Abstract
Fr. Khaled is a Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and a priest in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and Eastern Catholic church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. This collection of homilies (using Fr. Khaled’s preferred term) – starting at the beginning of their liturgical year on 1st September – includes all the liturgical seasons and feast days in the calendar. The wording on the back cover says it is a ‘perfect companion for pastors seeking inspiration for their own preaching’, and so I read this book from that perspective.
His homilies are organised into twenty sections, seventeen of which relate to liturgical seasons and feast days, whilst the final three have two homilies each on the US Presidential election, funerals and weddings. The sections on the main liturgical seasons are: Christmas, Theophany (Epiphany), Lent (in two parts), and Easter. Homilies on specific feast days are: Byzantine New Year, Holy Cross, Theotokos Enters the Temple, Annunciation, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (Easter Day), Ascension, Pentecost, Transfiguration, and Dormition of Mary.
The scriptural readings for each of the homilies are derived from the Byzantine Liturgical calendar. Some of these readings do match with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Year A or Year B for the specific feast day or for one date in the liturgical season, but there are a significant number that do not match at all. The homilies were written immediately prior to or during the COVID pandemic, and the audience was to the congregation at Notre Dame. Some specifically address the pandemic and are written in that context. The homilies are firmly fixed in the scriptures and are not embellished with personal anecdote, and they all make a clear connection to Christ’s ministry and mission in our world. As one might expect, the homilies are orthodox in nature and the Patristic Fathers would be happy to see these homilies being preached. As for a busy priest, trying to create the time and space to read and gain inspiration for a looming deadline for delivering a sermon on a Sunday morning, I am ambivalent that I would turn to this book when preparing a sermon. The marketplace is crowded with resources – both in print and on-line – that, for those of us who follow the Revised Common Lectionary, would probably find more profitable to mine for relevant guidance. Having said that, this book contains good solid scripturally-based homilies that I can see would help and inspire me. But I would need to have better management of my time, or to take the book away with me on retreat, to really gain from it.