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Fr. Dick Bayuk, C.PP.S., in his presentation on preaching at the Cincinnati Province’s assembly in May, touched on points both divine and practical for Precious Blood preachers. Connecting the human and divine, Fr. Bayuk said good preachers use both spiritual inspiration and hard-won human experience in their preaching.

“We believe that we are able to see and encounter grace everywhere. That is a very Catholic notion. Not every denomination has that in its very marrow,” he said. “Ultimately, if we have spirituality without experience, then it’s an abstraction. Sometimes we want to downplay the importance of experience, but ultimately, that’s where theology begins. Spirituality that is not incarnated is just an ideology, unconnected to anything. The Eucharist, for example, is the experience of the incarnation in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s not just some sort of ritual that we go through. It’s incarnated. We are immersed into that experience.

“The Eucharist itself is a communal experience of spirituality. We commune for the purpose of being for one another that which we become: the body given, the blood poured out. That’s not the whole sum of the Eucharist, but that’s a point at which it is very much connected with our spirituality. We talk about being poured out for others, as the cup is poured out for us. That’s a very powerful image.”

Text and Photo courtesy of Jean Giesige, Cincinnati Province[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]