
It was sometime in mid-2012. I was going down the YouTube rabbit hole and stumbled across a video from a young-ish American priest talking about discernment. The production quality of the video was low, likely filmed on an iPhone 4 or similar, but the message was so good that it prompted me to look for more.
A quick Google search led me to a single-page website that contained links to download mp3 files of homilies preached by this priest as far back as 2007. Like the YouTube video that sent me there, the website was of low quality, as were many of the audio recordings, but the content was solid gold.
I downloaded all the homilies and burned them onto a CD so I could listen to them in my car. Each homily ran for somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes, but the priest managed to hold my attention the entire time and I think I probably listened to each homily numerous times.
I’m told that at the time, the simple homily website—the University of Minnesota, Duluth Newman Catholic Campus Ministry page—was the fastest-growing Catholic website in the world. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true because the university’s chaplain, Father Mike Schmitz, is now one of the most listened to Catholic clerics in the English-speaking world. From the Bible in a Year to the Catechism in a Year (both chart-topping podcasts), to much higher quality homily recordings to countless YouTube videos explaining discrete aspects of the Catholic faith, many Catholics across the Anglosphere have learned so much from Father Mike.

I was thinking about how much of my own formation I can attribute to Father Mike and his very long homilies after reading that, at a recent Wednesday general audience about proclaiming the Gospel and evangelisation, the Holy Father cautioned against homilies that went for 20 or 30 minutes. In the address, the Holy Father said that it was very important homilies “never exceed 10 minutes” and even drew applause from the crowd gathered when he said that preaching is not understood after eight minutes.
Now, I know the Holy Father does not think that the evangelistic efficacy of a homily can be determined with a stopwatch, because the point he was making about homily length was to illustrate his broader call about the need to preach Christ and not oneself and presumably, the length of a homily can be an indicator of whether a homily is more about the preacher than the one preached.
This is not the first general audience in which the Holy Father has proposed an eight-minute homily, nor is it the first time those present have applauded the suggestion, so it is obviously more than a throwaway line.
While I understand the need for some guidance to be given on length, I am not sure too strong or strict a focus on timing is particularly helpful for the preacher or the congregation because it places form over substance.

Yes, we’ve all heard homilies that have gone for way too long, whether they be in the 20 to 30-minute range decried by the pope, or even a shorter homily that could have easily been delivered in half the time but had been “padded out” to achieve the “ideal” length. But I’m sure we’ve also heard homilies that were so good and helpful that we had wished they had gone much longer.
I’m not in the business of giving homily advice, but it seems to me that instead of an optimal length, it might just be a matter of advising guys to prayerfully prepare, to know their congregation well enough to know the amount and depth of content they are able to receive, and then to just do their best and leave the rest up to the Holy Spirit.