Part II, Chapter I: Excellence and Importance of: The Office of Preaching

Excellence and Importance of

The Office of Preaching

THE PREACHER should keep constantly before him the realization of the importance and sublimity of his noble work, not as a matter of conceit or complacency, but rather as a humbling reminder of his unworthiness and incompetence. Consequently, it should be his constant aim to neglect nothing which can be of assistance in qualifying himself for his task.

Before undertaking to preach, the preacher should always remember the truly great excellence of his work, as well as its lofty origin and divine purpose.

He should never forget that his office is higher than that of the Prophets of the Old Law, for the teachers of the Old Testament taught only the letter and not the spirit, while the exponent of the Gospel of Christ breathes the very spirit of God if his hearers will open their minds and their hearts. "Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit. For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth" (2 Cor. 3, 6). The Apostle St. Paul also refers to the ministry of preaching as ministratio spiritus (Ibid. 3, 8). In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that "while Peter was yet speaking (1). Two chapters in the original French edition have been omitted in the English version and short chapters dealing with similar material have been combined into one chapter.

these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word" (Acts 10, 44).

The work of preaching is a labor shared with the great saints of the New Law, namely the apostles and disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The preacher should bear in mind that the office of preaching is so lofty in character and so pleasing to God that Our Blessed Lord promised that He would reward and love those who received His ministers, as though they had received Him personally. "He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me" (Matt. 10, 40). On the other hand, on judgment Day God will condemn and punish those who refused to give ear to the exponents of His doctrine, in a manner more terrible than that experienced by the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha: "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment" (Ibid. 15).

By preaching and exhortation were idolatry and the tyranny of Satan destroyed. Through this instrumentality, the Church was established in spite of the powers of hell.

Preaching is giving God's children the bread of life to nourish them in this vale of tears and to perfect in them the divine life they received at baptism. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6, 69).

Preachers of the Gospel of Christ are incarnate angels of the Lord, messengers of heaven, seraphim of the Church, heralds of the Blessed Trinity. Consequently, the priest always begins his discourse with the words: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." Priests are the veritable mouthpieces of the Eternal Father, the ambassadors of the Son of God. "For Christ therefore we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us" (2Cor. 5, 20). They are active cooperators with God in the salvation of souls.

As precursors of the Lord, they exercise an office similar to that of St. John the Baptist, preparing the ways of the Lord. They are spiritual parents of Christ, forming Him in the lives and souls of their flock. They are saviours of the world. "And saviours shall come up into mount Sion," says Sacred Scripture (Abdias 21).

The mouth of the preacher is the mouth of Jesus Christ who came

The Office of Preaching 75

on earth to speak to men, to instruct and guide them. Through His ministers He wishes to continue till the end of time the divine work He founded. "Christ speaketh in me", (2 Cor. 13, 3). The tongue of the preacher is the instrument and the voice of the Holy Ghost used to announce to mankind the eternal verities spoken by the tongue of Christ Himself.

Preaching is truly making God speak, who having of old spoken by His prophets, and in the New Law through His Divine Son, now wishes to speak to His children through the living members of that same Son.

Preaching had its origin in the bosom of God Himself, from which emanated the Word Divine, Christ, the First Preacher. Thence flowed, too, all those eternal truths still proclaimed on earth.

The end and purpose of this heavenly office is to form Christ in the hearts of the faithful that He may reign there; to dispel the darkness of hell and illumine the light of heaven in men's souls; to destroy sin and open the floodgates of grace; to destroy the tyranny of Satan on earth and reestablish the Kingdom of God. Preaching aims to reconcile men with their Maker, transforming them into His children, deifying them as it were, according to the words of Sacred Scripture: "He called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken" (John io, 35). In a word, it means perfecting here below that great work Christ came to effect for He says to all preachers, "As the Father bath sent me, I also send you" (John 20, 21).

So noble and great is this holy duty that it should be carried out with the greatest exactitude, inspired by the holiest of dispositions and intentions. Preachers should unite themselves to the prophets, the aposles and all the saints in heaven in. order to learn to imitate them and practise their virtues.

Likewise, as God's heralds and ambassadors, preachers should be clothed with His qualities, possed with a burning love, fired with the all-consuming zeal of the Holy Spirit. The lips of the of the preacher, being consecrated to the Gospel, should never utter anything save the words of God. If any man speak, let him speak, as the words of God" (1 Peter 4, 11).

Preaching emanated from the bosom of God and through it He

speaks to mankind. Its only purpose is to establish His reign in men's hearts, and to lift them to the very throne of the Father that they may abide eternally with Him. Preachers, therefore, should always speak ina manner worthy of God's infinite majesty, making Him truly speak through them. They should study and practise what St. Paul says, "As from God, before God, in Christ we speak." Sicut ex Deo, coram Deo et i n Christo loquimur (2 Cor. 2, 17).

Sicut ex Deo means that the preacher should not depend upon his own thoughts or ideas, but his matter should be founded on Scripture, theology, prayer and the reading of devotional works. Coram Deo means that the preacher should have no other aim, no other thought or object in mind than God, His glory and the salvation of souls. For these things represent the sole purpose for which Christ established His Church and the office of preaching.

In Christo loquimur means that he should make a complete renunciation of self and become one with Christ absorbing those dispositions and intentions which animated the Saviour when He preached here on earth.

Finally, be assured that to undertake and carry out the office of preaching, according to the directions outlined, is more praiseworthy in God's sight than the most profound contemplation. Nothing pleases Him more than the salvation of souls, which is accomplished more efficiently by preaching than by contemplation. St. Bernard expresses this thought very strikingly in a beautiful metaphor: Noli nimis insistere osculo contemplationis, quia meliora sunt ubera praedicationis. ( 2 ) (2). In Cantic. sermo 9, no. 8. 77-