(Photos in this article provided by the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Preaching Initiative)
It’s hard enough delivering a compelling homily to parishioners, but what if the listeners include your brother priests — and a professional voice coach from the drama faculty of The Catholic University of America? That was the situation facing Franciscan Father Tojy Jose on a hot July afternoon, and he nailed it, both in content and delivery.*
His homily “came from your heart to my heart,” said the voice coach, Melissa Flaim, when he finished. With a huge smile, he sat down and another priest took his turn at the podium. The two were among 30 priests from across the United States who spent a week on Catholic University’s campus for an intensive preaching workshop focused on strengthening their preaching skills.
The event was part of the new Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Excellence in Preaching Initiative. Named after the renowned orator who taught theology and philosophy at Catholic University for 23 years, the national initiative seeks to help priests, deacons, seminarians, and laity enhance effectiveness in preaching and proclamation, so as to better engage parishioners, feeding their spiritual hunger and encouraging them to more deeply share Christ’s love in daily life.
Funded by an Eli Lilly Foundation grant, the initiative is holding in-person and online programs and building a free online resource library for preaching. Susan Timoney, an associate dean and associate professor of practice in the University’s School of Theology and Religious Studies, and director of the Doctor of Ministry program, also serves as principal investigator for the initiative.
She said this inaugural workshop was designed to give participants “an opportunity to reflect on the theme of hope as we think about it in terms of our faith tradition. To think about it in terms of the people to whom we're preaching at this specific time and then recognizing that good preaching is not just content, but it's the proclamation.”
That meant sessions led by priest experts focused on effectively reaching different audiences, but also something unique to the Sheen Initiative: voice coaching and storytelling.
“The opportunity of the Mass — the structure of Mass with heightened poetic language — requires a certain kind of delivery and understanding of how the language is used. The readings and Gospel were written to be heard aloud….We are meant to hear them,” Flaim said.
She says a good homily is not just about what the priest wants to convey but how it is heard and received.
“Our desire to connect to each other is in many ways divine. Humans long to communicate. One of the most powerful ways is through storytelling. Talking with friends, watching a play. Culturally we are losing that because we are becoming more visually oriented. We lose something essential because our voice is tied to our breath and heartbeat. We detect and understand a lot about people by how they speak, by their pitch, how they emphasize things,” Flaim said.
That’s why each day, workshop participants got on stage at Hartke Theater and practiced the voice and body relaxation exercises a professional actor or speaker would use to strengthen their delivery. Then it was time for storytelling.
Flaim’s role wasn't to tell priests what to talk about, but to help them think about how to structure an effective message, starting with a goal such as, “I want my parishioners to reflect on humility.”
Next came the structure of the homily to challenge, reassure, rouse, and empower parishioners to live out the message — and that led to a lot of conversation about homily lengths, language groups, and is that goal really a goal?
Just like any other class.
* If you are wondering: Fr. Jose used the image of “beautiful feet” from Isaiah 52:7, tying it to the Gospel of Luke 10:1-9. He said it’s not that we have perfect lives “but that we have beautiful feet because we walked the path of Christ and brought the light of Christ into the world.”
