibility for bringing about the fullness of God’s reign in a believer’s or community’s world. Transformation and conversion are slow processes, no matter how sudden their final impact may seem. We have our resistances precisely because embracing God’s will for our lives parallels the Paschal Mystery. The ultimate turn-around may seem quite sudden. Yet even the believer who is dancing and singing “I have seen the light!” knows that the light has been there all along. Cracks in the wall have bedazzled him or her before with bright streaks of illumination that occasionally break through. This usually leads to anxiety about one’s current perspective. The concomitant defensiveness and denial to calm the anxiety and subdue the illumination normally results.
It is the preacher’s task, though, to draw attention to the light. The preacher challenges the current meaning schemes and paradigms that hold listeners hostage to a way of perceiving reality that negates or disregards what the Lord has taught us to pray for. Fortunately for the preacher, the Lord and the Lord’s people, the Church, are working with her or him. Through the proclaimed Word, through the reinforcing signs, language, and actions of the liturgical ritual, and through the witness of exemplars in the larger community—both those present and those in the gigantic communion of canonized and ordinary saints—the preacher prods the contrasts and invites the hearers to look and see what is there.
When I was a 5-year-old with rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, my mother took me to the doctor for a diagnosis. To see how I moved, the doctor asked me to pick up a ruler from the floor. Wild horses couldn’t drag me over to fetch that ruler. I remained shyly glued to the safe harbor of my mother’s side. It wasn’t my innate shyness that kept me there. The ruler was on the floor because the doctor, without warning, tossed the ruler about 5 feet in front of himself and said to me, “Go pick up the ruler.” Even at 5, I was offended that the doctor was treating me like a dog. I also assumed this was a trick. I didn’t want to be laughed at. He failed to explain in a way that made sense to me what he was trying to do. Assuming my reluctance was due to anticipated pain of bending over to pick up the ruler, he proceeded to misdiagnose me.
Effective preachers respect the intelligence, maturity, and saintliness of the listeners. The preacher can safely assume that the listeners are consciously begging God’s mercy in the penitential rite, that they are sincere in praying the Lord’s prayer. Gathered as a community, each listener has more or less intentionally made him- or herself vulnerable to the perspectives not only of the gathered community, but also of each element of the liturgy, in the challenge of the Word and the subtle creation of a contrasting worldview in the liturgical symbols and actions. It is the preacher’s task to respect this choice, and to invite the listeners to peer inside the possibility of a worldview transformed by the contrasting vision of God’s Reign.
According to Yves Congar, this is “real” liturgy, and “real” preaching.
This post is part of a three-part series. See Part I and Part II.
Wayne A. Cavalier, O.P., Ph.D. is an ordained Dominican friar of the Southern Province. Ordained a priest in 1993, Cavalier accepted the position of Promoter for Community Life and Permanent Formation on the Dominican Provincial Leadership Team for five years before pursuing doctoral studies in theology and education at Boston College. In 2005, he founded the Congar Institute for Ministry Development, a ministry of the Southern Dominican Province, which fosters collaboration among providers of ministry formation to help make excellent lay ecclesial ministry formation resources available in under-served dioceses. Through his work with the Congar Institute, Wayne has developed various resources in English and Spanish.
Since 2012, Wayne also serves part-time as Associate Professor and Director of the Doctor of Ministry program in practical theology at Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, TX.
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