Avoid this Spiritual Deepity: “Everything Happens for a Reason”

As priests and deacons, we often experience a perplexing and humorous reality regarding our preaching.  We are often surprised to hear people quote back to us different ideas or phrases from one of our recent homilies.  What people remember from a homily and what they insist helped them the most is often something that had nothing to do with the point we wanted to make!

What we think is the best part of the sermon often is forgotten for some other part that seems only secondary.   

This is why every part of a homily is important.  We don’t know what people are going to take to heart. 

Because of this, it is important to be careful with “spiritual deepities”.  These are those spiritual platitudes and spiritual cliches that we may say when we don’t exactly know what to say. These often are tempting to use to “land” a sermon, to close out a thought, or to summarize what has been said.

Some “spiritual deepities” are downright false and harmful.  Today, a spiritual cliché that is common to hear is “Everything happens for a reason”.

While the phrase can offer comfort, it can also be misleading to some people who sit in our pews.

It seems to imply a deterministic view that every event is directly willed by God, directly caused by God and directly wanted by God.  It can overlook the realities of human free will, original sin, and the presence of evil. Some events are the result of bad human choices or just natural consequences.

A person who has suffered any sort of tragedy will be hurt to think that God directly caused that which tore their life apart. The danger of this deepity to seriously wound a person is too much to risk.

And so, a tip for preaching is to be extra careful of the spiritual platitudes and cliches that one may employ while delivering a homily.  Listen to the end of a handful of your sermons and take note of the common wordings or phrases that you are using to finish up or summarize your homily.