Prayer Courses for Priests: A Realism Bathroom at the service of the Gospel

The priest oratory courses are a necessary realism bath at the service of the Gospel, according to the testimony of those who have gone through them, despite taking decades preaching the Gospel, even through the media.

Fr. Ángel Moreno, pastor in the town of Argamasilla de Alba (Ciudad Real, Spain) and priest for 18 years shared with ACI Press that, despite the fact that presbyters are fundamentally dedicated to preach, and not only in homilies, “we feel like they have launched us to preach, but without much formation, learning self -taught.”

This is a certain risk, if one takes into account that the preaching is contemplated in the Priestly Training Plan of the Spanish Episcopal Conference Form missionary shepherds as “true touchstone to assess the proximity of a shepherd to his people.”

To ensure adequate training in this field, the Airamana Foundation is one of the entities it offers Prayer Courses for Priests In Spain, 100%subsidized.

“We are very good for the priests,” says Fr. Moreno, who was a student of the third edition. Especially, to give name and technique to aspects of the oratory to which “by necessity” had been launched as the years passed.

In addition to overcoming the fears in front of the camera “that imposed me a lot”, and to discover the usefulness of “listening to me the speed of speech, pronunciation, mode, shape”, for Fr. Moreno it has been key to understand that we must flee from improvisation: “They have insisted that any communication we carry it well prepared, with a scheme at least.”

An example of this was given by Pope Leo XIV, when he went to the faithful gathered in the Plaza de San Pedro and everyone, following some notes that he was written in the minutes that were from his choice in the conclave until his first speech as a pontiff.

The presbyter of the Diocese of Ciudad Real details that, although “it did not improvise much”, he has completely left it: “for example, for the homilies of Diario attempt even if it is to carry a prepared scheme” and, in addition, it tries to “take care of the pronunciation and also gesture.”

Fr. Alfonso del Río, a priest for 34 years, spiritual director at the Major Seminary of the Diocese of Getafe (Spain) and collaborator in Radio María Spain, was one of the first to join the courses of the Airamana Foundation.

“I was surprised, I changed my perspective and it has been a very big help,” thanks to the help of oratory professionals, journalism, communication and interpretation that made them “discover how important it is to put all the resources at stake at the service of the Gospel.”

“Not that one is a showman, but that all the capabilities one has, have to be channeled, get the maximum possible performance so that the evangelical announcement reaches the heart of others and cale in them, and moves them to a conversion, to a approach to Christ,” describes Aci Press.

In these formations, which are carried out throughout three consecutive Mondays, practices such as recording homilies that are then analyzed by experts are carried out.

“After having received a hard, but very necessary criticism from them, and the correction of many defects that we had in everything, in the posture, in the diction, in everything we saw the result and there is no color: it is much more communicative,” summarizes P. del Río, who acknowledges that submitting to this type of scrutiny “is Durillo, because one says: ‘After so many years, what are you going to teach me? Well, very much. ”

This seminarian trainer thanked the presence in the course of the founder and president of Airamana, Joaquín del Pino, who transferred a vision of the preaching from the point of view of the faithful who “many times they have to endure that, which is something joyful and expected – which they give me the bread of the word and crumble it, give it to me and serve as food -, it becomes a viacrucis Every Sunday.

“The voice of another is what speaks through one”

The seminarians told them after having passed through the course: “They are going to get you on the shoulders, because I have reduced it straightly, seeing that it is 7 in the morning and that it is not about crumbling all the Christian mystery, but to take a single idea and focus the homily in this unique aspect that I believe that the Lord highlights today for you. And point.”

As Corollary, P. del Río states that “it is not that one suddenly becomes a radio announcer, presenter of a television program, a showman, but one makes one present to another. The voice of another is the one that speaks through one and puts all its resources so that it is an effective communication with the receiver, which is the Christian people”.

In this sense, he concludes that both the parishioners of the parish in which he collaborates, but above all the seminarians, “have noticed it”, so he recommends to his presbyter fellow seeks to seek formation in oratory.