Sermon, on the Mound!

I  am struggling to find a topic for my column. The phone rings. Two old friends Filomeno Barreto and Romalinho Carvalho from Navelim are at the other end. “We have just attended the novena mass at Our Lady of Rosary Church. The sermon is being preached by Fr Kenneth. He sounds so much like you. And he speaks like you, to the point. It is wonderful to hear him” says one of them. The other concurs. I am glad to know that people do appreciate good sermons. If he speaks like me, he could not possibly be that great a preacher, I think to myself. I have to concede that appreciation lies in the ear of the listener. But the call did provide me the eureka moment.  

The story (I read many monsoons ago and certainly apocryphal) goes that in a certain village, there lived a priest, sincere, honest and pious but with a tendency to preach long and hard. There was in the same village a taxi driver known to be rash and negligent, abusive and exploitative of the villagers. After life’s work having been completed, the priest died and ended up before the pearly gates. His record was verified, and he was allotted an innocuous little corner of heaven for his abode. He was happy until few years later, he saw the taxi driver strolling around heaven and occupying a much better position.

The good priest just could not believe that he, the pious priest and the rude and violent taxi driver would both be in heaven. Perplexed, he decided to check with St Peter. So shyly he approached and raised his query. After consulting the book, St Peter explained, “Look here, you did your work diligently but when you preached the congregation went to sleep. When the taxi driver drove everybody in the car and on the street took out the rosary and began to pray”!

It appears that the Pope too has read the story. And taken action. The Vatican has through archbishop Nikola Eterovic, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops advised the churches that “the homily in general should not go over eight minutes – the average amount of time for a listener to concentrate”. The archbishop has pointed out that it was normal for a church man to “have patchy communication skills and to have to struggle preparing homilies”. To counter this, he has suggested following the Pope’s lead by spending a week writing a sermon that is engaging and relevant.

Welcoming the advice, Fr Andrew Headon, Vice Rector of the venerable English College in Rome has observed “There is a saying among clergy, if you haven’t struck oil in seven minutes, stop boring”!  But, judging from the content and length of sermons in Goa, it appears that the advisory has not yet reached the Patriarch of the East Indies.  

The sermons, I recall in my younger days were certainly long but interesting. The priest invariably would begin by quoting a Latin maxim. And it sounded, well, divine. Nowadays, the sermons generally are mundane and not infrequently, the preacher castigates the congregation for being inattentive, not realizing that the inattentiveness of the congregation reflects his own failing. It is a cardinal principle of public speaking that the speaker must gauge the audience, in the first few minutes and seek to get it on his side. If it cannot be done, he ought to cut short. A successful speaker is he who concludes his speech and leaves the audience asking for more.

I am not suggesting that there are no good preachers. There still are, some outstanding preachers with the ability to bring the dead to life with sheer power of oratory. But their number is on the decline. I would love to name some of the great preachers but by doing so the not so great preachers will also automatically be identified. And that could leave me at the receiving end of some sermon somewhere!

Agreeing with me on the deteriorating quality of sermons in recent times, an elderly priest explains the possible reasons. In the old days, he says admissions to the seminary were like admissions to IIT. There were many aspirants but only a few seats. Many were called, only a few chosen. The church then had the luxury of choice. Nowadays, joining a seminary is like joining an ITI, many seats and a few takers. The church therefore suffers from lack of quality personnel. Perhaps, so.

As I began, let me close on a personal note. My grandmother died when I was ten. I recall her always in black and constantly proclaiming that her son Jose Joaquim had the makings of a great “pregador” (preacher). Others who knew him too agreed and it was said that in the seminary, he was considered an exceptional talent. Sadly, he caught some illness and died, shortly before he was to be ordained. Grandmother continued to wear mourning clothes for a quarter century till her own death.

My late father’s late brother, we were told would walk a mile or so across the railway tracks to an isolated one and half acre of coconut grove raised like a mound above the surrounding paddy fields and owned by the family. There he would practice to preach, loud and clear, alone and undisturbed. Later, I too took a cue from the uncle whom I had not known and followed in his footsteps. Fittingly, the land is a host to many speeches, as it is now an outdoor events venue called Wild Orchid owned by my elder brother.

Nowadays, sometimes, I am reminded by people of some speech I had made in some distant past. Occasionally, I am complimented for a good speech. And every time my mind goes to an uncle, who had raised expectations, but did not live to fulfill them and whom I had no opportunity to listen to.

(Radharao F.Gracias is a senior Trial Court Advocate)