1. Homily Helper Newsletter
What will you test?
This idea will consist of a newsletter email to be customized and sent out to the priests early in the week in order to begin preparing early for Sunday’s homily. The newsletter will contain a copy of The Observer, giving priests an idea of what sports teams are winning and what students on campus are talking about this week. Next, the newsletter will relay two different types of feedback from the priests’ previous homily; first, short responses to a question asking about the priest’s homily, as well as film of the priest giving the homily, so he can watch and pick up on things he may not be cognizant of while giving the homily. Lastly, the newsletter will give the Scriptures for Sunday’s Mass in order to aid preparation of the next homily.
Who, where, when, how?
The first aspect of this idea is collecting the feedback from students on the priests’ homilies. This data will be collected by our group designing a small, easy to use survey asking students to briefly discuss what they liked or didn’t like about the homily. After collecting this data, we will synthesize it and make it easy to read for the priests in the Homily Helper Newsletter. Next, we will work to film the homily of each priest we work with in order to give them the opportunity to watch film and recognize aspects of his preaching he may not be aware of while delivering the homily. This will be done either by the members of this group or someone else who will be at the given priest’s Mass who we will determine before the Mass starts. Lastly, we will add the Observer and the upcoming week’s readings, and compile all of this information on Sunday/Monday in order to distribute the Homily Helper Newsletter to the priests on Tuesday morning, giving them plenty of time to develop their homily throughout the week. This idea will be implemented the week after Easter, and then we will get together with the priests after the Sunday Mass to see if/to what extent the panel was helpful.
2. Feedback Panel
What will you test?
This idea will consist of priests giving their homilies to a panel of laypeople (undergraduates and/or MDiv students for example) before Sunday’s Mass, and receiving feedback and analysis on the delivery and content from the panel.
Who, where, when, how?
We plan on testing this idea in one location like a dorm chapel on campus where there the atmosphere of Mass is upheld and there is room for the priests to listen to one another if they choose to. We will choose the priests based on priests that we have interviewed and people they recommend would enjoy this idea. We will comprise the panel of students with different majors, geographic backgrounds, and genders.This will be done early in the week like on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening, giving the priests ample time to react and make adjustments to their homilies based on the feedback from the panel. This idea will be implemented the week after Easter, and then we will get together with the priests after the Sunday Mass to see if/to what extent the panel was helpful.
3. “So you think you can preach?”
What will you test?
This idea would consist of a student competition in which students would be tasked to prepare and deliver their own homily based on the Scripture readings, and the priests will be judges of the competition. This idea would work in two ways: first, giving the priests a different perspective on the readings, showing them how their audience sees as the important takeaways from the readings; second, giving the students an understanding and appreciation of how difficult the process of preparing and delivering a homily.
Who, where, when, how?
We plan on testing this idea within the individual dorms, having each dorm (that we have members residing in) have their own competition with the priests in residence as the judges. This will be done early in the week like on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening, giving the priests ample time to react and make adjustments to their homilies based on the students’ perspectives. This competition will be held the week after Easter, and then we will get together with the priests after the Sunday Mass to see if/to what extent this competition was helpful.