Quote: Walter Burghardt, SJ

Our parishes and congregations often present a wide range of experience, income and education. You have to be able to use a vocabulary that everybody understands. This doesn’t mean that you are always using monosyllables. But most people will understand if you speak the language of ordinary conversation. Apart from the technical language, just talk to them so they feel that you are really talking with them. Somebody said to me that people don’t want to listen to homilies. My answer to that is that people don’t want to listen to bad homilies.