Bishops Say We Need Better Homilies- Look to the Pope As a Model

Being ill this week I did not do the translation of the Pope's Wednesday Audience. I think it is clear that Benedict has a talent for homilies. In fact I wonder how many Catholic educators are even aware that their is a gold mine they can use here at the Vatican Web site. I mean Benedict's as well as Pope John Paul the II almost ever public word is translated. Here we have the Pope's Wednesday Audiences which started on meditations on the psalms (finishing up John Paul the II meditations) and pretty much have the most part been giving us the whole History of the early Church and important Dogma from the Apostles onward. Now the Pope is talking Paul.

Then we have the Pope's Sunday Angelus that is really a homily on the Gopsel readings most of the time.

Chiesa has a excellent article up talking about how the Bishops at the Synod are saying we need better Homilies and how the Pope is a great example. See The Synod Wants Better Homilies. With the Pope as the Model

I thought this part was fascinating
Joseph Ratzinger's liturgical preaching is one of the outstanding features of his pontificate. It is one of the less examined and less well-known features, but it is perhaps the most fascinating. It is the most authentic expression of his thought. He writes most of his homilies himself, and sometimes improvises them. Even those brief comments on the biblical readings for the Mass of the day that he makes almost every Sunday before the Angelus are homiletic jewels.

In the Americas, some priests have taken notice of this, and take them as an outline for their homilies that same Sunday. When the pope recites the Angelus in Rome at midday, it is still early morning in the Americas: 5:30 in Mexico City, 6:30 in Miami, Lima and Bogotà, 7:00 in Caracas, 7:30 in Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile, 8:30 in Rio de Janeiro. American Catholic news agencies like AciPrensa and CNA translate the Angelus address by Benedict XVI and release it immediately in Spanish, Portuguese and English. With a spike in webpage visits.

Good read.