What priests should preach - Kristina Chetcuti

Sun, Sep 22nd 2019, 07:59 Last updated 1 day, 11 hours ago

I am not sure what is happening to priests and friars these days. One sanctifies Hitler; another demonises Harry Potter, another one dumps a library of ancient books… truly the world is going topsy turvy.

I think the Archbishop and the convent superiors need to pow-pow and organise some serious workshops for all the clergy out there. Some basic jam sessions to remind them that their task is to spread love, joy and resilience; a few meetings on how the media works; and lots of conventions on preaching tips.

They desperately need this be­cause: a) the headlines they’re making are the wrong sort; and b) it’s become very rare to attend Mass, and a sermon captures your attention and makes you ponder.

No. Priests must be handed out a homily handbook and it seems to recommend two ways of preaching: Option one: hook the audience by recounting a mindless episode from your life: “Recently, I bumped into…”; Option two: Kick off with a joke: “Once there was…”.

Both options end with a de­tailed, layered but vague analogy which attempts to link the mindless episode or the joke to the Scriptures…

Indeed, the homily handbooks must have a prologue which instructs priests that they must make reference to daily activities of people in their sermons, otherwise the audience won’t engage.

“The congregation will not pay attention if you do not mention something about cleaning and cooking,” must read the manual. So off they go: “We know you watch TV series, we know you have to clean the house, we know you cook...”

The thing is, I am not in the least interested in anecdotes about the mundane things of my life. I don’t want to be told anything about cleaning and cooking – we spend enough time on that, thank you very much. Tell me something I don’t know, please.

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Beauty needs some PR and I can think of no one in a better position than priests from their pulpit

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It is an absolute delight for me when I attend Mass in my parish and the kappillan of Lija takes time to describe the ongoing restoration work on some painting or other. You can see all the congregation turning their heads at right angles in instant synchrony, craning their necks to see the said painting being given a new lease of life. If only we could have more of that: more words about beauty.

No one talks about aesthetics, about beautiful things anymore. We think that beauty is sexiness or sensuality, something that we capture on Instagram, and that’s it. But beauty is a whole philosophy – that of admiring things which lift our souls. It could be the colours of a leaf in the garden, or the cover of a book, or a piece of jewellery or painting that enfolds you in its colours.

Indeed, beauty needs some PR and I can think of no onein a better position than priests from their pulpit – they have an advantage of an audience every Sunday.

Oh, their sermons can be such gems. They could take a minute to explain in an honest, straightforward and understandable manner what the Scripture reading is about; and then four minutes of observations on beauty. The preacher could talk about nature, about artistic objects, or paintings or architecture, or… books. Especially books; books like Harry Potter, which en­courage in children the love of reading, imagination and creativity.

As I was driving past Balzan the other day, I noticed that they have a big wooden banner saying that the church was built in 1669 and was celebrating its 350th birthday. It made me wonder what it was like back then – how magnificent the architecture must have been, as it stood alone in the middle of fields. How breathtaking the inside sculpture and paintings must have been to people who had bare walls at home and no television.

Beauty must have been easier to understand back then. But as the ugliness around us keeps festering, we need to rediscover beauty again – it’s the only way to fight the darkness and it can only make us better people.

Malta has been taken over by high street shopping, everyone owning or wanting to own the same brands – Gucci, Tommy, Guess and the likes. Same gadgets, same clothes, same bags, all mass produced somewhere in China. Everyone now struts the street with turned-up collars, everyone has the same watches, the same Michael Kors bags. The eyes beg to see different things, for a spark of originality.

One of my favourite places is a little nook of a shop in Attard called Eclecticist. It’s a good thing that I’m writing it and not saying it, as it’s one of those tongue twisters for me (other words I can’t pronounce properly are: plural, petrol, car park – for some reason I have a thing with ‘l’s and ‘r’s – my tongue just gets darn stuck to the roof of my mouth and words come out in odd lolling noises).

In any case, I like this little shop because it is like a little Aladdin’s cave for aesthetes, full of original artistic designs made out of natural materials such as wood, silk and metal. Perhaps priests and friars could go there for some inspiration.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti