lay preaching – uSeminary

Although there were many lay preachers in the early church, their style of preaching quickly fell into disuse as the pulpit became dominated by the ordained clergy. The new code of the Canon Law of the Roman church now allows lay people to preach once again under special circumstances. This article summarizes the value of lay preaching in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Restoration of Lay Preaching in the Roman Catholic Church

With the advent of the new Code of Canon Law, the prohibition against lay preaching in the church has been lifted. Much of the groundwork for this welcoming of lay preaching (and it is a welcoming, for the laity may be allowed to preach not only when it is necessary, but in those cases where it would be advantageous) was laid in the dioceses of West Germany in the 1970s. There, in virtue of a special rescript that the German bishops requested of Rome, lay preaching was permitted in church and at Mass.

In presenting their request for the approval of lay preaching, the German bishops were careful not to base their arguments on the fact that the number of priests was diminishing, although that was certainly true. Instead, they argued that, in virtue of baptism, all Christians are called to give witness to their faith and that such witness has its place in church and in the liturgy.

Expectations. What are the expectations of lay preaching? What is hoped for? A fresh presentation of the Word of God is what one expects from lay preaching. Lay preachers, speaking out of their experience, can show how the Word intersects with and interprets those human realities that priests, by their training and lifestyle, simply cannot or, for the most part, do not know at first hand. For example, who can better speak of Advent’s expectation in terms of the fear and hope of Mary waiting for the birth of the one she was to call Jesus, than a mother who has herself waited for the birth of her child? Who can better speak of trust in the Lord’s providence than those who know themselves to be poor and powerless in ways that few if any, priests will ever experience?

Suggestions for Lay Preaching. Lay preaching can have a place in the church’s liturgy. On occasion, laypeople could be invited to preach in place of the homily; on other occasions, their preaching might well be a part of the homily itself. For example, a eucharistic homily might be structured in such a way that a non-ordained preacher, a member of the liturgical assembly, could be invited to respond to a homily, indicating in an expanded and perhaps more detailed way how the Word of God can be translated into Christian witness. Or perhaps the pastor and a member of the community could jointly build a homily in such a way that the non-ordained preacher would describe some real human situation, analogous to the situation underlying the scriptural text, to which the homily could then be addressed as God’s saving word. Such shared preaching might well emerge on occasion from the kind of homily preparation group described in the American Bishops’ document on the Sunday homily, “Fulfilled in Your Hearing: The Homily in the Sunday Assembly,” United States Catholic Conference (1982), 36–38.

The Basic Issue for Lay Preachers. However homilies are structured, by whoever preaching is done, the basic issue is always a hermeneutical one: Is the Word of God being heard as a word that speaks meaningfully to the community here and now? In order for that to happen, the preacher must be able to deal responsibly and intelligently with texts which, because of the ancient and foreign cultural setting in which they were composed, are not always immediately intelligible, or, even if intelligible, not always recognized as pertinent to the present. But while training in accurate exegesis is an essential part of the preacher’s preparation, along with a knowledge of the church’s tradition of interpreting the Scriptures, such training and knowledge are not sufficient for effective preaching. Equally as important is the preacher’s knowledge of the real conditions and situations that make up the life of the people who will hear the Word preached. It is out of this area of knowledge especially that the lay preacher might well be able to bring new life to God’s Word, a Word that creates a community of believers, called to worship their God in spirit and in truth.

Evidence collected about the early church suggests that most of the preaching in hamlets, villages, and rural areas was done by uneducated but devout lay people. The apostolic preaching, as well as the writings of the apostolic fathers of the second century that have been preserved, stand as exceptions to this overall trend.

Informal Preaching

For the greater part of the period from a.d. 30 to 230, after the close of the events in the New Testament, we know very little of Christian preaching. The reasons for this almost entire lack of sermons remaining from the first two centuries are several, the chief one being this: The preaching of the time was, in general, quite informal. The preacher did not make logous, discourses, but only omilias, homilies, that is conversations, talks. Even in the fourth century, there was still retained, by some out-of-the-way congregations, the practice of asking the preacher many questions and answering questions asked by him, so as to make the homily to some extent a conversation. And in this period it was always a mere familiar talk, which of course might rise into dignity and swell into passion, but only in an informal way. The general feeling appears also to have been that dependence on the promised blessing of the Paraclete forbade elaborate preparation of discourses. And this feeling would prevent many from writing out their discourses after they were spoken.

Lay Preaching as the Rule

But we must by no means imagine that there was but little preaching during the first two centuries because no sermons remain. In fact, preaching was then very general, almost universal, among the Christians. Lay preaching was not an exception, it was the rule. Like the first disciples, the Christians still went everywhere preaching the Word. The notion that the Christian minister corresponded to the Old Testament priest had not yet gained the ascendency. We find Irenaeus and Tertullian insisting that all Christians are priests. We learn from Eusebius (History VI.19) that Origen, before he was ordained a presbyter, went to Palestine and was invited by the bishops of Caesarea and Jerusalem to “expound the sacred Scriptures publicly in the church.” The bishop of Alexandria, who was an enemy to Origen, condemned this, declaring it unheard of “that laymen should deliver discourses in the presence of the bishop.” But the bishop of Jerusalem pronounced that notion, a great mistake, appealing to various examples. It was still common in some regions to invite laypersons who could edify the church, to do so; this even when the sacerdotal feeling was growing strong.

In these first centuries, then, almost all the Christians preached. Thus, preaching was informal, and therefore unrecorded. Even of the presbyters at that time, few were educated or had much leisure for study. And, when some able and scholarly man became a Christian, however, he might occupy himself with profound studies and the preparation of elaborate works, as did Justin or Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus or Tertullian, when he stood up to preach, he would lay his studies aside and speak impromptu, with the greatest simplicity.