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COMMENTARY
January 21, 2020 | The Valley Catholic
7 Tips for Listening to a Catholic Sermon Without Falling Asleep
By Father Dave Mercer,
Pastor, Saint Thomas
of Canterbury Parish
Falling asleep during the Sunday
sermon has a long history. The New
Testament tells the story of a young
man named Eutychus falling asleep
during a sermon by Saint Paul (Acts
20:7-12). While the Apostle preaches a
long-winded sermon (he speaks until
midnight), Eutychus sits on a window
ledge, drifts off into sleep, and spills
out of the third story window to his
death below.
The irony is that Eutychus means
lucky or fortunate (but apparently not
in his case).
The Catholic preacher needs to be
ready with a message worth listening
to, and the person in the pew (you)
can be ready to listen to what he says.
Even if you will not be sitting on an
open ledge, consider these 7 steps you
can take for listening to a Catholic
sermon (aka, the homily) so you do
not fall asleep.
1.
Pray for Your Priest’s Homily
Preparation
We mistakenly assume the homily
begins when the priest talks. However,
listening to the message begins a week
earlier when the priest or deacon starts
preparing his homily for Sunday. He
needs your prayers, so pray for your
priest.
Pray that Jesus will bless the time
he gives to preparation. Pray that he
receives the grace to find the message
that Jesus wants him to speak on Sun-
day. Pray that his words will be Jesus’
words. Ask and it will be given to you.
(Matthew 7:7)
As a bonus, you will find praying for
your Sunday preacher prepares you to
hear the message God will have for you.
2.
Prepare Yourself Beforehand
Keep in mind that the Scriptures
are God’s inspired words and the Gos-
pels bear the message of Jesus. When
proclaimed in the Sunday assembly,
Jesus speaks directly to his people. This
is why Catholics stand for the Gospel
proclamation.
Anticipate that Jesus will say some-
thing at Mass. So, on Saturday evening
(Friday evening if you are a Saturday
Mass-goer), read through the Sunday
Scripture readings, pray that the words
will find a home in your heart, and
pray that the preacher will open God’s
words with a message for you.
Also, be sure to get a good night’s
sleep. Nobody can speak to you if you
are nodding off even before you arrive.
Prayer and good sleep will help turn
your Sunday focus to Jesus, where it
surely belongs.
3.
Take Notes
Catholic Christians do not often
think of doing this, but nothing pro-
hibits it. The first time I saw this, I was
confused.
On my first Sunday at Saint Thomas
of Canterbury Church, I proclaimed
the Gospel and saw a woman (on my
staff) reach into her purse, take out her
iPad, open it, and begin reading while I
presented a message that I spent hours
preparing. I thought: “Now that’s be-
ing passive-aggressive. This parish
is gonna be a challenge for me.” And
then, I saw her do the same thing for
the next several Sundays.
When I eventually talked to her
about it, she gave me a puzzled look
and said she does not read her iPad.
She instead opens her journal and
writes notes of what I say. I instantly
moved from feeling insulted to feel-
ing impressed (and relieved). What a
great way to take the Sunday message
into her prayer later on, or to talk from
with friends over dinner. (Also, seeing
a note taker prods me to prepare well
what I will say on Sunday, not only to
have a message worth listening to, but
a message worth taking notes of.)
Or, if you are not a note taker, you
can still jot down something later
about what you heard, how God spoke
to your heart, and add a short prayer
for the grace you need to live up to
God’s message. Then, be ready for
these next four ways you can respond
to God’s message.
4.
Be Ready To Profess Your Faith
When someone speaks to your
heart, the instinct is to affirm your rela-
tionship by saying something in return,
which is what we do as Catholic Chris-
tians. After we listen to the homilist,
we pause a moment to take in Jesus’
message for us. We then stand as a
community and profess our faith in
Jesus together.
The words we say have a name:
the Profession of Faith. It is usually the
Creed written by bishops at Nicaea
in 325, where they discussed how to
respond to heresies of the day, par-
ticularly Arianism, which distorted
Christian teachings about Jesus. Their
debates resulted in a statement affirm-
ing their faith in Jesus. We continue
to make the same statement every
Sunday in response to what God says
to us.
Therefore, listen to the Sunday mes-
sage for something to help you profess
your faith.
5.
Be Ready To Pray For Others
God is a relationship of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, who loves us for
no other reason than to love us. After
the Profession of Faith, we pray for the
needs of others, which is our first act of
compassion inspired by Jesus’ words.
The Bible calls us to be people of
prayer, and our prayer is modeled on
Jesus who “went around to all the towns
and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and
curing every disease and illness.” (Mat-
thew 9:35)
Listen to God speaking to your
heart, and be ready to make an act of
compassionate prayer for others.
6.
Be Ready To Be Thankful
After we profess our faith and
pray for others, we set the altar with
bread and wine for a sacred meal that
the New Testament calls the breaking of
the bread. Early Christians soon began
calling it Eucharist, a word meaning
Thanksgiving.
In other words, the Sunday mes-
sage intends to give you a reason to be
thankful for what God has done for
you through Jesus. Jesus said he would
die and rise … and he did! Ever since,
we have been privileged to share in
his death and resurrection by living
in Communion with Jesus. You have no
more uplifting motivation for being thankful.
7.
Be Ready For Your Mission
God gives you a set of talents
and gifts given to nobody else. When
you hear Jesus speaking to your heart,
know that he gives you a mission to
use your unique set of God-given
talents and gifts. With Word and Sac-
rament to bolster you, you can walk
out through the church doors with an
added bounce in your step, because
you are accepting your God-given
mission for another week.
The Apostle James writes: Be doers of
the word and not hearers only. (James 1:22)
Question: What if the sermon
(homily) truly is bad?
Answer: Not to excuse poor hom-
ily preparation (God knows that I do
not always hit the mark), but I am
convinced that Jesus always has a mes-
sage for you, if you listen for it. If you
prepare well, if you expect to hear Jesus
speaking to your heart, and if you come
to church ready to profess your faith, to
pray for others, to be thankful, and to
assume your God-given mission, you
will also hear God’s message for you.
Revisiting the Story About Eutychus
On Sundays, we never hear the
story of Eutychus dying from the
Apostle Paul’s killer sermon. (People
would die laughing if they heard it
read on Sunday.) However, a careful
reading of the Eutychus story (Acts
20:7-12) points us to a deeper meaning.
Notice that the incident happens
on the first day of the week (code for
the Christian Sabbath) when they break
bread (code for Eucharist). Thus, this
is an early Christian Mass, at which
Paul preaches and young Eutychus
falls asleep and falls to his death. The
Apostle Paul rushes downstairs, the
young man is brought from death to
life, and everyone returns to the meal
and has Communion (the breaking of
the bread).
This odd story actually reminds
us that dying and rising happen dur-
ing Mass today. The homily sets us
up for and anticipates our death and
resurrection with Jesus with bread and
wine. Eutychus’ story is your story.
You are Eutychus. You are fortunate
(lucky) to share in Jesus’ death and
resurrection.
Questions
1. How do you prepare to listen
to the Sunday message?
2. Do you have a routine to pre-
pare for Sunday?
3. What can a Catholic preacher
(homilist) do to help you hear
Jesus’ message more clearly?
(Editor’s Note: this article first ap-
peared on Aleteia.org, December 27, 2019.
Reprinted with permission.)