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Parish priest cuts homilies to five minutes 12.06.17

A PRIEST has promised to cut his Sunday homilies to just five minutes to stop people getting "bored" at Mass.
Culdaff-born Fr Paddy O'Kane said he learned on a recent pastoral sabbatical to Texas that the best homilies are "short", "spoken from the heart" and "not read from a script".
And he agreed with the view that "Mass can be so boring".
"Many of us priests, including myself, are under the illusion that our homilies are more interesting than they really are..," he said.
"A wise old priest once told me,‘If you cannot strike oil in the first five minutes, better stop drilling’."
Fr O'Kane, who is parish priest at Holy Family, Ballymagroarty, Derry, said he has now "made a deal" with parishioners to slash the time they have to listen to him on a Sunday.
He said he also came to this decision after being invited onto a number of national and local radio stations recently to discuss his controversial views on the materialism now associated with First Holy Communion.
"One man made a fair point in Co Kildare," Fr O'Kane said in his weekly column.
"He asked, ‘Why should I bring my child to Mass when all they do is yawn throughout a long sermon in a language they don’t understand? Father, Mass can be so boring’. I had to agree," added the Inishowen-born cleric.
Fr Paddy O'Kane.
"However, because of my Texan view–from–the–pew experience and validity of that radio comment I made a deal with the people here last weekend, namely approximately five-minute homilies from now on. One wag shouted up ‘Father , could you not make that four?" he quipped. He also urged local youngsters to attend the weekly Children’s Liturgy each Sunday “where the Word of God is explained in simple language”.
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