Back in the day before television dulled the imagination, broadcasting baseball on the radio needed announcers who could captivate a listening audience. One of the best was Rosey Rowswell, the radio voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The star slugger with the Pirates at that time was Ralph Kiner.

Rowswell would get his audience to imagine a little old lady with an apartment window facing Forbes Field. Whenever Kiner would connect with what looked like a home run, Rowswell would yell, “Open the window, Aunt Minnie, here it comes!” Then, as the ball left the park, he would smash a light bulb near the microphone. He really knew how to create excitement.

The seasons of Advent and Christmas, laden with the excitement of the fulfilled promise of a Savior, have come and gone, leaving us to enter Ordinary Time, that is, time which is ordered to the Paschal Mystery.

In a few weeks we will enter another season. Open your hearts, everyone, here comes Lent!

If you think about it, there was an incredible amount of Scripture proclaimed every day from the past Advent until now, to say nothing about prayers, singing, ritual moments for the sacraments, and homilies. Homilies!

If you want to read some incredible homilies, look at what Pope Benedict XVI is writing and delivering. In the meantime, here are Blessed John Henry Newman’s seven rules for writing sermons:

“1. A man should be in earnest, by which I mean he should write not for the sake of writing, but to bring out his thoughts.

“2. He should never aim at being eloquent.

“3. He should keep his idea in view, and should write sentences over and over again till he has expressed his meaning accurately, forcibly, and in a few words.

“4. He should aim at being understood by his hearers or readers.

“5. He should use words which are likely to be understood. Ornament and amplification will come spontaneously in due time but he should never seek them.

“6. He must creep before he can fly, by which I mean that humility, which is a great Christian virtue, has a place in literary composition.

“7. He who is ambitious will never write well, but he who tries to say simply what he feels, what religion demands, what faith teaches, what the Gospel promises, will be eloquent without intending it, and will write better English than if he made a study of English literature.”

So, there you have it. While it is difficult to write a homily, it can be done. Practice.

Recently, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Prefect of the Papal Household, said in an interview, “Twenty-eight years have passed since I was ordained a priest and became assistant pastor in a small town in the Black Forest, where I come from, in the southwest of Germany close to France.

“In this small town, Oberkirch, there were many children, and for the assistant pastor it was an important task to take care of them. It also became a commitment of the heart.

“I must make a confession: it is never easy to prepare a sermon, sometimes you do it well, sometimes less well, but to prepare a homily for children is exhausting! It is difficult because the children ... understand immediately if you are superficial, and they do not forgive you if you are not sincere. If you are sincere they will forgive you everything, but if you’re not honest, you will have lost them once and for all. The best aspect of preparing and giving a homily for children is that it is also for adults. I have never seen adults so attentive as when they are present at a Mass with children.”

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them,

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:18-21)

The homily is in the last line.