Homily

Homily (pronounced hom-uh-lee)

(1) In Christianity, a kind of sermon, usually on a Biblical topic and often of a practical, non-doctrinal nature.

(2) An admonitory or moralizing discourse.

(3) A platitude or cliché intended to be inspirational.

1545-1555: From the Middle English omelī, omelīe & omelye, from the twelfth century Old French omelie (which persists in Modern French as homélie)and the Ecclesiastical Latin homilia & omilia (homily; a sermon), from the Ancient Greek ὁμιλία (homilía) (homily; instruction), from ὅμῑλος (hómīlos) (an assembled crowd; a throng), from the primitive Indo-European somalo- (a suffixed form of the root sem- (one; as one, together with) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā) (the suffix used to form abstract nouns).  The construct of the Greek ὅμῑλος was ὁμός (homós) (common; same) + ῑ̓́λη (ī́lē) (crowd), from εἴλω (eílō) (to aggregate).  The related common forms in Greek were homilia (conversation, discourse) & homilein (to converse with) and were cognate with the Sanskrit melah (assembly) and the Latin miles (in the senses of “an ordinary soldier”).  Under ecclesiastical influence, the Latinate form was restored in sixteenth century English.

The noun homilist, dating from the early seventeenth century described one who delivers a homily (although in some parishes in England the word was applied to a deacon or other junior cleric who wrote the text of a homily or sermon to be delivered by a bishop, dean etc).  The adjective homiletic was first recorded in the 1640s and was used to mean “of or pertaining to sermons” and was from the Late Latin homileticus, from the Ancient Greek homiletikos (of conversation, affable, a conversationalist), the related form the rare homiletical which rarely escaped the specialized field of study in divinity known as homiletics, a discipline which created also homilete & homiletical.  A bound or published collection of homilies or sermons is a homiliary (1844), a name used first in 1844 and they remain a feature of church publishing, especially those of leading figures (popes, archbishops et al).  The homiliary of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger, b 1927; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus since) is an outstanding collection and an illustration why he remains the best pope since Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli 1876-1958; pope 1939-1958).  Homily is a noun & adverb, the noun plural is homilies.

The words homily and sermon are sometimes used interchangeably and not always without justification because, if one respects the traditional distinctions, there are sermons which read like homilies and vice versa.  In the Christian churches (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran religions), a homily is commentary delivered by a priest or deacon after the reading of scripture, the purpose being to reduce the sometimes abstract theological issues raised to something practical and expressed in a conversation voice; it's essentially an explanation of the passage from the Bible.  Sermon was from the Middle English sermoun, from the Anglo-Norman sermun (and the Old French sermon), from the Latin sermō & sermōnem (speech or discourse).  A sermon is a speech or discourse on theology or morality and may be in direct reference to a scriptural text but may also be an abstraction from Christian teaching or indeed any matter of morality or which touches on some matter of religious significance.  Strictly speaking, sermons need not be restricted to what is delivered as part of a service and indeed can be book-length endeavors which hints perhaps at why “sermon” is also casually used to mean a tedious and usually long lecture delivered as an admonishment.  The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965) muddied the waters and it’s tempting to think it was the negative association of the word “sermon” (until then the commonly used word) which convinced the bishops to rebrand the message delivery system as "homily".  This may also account for why some believe the two interchangeable.

The classic (if not now exactly typical) sermon in Christianity is the The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin in which it was called Sermo in monte), an assembly of words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth and found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5-7) that encapsulates his moral teachings.  It is the first of five discourses in the Gospel and remains one of the most extensively quoted (and misquoted).  Winston Churchill, no moral theologian and self-described as “an external buttress rather than a pillar of the Church” thought “Christ’s story was unequalled and his death to save sinners unsurpassed” and “the Sermon on the Mount was the last word in ethics” but while he always admired the teachings, he didn’t always follow their strictures and probably imagined God would forgive his sins because he “had a few runs on the board”.

The idea of the homily or sermon isn’t restricted to Christianity.  The Prophet Muhammad delivered the last sermon (or Khutba) on Friday, ninth Dhul Hijjah (twelfth month of Islamic year), in mount Arafat’s Uranah Valley, the message delivered to humanity, telling all they are accountable to God for their deeds.

O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and TAKE THESE WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.

Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion…All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety (taqwa) and good action.

Archbishop Porteous and the place of women & others

Homilies can be deployed as sword or shield and sometimes there’s a bit of overlap.  Late in October 2022, in faraway Tasmania, Archbishop Julian Porteous (b 1949; Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hobart since 2013) decided to use his Sunday homily to attack those who opposed him interpolating a so-called “submission reading” into the graduation mass he was to conduct at St Mary's College, an all-girls Roman Catholic school.  The reading the archbishop agreed to drop from the service was from Ephesians 5: 21-33 (KJV 1611):

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.  Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.  Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:  For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.  Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Apparently the archbishop intended to use a newer translation, thinking, not unreasonably, the archaic phrasing of the King James Version (1611) might make elusive the meaning he was trying to convey but why he thought the modernized text might be better received by the girls isn’t clear:

Wives should regard their husbands as they regard the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of his wife; and as the Church submits to Christ, so should wives submit to their husbands, in everything.

Archbishop Porteous summing up.

Tasmania however has moved on from the seventeenth century (and even from 1997 when it was the last Australian jurisdiction to remove the criminal sanction for homosexual acts between men) and the reaction among staff, students and parents was swift, the backlash accelerated by the inevitable social media pile-on.  Doubtless disappointed by his flock's response, the archbishop felt compelled to change his script although he seemed unconcerned about whether a passage demanding women submit to the demands of their husbands upon marriage was an appropriate choice to deliver to young women celebrating graduation, many of whom were soon to begin higher education as a prelude to professional careers.  Nor did he comment on the possible implications of the phrase “so should wives submit to their husbands, in everything” in a country where in some jurisdictions, because the inheritance of English common law, it wasn’t until the 1990s that it became possible to prosecute cases of rape within marriage.

The archbishop had other worries and in his Sunday homily noted it was "not unusual for the teaching of sacred scripture to be at variance with the attitudes and ethos of our age", adding that increasingly Christians were being “criticized and persecuted because we believe what the scriptures teach and we desire to live by its imperatives, even when they are at variance with the ethos of our times."  Of particular interest to the archbishop (and others) was the recent case of a Christian who was compelled to resign from an appointment as Chief Executive Office with an Australian Rules (AFL) club (the AFL itself something of a religion among many) after it was revealed the “City on a Hill” church (where he sits on the board) had published a series of articles critical of homosexuality and abortion.  Promptly, the club issued a statement saying the church’s views were contrary to the club's values and handed its CEO an ultimatum requiring he either disavow the position of his church or resign as CEO.  He chose his faith (in Christ, not the Essendon Football Club) and submitted to corporate crucifixion.

Drawing the comparison between one line of his reading from Ephesians and one fragment of a statement from the City on the Hill being taken out of context, he concluded "This tells us that our society is becoming increasingly hostile to Christian beliefs found in sacred scripture and actually to demand that people abandon their Christian faith if they wish to exercise public office.”  He went onto explain the theological basis of St Paul’s words in Ephesians and how they were such a radical approach to enhancing the status of women and the sanctity of marriage in what was still a pagan society, issuing a statement noting scripture needed to be read “within the total understanding of the faith” and that “…taking one sentence in isolation fails to do this”.  In that he’s correct but it’s unlikely the bolshie schoolgirls will be much impressed with his nuances.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), recently married to Credit Suisse trader Bader Shammas (b 1986) is thought unlikely to “submit to her husband in everything”.  It would be out of character.

Not helping the archbishop in his latest battle in the culture wars was that he has “a bit of previous” in the assault on modernity.  In 2015 he distributed to some 12,000 families with children in Tasmanian Catholic schools a pamphlet entitled "Don’t Mess With Marriage" in which it was argued that those from the LGBTQQIAAOP community "pretending that their relationships are ‘marriages’ is not fair or just to them."  It must have taken some intellectual gymnastics to reach that conclusion and even with a most careful reading the Old and New Testaments, while it’s not hard to work out that for men to lie with other men as others might with women is as much an abomination to the Lord as it would be for them to lie with beasts of the field, it’s hard to find a passage where there’s much concern for fairness towards them.  Still, the archbishop will be better acquainted with scripture than most so his insights may reveal a rare vision.  The pamphlet aroused the ire of the usual suspects and there were attempts to have the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner take the case but their interest was hard to arouse and after a desultory six months of meandering, the matter was withdrawn.