Time! How long should the homily be? How long for Mass?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 06, 2024

Pope Francis has recommended that priests should limit their homilies to ten minutes: “After 8 minutes, preaching gets dispersive and no one understands. Never go over 10 minutes, ever! This is very important.” Of course, these were simply informal comments. There is no question here of an ecclesiastical directive or a formal canonical limit.

Personally, I’m inclined to agree that homilies should be fairly short—St. John Chrysostom notwithstanding to the contrary. Chrysostom means “golden-mouthed”, and some of his sermons lasted more than two hours, while others merely took “less than thirty minutes”. Of course, in those days, people did not sit in pews but either stood or walked around, often while chatting with their neighbors. Nonetheless, Pope St. Pius X named John Chrysostom the patron saint of preachers.

Faced with a long homily these days, sitting in reasonable comfort, we might instead let our minds wander or even doze off. I would hate to admit the number of times I’ve returned home without being able to remember even what the Gospel was about. So perhaps ten minutes is not an unreasonable upper limit. If so, I would expect homilies at daily Mass to be shorter. And I’ve known some priests who were famous for giving homilies of one or two sentences—homilies that were very hard to forget.

Still, while I am a fan of homiletic prudence, I’m not a fan of excessive regulation of preaching. I suspect, for example, that very few of those who attend daily Mass really need a homily at all, and I can still remember my boyhood when we didn’t get one except on Sunday. I’m almost always in a hurry at daily Mass, since the workday can’t start until it’s over. I try to slow myself down by making a deliberate holy hour before, after, or surrounding daily morning Mass. If I don’t make time then, I know “I’ll be too busy” later.

In this “efficiency mode”, my own preference is to hear something from the priest after the Gospel, but it upsets my precious schedule if the homily is longer than a few minutes. And if it goes to fifteen or twenty minutes…well, let’s just say that the last time my watch broke, I decided not to replace it, mostly for spiritual reasons.

In the same cantankerous spirit, I remember that my timeliness hero, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, exclaimed in September of 2023 that Sunday Masses that take 90 minutes are too long. A few months later, my older brother (who is a deacon serving at a parish in Florida) mentioned that the Sunday masses in their church, where the number of communicants is extremely small by our standards here in the Diocese of Arlington, were typically about an hour-and-a-half in length. Like Cardinal Dolan, I suggested that 90 minutes was pretty long. He agreed, but considered it a sign of life.

Active Participation

Now I suppose that Vatican II’s participatio actuosa (active participation) makes the time go faster for deacons, especially (or so I imagine) when they’re doing the preaching. But perhaps a better translation of “participatio actuosa” would be actual participation or “real and true” participation. The word does mean “active, busy, energetic”, but the phrase is not intended to mean mere “busy-ness” (a point which, for a long time after Vatican II, many seemed to forget).

The sense of the term, of course, is that we are not to be mere spectators at Mass. We are to enter into the spiritual work it represents, responding to the word of God and both offering and receiving the body and blood of Christ. We are supposed to be growing in Christian faith, hope and love, deliberately uniting ourselves with Christ, and deepening our commitment to His service.

Heaven to Jeff: That’s a lot harder when you’re always worried about your precious time.

The immensely popular conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh (who died in early 2022) used to describe his abilities as “talent on loan from God”. It might be taken as evidence for this claim that listening to Rush (which I only very rarely did, and never for more than a few minutes, because I’m “so busy”) was more enjoyable for me than attending Mass (a task on which I typically spend roughly four hours per week, excluding prayers before and after). The main problem, I think, is that I am impatient of ceremony of every kind.

It’s true: I dislike commencement exercises and graduation ceremonies (I never attended even my own once I got out of high school), I have no use for awards banquets, I do not participate in civic ceremonies, I’m not a big fan of birthday celebrations or house-warmings, and the list goes on. There is, after all, real work to be done.

I admit that, after much soul-searching, I did decide to attend my own wedding. Too many people today go overboard and consider that a bridge too far! But the problem is simple: If I’m a Catholic and I can’t make time for Christ, then I can’t remain joined to Christ’s body for very long—and that’s one attachment I will not relinquish, even if it takes time.

So keep me in mind, celebrants and preachers. Limit your homilies to ten minutes and don’t make the liturgy too ostentatiously long…unless you think it would be better for me to calm my racing mind and pay attention to Christ.

Because this is not my call. And, within reasonable limits, it is not even the Pope’s or the bishop’s. Slow me down or kick-start my day? Your decision: Listen to feedback, be realistic about your own abilities, and decide for the good of the souls in your care.

As long as I am here on earth, that will include me. For do you know what else is on loan from God? Time.