Absolute worst was when an intelligent priest put in incredible effort, only for it to go over the heads of the yokels in their parish who want a simpler homily.
If it actually went over their heads, then the effort was wasted. I've heard the goal of preaching described thus: "Address the mind to move the heart to change the will." If you haven't addressed the minds of the people you're speaking to, your preaching was a failure.
NB if the people in the parish don't want to change their will, and so close up their minds, that's a different issue.
Reminds me of Pauls retort about speaking in tongues with no translator. ;)
The idea being, that if it serves nobody but the person themselves, they should keep it to themselves, if you're going to "share" with the whole congregation, then it should edify the congregation.
1 Corinthians 14:27-28 (KJV)
"27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God."
Of course, people ought to realize that the purpose of the mass is not the homily, but the sacrifice of the eucharist, which is the “source and summit of the Christian life”.
I don't mean to pick on you personally, but your comment and the parent comment (among others here) both project feelings across wide groups of people in a hasty generalization. Their feelings could be easily confirmed with human connection. I think the article makes it clear the Pope charges priests with knowing their community. This is good advice for all of us though! So, not just you, but you, the parent poster, anyone else, if you have these fears, if you don't like your priest's homily, please, talk to the proper people about them instead of (or at least in addition to) complaining online to others! This is way outside our sphere of influence.
'Fear' is a strong word but I mean it in the same way as I do when talking about reading comments in the Wall Street Journal- I'm afraid by the realization of who I'm surrounded by in the world. With that said I really, really appreciate the social justice statements I hear from the pulpit and from the congregants.
The Catholic church is universal, so you are not seen that way :). Setting that aside, my comments weren't really about a particular religion, but about not making hasty generalizations.
That said, you don't have to be a member of the same church to discuss things with the people in your community. Again, a large part of what the pope is saying is to be present in your community, which requires maintaining that human to human interaction.
Also, your meaning of "fear" was clear.
But if you like the idea: you don't need a priest for that at all! A QR code with a prompt will do just fine in this case.
There is no person in the world that is capable of weekly delivery of meaningful insight into your life. Or any topic, to be honest. AI won't solve that, it just "recycles old homilies".
In retrospect, I probably should have replied to a specific comment.
I get the other ones, but why is this necessarily bad? If the homily is good by itself, then of course I would even like to hear it more than once. You don't remember everything from a single time anyway. And even if you do, you do not necessarily got everything.
That doesn't seem bad? You'd think a lot of the topics would be evergreen, and not everyone would be there for every service. So after an appropriately long time, why not recycle one that worked well?
You are supposed to attend Mass every Sunday, so I don't think the priest is intentionally accomodating infrequent churchgoers at the expense of the regulars. And it's usually not a sermon that worked well, just a long meandering story, typically about a pilgrimage or retreat the priest went on 10 years ago, that doesn't really have a point to it.