Trust in Faith
Sister Kathleen Flood, OP
Glimpse the Quintessential
Preacher: Mary of Magdala
Sister Mary Ellen O’Dea, OP
Listening with Our Lives
Sister Ann Willits, OP
Announcing the Good News
Sister Helen Marie Raycraft, OP
Lay Preaching
Barbara Skierecki
The Word Is Near to You
Sister KC Young, OP
Stories of Preaching
Listening with Our Lives
Sister Ann Willits, OP
I preached my first reflection on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas at Aquinas Institute when it was still in Dubuque. I was young, inexperienced, ignorant, and flattered to have been asked. In other words, I was audacious.
Hundreds of reflections later, I find myself listening, always listening, to people’s lives, and gratefully I receive their preaching because the Word is at work in every life. At one parish mission after another, I have listened to people who have learned to listen to their lives. I leave those conversations and return to the daily readings. Conversation with people about life and the Gospel is not only a part of exegesis; it is—as Chenu suggests—a way of doing justice. I love his words, “I always begin by listening—opening all my ears. I want to listen to people’s experience and only then do I apply critical analysis.”
Whom have you heard preach recently that suggested life is our pulpit? What happens in your preaching when you listen to your life?