Ashley Green-Thompson runs an organisation that supports social justice action.
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I’ve been trying to be a good Catholic this Easter time and I’ve been going to church on Sundays. It’s Lent, so that’s one of the things you do. During this time, I’ve tried to listen attentively to the preaching and the readings as a way to be thoughtful, and reflective, and hopefully to be a better Catholic and ultimately a better citizen of the world. Each week the priest delivers a sermon where he explains what the readings are about.
These guys studied for years in the seminary so that they could help and guide the flock. Every Mass service has a decent amount of time for the sermon where the priest gets the mic to preach to the congregation. He has a captive audience – you have to listen to what he says, and you don’t get to discuss and argue about what he is saying, unless he is inclined to invite participation and conversation.
Mostly you just have to wait until afterwards when the service is over if you have something to say. So, you listen. I have to confess, though, sometimes the priests make it hard to comply. My regular parish priest is not known as a man of few words and can quite go on a bit if he’s in the mood. He invited a visiting deacon (not yet a graduated priest) to preach the sermon at one of the many services that happen on a Sunday. There’s a lot of Catholics in the area, and a decent time is allowed for the earlier service attendees to leave so that there is space for the next service. The young deacon was inspired that day, and very passionately exhorted us all to
prayer as the road to salvation. This would have been fine – passion is good. But once he had made his appeal to pray, that was it. He spent the next 25 minutes repeating the same message with slight variations on which words he used. By the time the service ended, the early arrivals for the next service were stuck in a traffic jam in the parking lot.
Being creatures of habit, there were many unhappy worshippers that day. I’m all for being inspired to great oration, but speaking from the heart is a sure-fire way to lose your audience. I start twitching, urging the next pause in the speech to be the closing. Or I get heart palpitations, especially at birthdays and weddings, because I don’t know what embarrassing bombshell the speaker will drop next. You remember the speech alright, but with real pain.
If you get offered the mic at any time, respect your audience. Repeating the same thing using different words doesn’t make it eloquence, or any more likely to be more meaningful or wise. Using big words too is also not advised. I follow some basic rules. Respect the time that people have given you to speak to them – at
school, at meetings or conferences, at weddings or funerals. They chose to listen to you rather than scrolling on their phones or chatting to their neighbour. Make it worth their while, so don’t be boring and monotonous in delivering your message. Sometimes humour works, but it can be risky. So avoid anything risqué or offensive, or that relies on stereotypes and popular prejudices to get a laugh. Try to be relevant to the crowd you’re addressing – something is always funnier if people can identify with it. But above all else, prepare.
Think about what you want to say and write it down. Practice reading it with a stopwatch so you know how much time it takes. Enough already with the off the cuff remarks when you had plenty of time to prepare. Maybe another time I’ll have a go at the speechwriters who work for politicians. Too many of them think that monotony implies gravitas and wisdom. It doesn’t, so please try harder.
