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The Three Responses to the Good News of Great Joy

Our Responses to the Good News of Great Joy can be broken down into three (3) distinct camps.

  1. The first camp consists of those who are seeking God. God's invitation to come home to a life of happiness with Him has been delivered to them and they have accepted it. They are traveling on the road home, They are passing through the landmarks. Their hand is on the plough and they are not looking back (Luke 9: 62). Their zeal for God can be characterized as hot.(Revelation 3:15-16). They are the saints on earth.

  2. The middle camp consists of ditherers, vascillators and those ignorant of God's invitation to come home to a life of happiness with Him. Much of humanity can be found in this camp. The goal of a preacher is to get them to move into the first camp.

    The Ignorant have not heard the good news of great joy so they can neither accept it or reject it. Until the good news of great joy is preached to them (Acts 1:8), they exist in a state of ignorance. They do not know that something better than godlessness is out there.

    The ditherers have heard the good news of great joy but have neither accepted it or rejected it. They sit on the fence. They are indifferent. They have not made up their minds. They are lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16). They have not asked themselves the question, 'how do we get there from here?' and place no importance in passing through the landmarks that define the road home to a life of happiness with God. They do not seek God but the false gods whose domain is godlessness.

    The vascillators have heard the good news of great joy and have accepted it. Then they reject it. Then they repent and accept it. They seek God at one moment and do not seek God at other moments. They put their hand to the plough and look ahead; then they take their hands off the plough and look behind (Genesis 19:26). They make it their business to pass through the landmarks that define the road home to a life of happiness with God; then they don't. They live in the world of godlessness at one moment and the world of God in another. They run hot and cold for God (Revelation 3:15-16). Their faith ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes. Their vascillations make them appear at times to be in the first camp (2 Timothy 4:7) and at times to be in the third camp.

  3. The third camp consists of those who have rejected God and declined His invitation to come home to a life of happiness with Him. They prefer godlessness. Their zeal for God can be characterized as cold (Revelation 3:15-16).

The subject matter of a sermon or homily must match the audience.

It is safe to say that the ladies and gentleman attending the daily 7:00am mass for decades are seeking God having accepted God's invitation to come home to a life of happiness with Him. There is nothing more incongruent than a priest who addresses this audience by condemning them as sinners. Such preaching is both incompetent and mean.

During Mass or Reconciliation, the audience consists mainly of members of the first camp, vascillators in their zealous phase, and a few ditherers brought there by their friends. Most in attendance are passing through the landmarks that define the road home to a life of happiness with God on a regular basis. Passing through the landmarks tells them they are heading in the right direction. The subject matter of a sermon or homily to them ought to be a joyous confirmation that they are on the right track, an explanation of the landmarks, encouragement to keep their eye on the prize and their hand on the plough (Luke 9: 62) and an explanation of the efficacy of Reconciliation if they should get detoured or sidetracked. A homily or sermon to them is what is meant by the phrase, preaching to the choir. The members of this audience are the ones who are bearing fruit "some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty" (Matthew 13:23)

The ignorant, the ditherers and the oscillators in their godless phase generally will not be found at Mass or at the other sacraments. It is about the ignorant, ditherers and oscillators that God said, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:36-38). To harvest such souls and get them to move into the first camp, a preacher must leave the comfort of His Church and go to the places of the ignorant, the ditherers, and the oscillators in their godless phase. It is easy to work with the members of the first camp; they come to the preacher to pass through the sacraments. it is harder to work with the members of the middle camp. The preacher must go to them. This is "a third luminous mystery" preacher. It is easy to preach to the choir. It is harder to preach to those who are not a member of the choir.

The last audience consists of those who have rejected God and do not seek Him. These are the hardest audience to reach. Prayer and fasting not preaching is more effective against them (Mark 9: 17-29)

Know thy audience and address it accordingly