We’re talking evangelization and preaching, so here are a few good examples for your edification of priests doing great preaching and making the fruits of their labors available on the Web:

Fr. Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Fr. Phillip Powell, OP, currently at the U. of Dallas:

Go and do likewise. Let me say out loud what I would be willing to bet most of us are thinking: “I’m not doing that.” Maybe you aren’t being that blunt. Maybe you’re just worried about how difficult a thing it would be to imitate the Samaritan. Or maybe you trying to work it out in our head how you could do what he did without actually getting too involved with the victim himself. I’m willing to bet that some of you are thinking these things b/c every time I read this gospel I think, “I don’t have the time, the money, or the patience to get that involved with someone I don’t even know! And my eternal life depends on this?” I immediately start to think of ways to turn the story into something other than a direct order to serve those most in need. For example, this is some sort of vague tale of angels coming to help men—one of those Feel Good moments when we have to hope on the goodness of the supernatural b/c we can’t trust the natural. But, no matter how hard I try, how hard you try, the story remains…as is.

And I wonder why Jesus tells the story. Of course, he’s instructing the scholar of the law who is worried—as lawyers often are—about his own liability under the Law of Love. The scholar has the philosophy of mercy exactly right. Jesus says, “You have answered correctly…” The more difficult moment, however, comes when he says, “…do this and you will live.” Be merciful and you will have eternal life. Jesus tells this story of compassion b/c he dies on the cross for us all. Everyone. Without a single exception. And he means for us to understand that it is not enough for us to “get” the theology right, to grasp the philosophy correctly. Our merciful intent is a ghost in the brain if it will not animate our hands and hearts. Think: what if Jesus had merely thought about suffering and dying for us. Mused on the idea of saving us. Sat safely under the shade of a fig tree and contemplated the wisdom of offering himself as a victim for our sins. Would we have the Holy Spirit kicking us in the rear, thumping us on the head to go and do likewise? Maybe. But what difference would it make? In fact, how exactly would we be any different than the priest and Levite who see the beaten man and cross the road to avoid him? Caring compassionately for your neighbor is not an abstraction. It is a matter of our salvation. How perfectly inconvenient! What a huge nuance.

Fortunately, we do not have to decide to be merciful all alone. When Jesus says, “Go and do likewise,” he is also saying, “I am with you always.” When he says, “Be merciful and you will live,” he is also saying, “You know what mercy looks like b/c I have been merciful to you.” Indeed, he has rescued us from the pit and now we are freer than ever to help him rescue others. If we have a job description as Christians, it is this: out of the love Christ has shown us, we must love and be merciful.

That is a truly inconvenient truth.

And then, someone new to me, even though I actually met him over a year ago.

Last week, I was driving around, as I am wont to do, and flicked on Catholic radio. A male voice was speaking – informally, but confidently. Teaching some good stuff. I had no idea who it was. I went home and looked up the schedule and found it was Fr. John Riccardo.

I spoke in Fr. Riccardo’s parish in Troy in spring of ’06, during the great DVC Flood, and met him briefly. I’d also heard him briefly interviewed on Teresa Tomeo’s show a couple of times. He’s now in Plymouth, Michigan,  (most recent bulletin – pdf file. Big, big parish!) and this page contains links to various fruits: articles, podcasts, texts of homilies. I know that Fr. Riccardo has also done a lot of good work with local evangelical pastors.  I highly recommend a listen if you can.

Oh, and then there’s this fellow, via Sandro Magister:

The words that Benedict XVI speaks every Sunday at midday, before and after the Angelus – the “Regina Coeli” during the Easter season – are among those most closely followed by the media.
But the media almost always reproduce only those words of the pope that pertain to situations or events in the news, especially when these are political.
For example, on Sunday, September 30, it was Burma, the two Koreas, and sub-Saharan Africa. The Sunday before that, it was his views on capitalism and the “logic of profit.” And the Sunday before that, the Montreal protocol on the hole in the ozone layer…
What the media say and write gives listeners and readers the impression that the pope dedicated his entire message to the topic cited.
But that’s not the case. It is almost always during the greetings in various languages, which he extends to the faithful after the praying of the Angelus, that Benedict XVI dedicates to current issues just a few brief remarks that are then emphasized by the media.
The real and proper message comes before the prayer. And it is – with rare exceptions – a brief homily on the Gospel and the other readings of that day’s Mass.
This little homily is most of what is heard by the great numbers of faithful who come to each Sunday noontime encounter with the pope, at Saint Peter’s Square in Rome and at Castel Gandolfo in the summer.
These are texts unmistakably conceived and written by pope Joseph Ratzinger. In some cases, it is easy to note similarities with his book “Jesus of Nazareth,” in the places where he discusses the same passage from the Gospel.
As in the Wednesday catecheses Benedict XVI is gradually recounting the life of the Church from the Apostles to the Fathers, so in the Sunday Angelus he is presenting to the faithful the figure of Jesus.
But there’s more. The path that the pope takes to get to Jesus each week is the same one that every member of the Catholic faithful travels in participating at Mass that same Sunday.
This is clearly a deliberate decision, and one typical of this pope’s vision. The Gospel upon which Benedict XVI comments at the Angelus is not “sola Scriptura,” it is not a bare book. It is the Word that becomes flesh – the body and blood of Jesus – in the liturgy of the day.
In order to raise to acceptable levels the average quality of the millions of homilies pronounced every Sunday all over the world, Catholic priests could do no better than to enroll themselves in the school of Benedict XVI’s Angelus addresses.
Here follows a sample of this preaching: the last seven “little homilies” he has dedicated to the Gospel passage of that day’s Mass, Sunday by Sunday.

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