Helping Homilies to Come Alive

Theater instructors coach seminarians at preaching boot camp.

After graduation, most people go on a little vacation or take some time off to celebrate. But here at Sacred Heart, when a seminarian graduates from philosophyhe jumps right into preaching practice!

Immediately after graduation, seminarians who are entering graduate theology in the fall are involved in a three-week preaching boot camp that is conducted by Fr. Daniel Jones, director of graduate seminarians, and Mr. Paco Gravilides, instructor in homiletics. They are assisted by two professional actors, the husband-wife team of Dr. Arthur Beer, theater professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, and UDM acting instructor and long-time director for its Theatre Company, Mrs. Mary Bremer-Beer.

This year, nine of us seminarians went through the boot camp from April 27 until May 15. Every morning we started with an hour-long session learning about the biblical aspect of preaching, and then the rest of the day was spent learning about speech and voice. Dr. Beer and Mrs. Bremer-Beer taught us breathing exercises, articulation, and tongue twisters, as well as acting out several scenes from different monologues and plays. We worked on the play Mass Appeal, which includes with specific scenes between Father Farley and a seminarian named Mark. Some of the monologues that we did were Pastor Manders from Ghost and C.C. Showers from The Diviners.

The last three days of the camp involved us going out to parishes to preach a homily after a weekday Mass. This year we visited Divine Child in Dearborn, St. Paul on the Lake in Grosse Pointe Farms, and St. Michael in Livonia. We received helpful criticism from the parishioners. Some said they were thankful we used more Scripture in our homilies, and that we were more relatable and personal. Others said they were glad we were preaching with enthusiasm and not in monotone.

These three weeks were vital for our formation as priests. Pope Francis recently gave a homily to priests and said, Do not give boring homilies. His words encouraged us to work hard and give the best homilies we could. As seminarian Adam Nowak explains, Some people only go to church every so often. You only have a just so much time to reach them with the message of Jesus. So you need to be as effective as possible.

If we are putting them to sleep, Adam says, what good are you doing for them? Zaid Chabban enjoyed the preaching boot camp so much that he thinks the class should be extended past the three weeks and offered for entire term. It really helped me to understand the human element of what we do as priests. As for myself, when I was giving my homily at Divine Child and looked out at the people smiling at me, I knew God was doing something good in me.

All of us were taken out of our comfort zones and thrown into the deep, which truly helped us to grow and become better preachers. We have to be personable, we have to be joyful, and we have to thirst for Jesus and the word so that the people may thirst as well. No one wants a boring, dull, inanimate priest. These three weeks of boot camp helped us to bring life and joy to the preaching of the gospel message.

Sacred Heart's preaching boot camp has received favorable publicity. The Detroit Free Press wrote an article and produced a video about it (click here to view article). USA Today picked up both pieces on its website (click here to view).