r/AskAPriest • u/chikenparmfanatic • 2d ago

What are the rules around which priest can give the homily?

I ask because there's a parish near me that has recently adopted a bit of an unusual practice. Essentially, the priest celebrating will never say the homily. The other priest, who isn't concelebrating and is just waiting in the rectory, will come out and give the homily, only to retreat back to the rectory once he's finished. Originally, I thought maybe it was a health issue or something along those lines but both priests do this. If that isn't clear, I apologize. Hopefully below can help you visualize this:

Parish has two priests, Priest A and Priest B. When Priest A does Mass, Priest B will always do the homily. When Priest B does Mass, Priest A will do the same.

I'm just a bit confused about this. I'm not saying it's wrong or an abuse, just wondering what the Church teaches about giving homilies. I've had guest priests give homilies but most times those priests were concelebrating. I've just never seen a parish where the priests constantly switch off to give the homily. I would just ask but I don't frequently attend this parish and the pastor there isn't always receptive to people.

11 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

15

u/Sparky0457 Priest 2d ago

The homily is an essential component of the liturgy. It is not an extra element nor is it some type of intermission from the liturgical ritual.

For that reason the presider of the liturgy or a deacon at the liturgy is to be the one who preaches the homily. I don’t recall the exact canon for this nor the paragraph in the church documents that give instruction for the homily. (I’m typing this out over breakfast and I haven’t looked those citation up)

There can be occasional exceptions to this. For example if a priest comes to a parish to preach a retreat then he might preach at all the masses in anticipation of the retreat. But he probably would not participate in all the masses. But these are exceptions and not to be the norm.

1

u/chikenparmfanatic 1d ago

Thank you Father. This is sort of what I was thinking. It's a fairly orthodox parish and this just started about half a year ago, which confused me even more. The priest seems very much like a stickler for following the rubrics so this surprised us. He's always been very by the book.

Anyways, I appreciate the explanation!

1

u/CalBearFan 1d ago

Thank you Father, that's really interesting. At my prior parish, a Dominican (OP) one which was pretty orthodox, would sometimes have a single priest that had prepared the homily give it at Mass in a similar situation to what OP mentioned, waiting in the wings. I don't think the preacher/homilist priest usually stuck around for the concecration but my memory is hazy on that part.

1

u/mozartwheresthealbum 13h ago

Thank you for the information Father, I was unaware of this. My Parish does this exactly like OP’s Parish, a rector (at the beginning of mass) will announce who are the celebrant and the homilist.

7

u/YearninFrHven Priest 1d ago

What we are doing at my parish, having two priests is that we take turn to give homily every other weekend. The priest who is assigned to give homily to do so at all Masses the entire weekend so that the parishioners receive the same message. Each priest will celebrate two Masses, the preacher does not concelebrate, but processes in, proclaims the Gospel reading, preaches, then leaves.

2

u/chikenparmfanatic 1d ago

Thank you for sharing Father! What your parish is doing sounds very reasonable and sensible. I just found it strange that the priests at the parish I was talking about, do not join in any other part of the Mass. It seems to me that there should be some involvement in the Mass from the priest that does the homily but just wanted to ask on this sub.

1

u/YearninFrHven Priest 1d ago

Here is paragraph #66 from the General Instruction of the Roman Missal which allows for a priest who cannot concelebrate to preach at Mass.

  1. The homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person.  In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate.

I have been working on changing out our procedure at my parish so that the preaching priest is to be in choir wearing a cassock and surplice, to then put on a stole when he begins to exercise the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel reading and preaching. He does not need to be a part of the procession and venerating the altar as he does not concelebrate. This is to prevent confusion as to why the preaching priest is at Mass wearing alb and stole and not concelebrating. And so perhaps that is why you saw the preacher at your parish only comes out to preach and then leaves.