Osoba i zadania homilisty według wskazań Verbum Domini i Evangelii Gaudium

Abstract

Proclaiming the word of God is one of the fundamental tasks of the Church in preaching the salvific message of the Christ. It is the ministry which is effectuated in the Church community and at the command of the Church. The ministry of preaching the word of God includes: conferences, sermons, catecheses and homily. In this ministry the homily, which is contained in the strictly defined frames and which is included in the liturgical space, occupies a special place. According to the preaching of the Magisterium of the Church included in theological massage and documents of the Church this task is entrusted only to the ordained ministers: deacons, presbyters and bishops. The discussed exhortations remind the homilists about their special duties arising from the office that was entrusted to them. These duties start not only from intellectual but also from the spiritual formation. While preparing the homily the homilist must take into account a number of aspects of preaching the homily. First the homilist himself must become a disciple listening attentively to his Master in order to deliver His words considering the whole teaching of the Church, on behalf of which he speaks. In the last years the whole Church, taking into consideration the difficulties it has perceived as well as more and more frequent weakness of the homily, attended to this problem by convening, at the wish of the Pope, the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. The results of the synodal proceedings were post-synodal apostolic exhortations of Pope Benedict the XVI and Pope Francis, which describe the place and the role of the word of God in the life and mission of the Church. The exhortations discussed in this dissertation are Verbum Domini and Evangelii gaudium. These documents once again remind the teaching of the Church concerning the place of the homily in liturgical space and point out the measures that should be taken into consideration by the homilists (those who preach the word of God in the liturgy) in creation of the homiletic unit. All undertaken activities shall take into account updating the word of God, which brings understanding of the biblical message to the listeners and helps them to integrate it into their everyday Christian life, bringing them closer to God. The effective sign of working of the word of God is not only its influence on the congregation, but, firstly, on the homilist himself. The effectiveness of preaching of the word of God depends not so much on the skill of the homilist, as on the testimony of his unification with the word of God.