Sermons in Times of Crisis: Twelve Homilies to Stir Your Soul by Paul Scalia

Author:Paul Scalia [Scalia, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2019-02-15T06:00:00+00:00

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

ON PREACHING THE GOSPEL

Today I propose to prepare you worthily

to receive that immortal food.

IN SOME WAYS, the greatest crisis of faith is the one that is unfelt and unseen. It is the crisis of complacency that often plagues Catholic cultures. Surrounded by other Catholics and the trappings of Catholicism, the faithful grow tepid and begin to take the Faith for granted. Without even noticing, they become unmoved and unmovable by the Gospel. Such was the danger for Catholics in seventeenth-century France. The entire realm was Catholic, and the Church enjoyed the patronage of the king. Catholics could—and many did—easily fall into a presumptuous living of the Faith. It was in that milieu that Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet ministered and preached.

Although unknown to most English readers, Bossuet is commonly regarded as the finest French orator. Coming from wealth and privilege, he used his talents and training to serve the Gospel and to combat the lukewarm Catholicism of his countrymen. He was renowned for his preaching and soon became a favorite of the royal court. This sermon was the first in a series preached in Lent of 1662 before Louis XIV. Doubtlessly looking ahead to the other sermons he would give, Bossuet brilliantly describes the purposes of preaching, and in so doing, sounds a warning against complacency.

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