I have received more compliments on my sermon from last Sunday than at any other time I have preached. I am not pointing this out in order to pat myself on the back but to make a point.

You should know that a great deal of thought and prayer goes into each sermon that I write. But, I do not consider myself to have any special talent in the art of writing. In fact, I did everything I could to avoid writing classes when I was in high school and college. Therefore, there are many times when I struggle to convey the ideas I have in my mind for any given sermon, or even for this blog. (And perhaps that is why it has been so long since I have posted anything on my blog.) For example, last Sunday I pointed out that I could not, in the time I had to write the sermon, fit the Sunday lessons into my sermon in an appropriate manner. I could see what I wanted to say but just could not figure out how to say it. I did eventually get done with my sermon but only after completely starting over. And once I did start over I received an inspiration to write what I did and finished within a few hours late on Saturday afternoon. This was after trying all week for several hours a day to write my sermon.

My reason for pointing this out is to help people understand that if there is anything good in my sermons at all then it doesn't come from me. I just indicated that I received an inspiration to write what I did and this has happened several times when writing sermons. In fact, I find that the sermons that are received the best are the ones where this inspiration was present when I was writing. But at the same time I am often unsure of what I have written; I don't ever know if it is good enough. My primary concern as a priest is to preach only the fullness of the Truth as it is contained within Catholic Church and to do so boldly. But I don't do this to try to make myself look good. Actually, I don't even feel worthy to preach the Truth, knowing that I am a miserable sinner. So, if anything good does come out my sermons then may the glory go to God and not myself. As I often tell people when they thank me for my sermon, "Anything good in the sermon came from God, anything bad came from me."