Church Life Today

 The McGrath Institute for Church Life, together with the John S. and Virginia Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics, is hosting a homily contest on preaching the Blessed Virgin Mary. We invite ordained Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons to submit a five-to-seven-minute homily (in either English or Spanish) for one of three Marian solemnities: the Annunciation (March 25), the Assumption (August 15), or the Immaculate Conception (December 8).Winning homilies will draw on a homiletic methodology that brings together careful treatment of Scripture (including the lectionary and the various propers of the Mass of the day) with a spiritual exegesis that unveils the meaning of the Marian feast for the lives of the faithful today. We have more information about this competition and means for submitting homilies in our show notes for this episode. Today on the show, Msgr. Michael Heintz of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and Notre Dame’s Department of Theology joins me to talk about the craft of preachin