Last month, a Northern Irish priest wrote in a local newspaper column that he had made a “deal” with his parishioners: all sermons from now on would be no more than five minutes.
Fr Paddy O’Kane said he was inspired by a trip to various parishes in Texas, and a comment from a caller to a radio show who asked him why he should bring his child to Mass when “all they do is yawn throughout a long sermon in a language they don’t understand”.
When Fr O’Kane announced he was cutting homilies to five minutes, “one wag shouted up: ‘Father, could you not make that four?’”
