ST. CLEMENT MARIA HOFBAUER, C.SS.R.:
The Preacher

(from St. Clement Maria Hofbauer: A Biography translated from the German original written by Rev. John Hofer, CSSR.--a selection from Part 4, chapter 7, "Pastoral Scenes from the Saint's life in Vienna")

***Note some pertinent parallels to today and to the Pope's call for a 'new evangelization.'***

"The Gospel must be preached anew!" (Clement Hofbauer)

I. Hofbauer as Preacher

Not a single sermon of his has been preserved to us in its entirety. In fact, he never wrote his sermons; he seldom made even a written sketch of his discourses. Contemporary reports, however, give us a clear idea of his manner of preaching, which they describe as altogether unique. His sermons, at least those he preached in Vienna, were neither set, formal discourses, nor fully developed homilies; rather they partook of the nature of both, and, because they could not be classified under either head, would probably find little favor in the eye of a critical homilist. 

His usual methods were the following: He would read the Gospel, and would interrupt the reading to interpolate or add some explanatory remarks, as he frequently did during the early days of his sacred ministry; or, he would take up one text of the Gospel after another, dwelling longer upon some, passing over others more quickly; or again, he would build up a catechetical instruction or a moral sermon upon a single text, contrast with this teaching the views and customs prevailing among men at the time, and then with fervent words exhort his hearers to a reformation of life. 

In this way he would at times touch upon several subjects in one and the same sermon. Thus, on September 10, 1815, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, he spoke on the desecration of the Sunday, the infallibility of the Church, the veneration of the Blessed Mother of God, and the Religious Life. Formerly he had been permitted to preach every day; now he was obliged to compress all he wished to say to the people into one Sunday sermon.  (Compare this with the strict method of his homiletic sermons during his stay in Warsaw. That he did not entirely abandon this method after he came to Vienna, we learn from a witness who tells us that the Saint once based his Lenten Sermons on the first texts of the Book of Genesis).

Nor were the external form and the diction of his sermons such as to conceal their flaws of technique. Hofbauer did not possess the gifts of an orator. The manner in which he was obliged to complete his ecclesiastical studies and the long periods he spent abroad, may explain why the style and idiom of his German were not faultless. Apparently he paid little attention to language. He clothed his ideas in the simplest expressions. He possessed no copious vocabulary, and hence made use of the same stereotyped expressions over and over again. The first impression that his sermons made on educated persons was far from favorable.

And yet, for many years together, Hofbauer was the most successful preacher in the pulpits of Vienna. The written text of his sermons, even if they had been preserved to us, would never reveal the secret of their singular appeal. Two facts, that had little to do with their style or delivery, explain their magnetism: first, they were distinctly unlike the sermons generally preached in Vienna at the time; and second, the Saint's simplest utterances in the pulpit were permeated with a faith that was as deep as it was childlike.

Since the days of the Emperor Joseph II, the strictly Catholic sermon had gradually disappeared from the pulpits of Austria. During the period when the "Illuminati" were in power, a relentless warfare was waged against preachers of the orthodox Catholic doctrine, who found that their bitterest opponents were the so-called "Illuminati"  members of the clergy. The result soon became evident. It was now a rare thing indeed to hear specifically Catholic doctrine preached from the pulpit. Instead there was merely that superficial talk of a universal Christianity, those empty platitudes about universal charity, and that cheap moralizing which the " Illuminati " brought into the pulpit. 

Illustrative of the tendencies of the times is this remark of Kral, already spoken of as one of Hofbauer's disciples: "A sermon on the Catholic Church was so rare an occurrence that we young people rejoiced when the preacher merely mentioned the words 'the Holy Catholic Church' in the pulpit." 

Another contemporary and member of the Hofbauer Circle, Frederick von Held, asserts that both in society and in the pulpit it came to be a point of etiquette to avoid all reference to the revealed religion. Phrases directly expressive of Catholic teaching or even of ordinary Christian doctrines had been relegated to the dictionaries. The spirit of the Government moved in the selfsame direction. The civil authorities frowned upon every clear exposition of religious truth. As Beidtel observes, they seemed to fear, "that a clear knowledge of Catholic dogmas might give birth to sectarian views, and that a clear knowledge of the history of the Church might lead the common people to compare the present with the past."

Hofbauer's sermons must have acted like high explosives hurled into the camp of the enemy. He had no regard for prevailing opinions when there was question of Religion and Faith. The Holy Eucharist, the Veneration of the Blessed Virgin and of the Saints, Confession, Indulgences, Purgatory, Hell, the Devil--these and other ostracized truths he fearlessly preached from the pulpit, and with the greatest clearness, heedless alike of prohibitions and of popular opinion. 

The subjects to which he was ever reverting with special emphasis, however, were the Church, the Authority of the Church, and the Papacy. Nowadays such topics are nothing new or striking in the Catholic pulpit; but in those days such sermons were extremely few and far between. The people, who at heart had remained staunch Catholics, were overjoyed at hearing again a truly Catholic preacher who was not afraid to speak out and call things by their proper names. 

With Hofbauer the Catholic sermon was restored to honor. Then, too, the manner of Hofbauer's preaching had its own special appeal: it was so different from the stiff, formal, polished style of the fashionable preacher. Hofbauer was in the fullest sense of the term a popular preacher; he preached according to the inspiration of the moment, not according to a studied, premeditated sketch. He was not always choice in his expressions; at times he was even coarse. A contemporary describes him as a natural, agreeable, and jovial preacher.

Nevertheless, the people not only listened to his sermons willingly and interestedly, but returned to their homes different men and women. When those witnesses who had once heard him preach came to speak of the effects produced by his sermons, they always expressed the greatest surprise that a method of preaching so unpretentious should bring forth such remarkable fruits. 

"People in his audience burst into tears, repented and renounced sin, and resolved to lead virtuous lives; such," declares one of his hearers, "were the effects produced by Hofbauer's sermons." It was no unusual sight to see some one waiting for him in the sacristy immediately after the sermon, to consult him on some matter of conscience or to go to confession. 

A certain aged official declared that though he had previously heard many excellent and renowned preachers, he had always remained the same old sinner; but that a single sermon of Hofbauer's sufficed to convert him. The Saint's exhortations, couched as they usually were in pithy, striking sentences, clung to the memory for years; and even the tone of voice in which he uttered them was not soon forgotten.

The whole secret of this enviable success of the Saint's sermons, in spite of the absence of all rhetorical display, was thus summed up by one of his hearers: "The marvelous attractive power of his sermons must be traced to no other source than his strong, living faith--a faith that had become, as it were, the very breath of his life and an essential part of his very being, and which was mirrored in every feature of his countenance and in his every gesture and action. Thus, to give but a single example, when preaching on the Incarnation, he would reverently clasp his hands as he said: 'Our very own flesh He bath taken unto Himself.' These simple words, uttered with an apostle's conviction and accompanied by a gesture so expressive, impressed all his hearers, and especially me, so deeply that any doubt we might have had concerning the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ must at once have been dispelled." 

The same witness graphically describes Hofbauer's unique manner of preaching, when he declares that the Saint might truthfully have begun his every sermon with the words with which the Beloved Disciple begins one of his Epistles: "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled...we declare unto you." (1 John, 1) 

The message that Hofbauer announced from the pulpit was the message of one who had reached very close to the realm of vision. He did not advance many arguments for what he said; he stated and affirmed as one that had seen and heard and handled the things whereof he spoke. His sermons were public acts of faith that carried one irresistibly and victoriously along on the flood-tide of his own full convictions. 

What heart could have remained unmoved as it beheld him, vanquished by the power of his faith and love, sinking to his knees in the course of his sermons, to adore the Blessed Sacrament? At such moments he appeared to be transfigured. The calm, even tenor of his being then made way for the oncoming, panting surge of pathos; his countenance seemed aglow with a flame that was not of earth, and a lightning like brilliance flashed from his eyes. Some of his hearers even declared that they had beheld him surrounded by a heavenly light in the pulpit. Philip Veith in his old age was still wont to relate to his family how he had thus seen the Saint.

Hofbauer's audience was made up mostly of the common people. Gradually, however, persons of all classes and of every station in life went to hear him: students, savants, artists, public officials, and persons of the aristocracy. If he was ever tempted to defer in his sermons to the educated portion of his audience at the expense of the ordinary people, he never succumbed to the temptation. Even though he beheld among his listeners his most scholarly friends, such as Mueller, Schlegel, and Dorothy, he never deviated one jot or tittle from his usual practice of keeping his discourse intelligible to the most unlettered person present. 

He invariably began his sermons in the selfsame way: "Today I shall preach a sermon so plain and so simple that the most unlearned among you and even every little child will be able to understand it." He used this introduction so often that his auditors grew weary of hearing it. Still, the people realized fully that he would keep his promise to preach in a clear and simple style, so much so indeed that many mothers were soon observed bringing their children to his sermons and trying to keep them attentive.

That Hofbauer had found it necessary to discover new forms in which to clothe and reveal the truths of salvation, and that he applied himself to this task, but without success, is an assertion based upon a misunderstanding. The saying so often heard from his lips, and incorrectly quoted nowadays in support of this contention, namely, "that the Gospel had to be preached entirely anew," the Saint himself understood and meant in quite another sense. 

According to his own conviction and personal experience, Catholics to a great extent had lost the knowledge and comprehension of the body of Catholic teaching; the Gospel, therefore, must be preached anew that is to say, preached again--not necessarily in a new form or style, or as a novelty, as it must, almost of necessity, be preached in a missionary country to the heathen. 

It was for this very reason that he endeavored to be as plain and clear as possible in his pulpit utterances, so that all his hearers might easily understand him. The fact that Hofbauer attracted to his sermons and held about his pulpit men like Schlegel, Werner, Mueller, the philosopher Guenther, students and professors from the University, proves that a truly apostolic sermon can satisfy both the child and the learned adult. Such apostolic men are, of course, scarce. 

The average preacher cannot afford to set aside the helps of rhetoric as a Saint can. It may be remarked, however, that Hofbauer's sermons gained by the fact that his thoughts were not clothed in attractive language; the absence of literary ornamentation only served to make the vigorous beauty of his faith shine forth the more brilliantly. It was good, it was even necessary for Vienna to possess, besides its many fashionable preachers with their shallow rhetoric, such a preacher as Hofbauer. 

The common people were not slow to notice the wide chasm that yawned between him and them. One could frequently hear it said: "If you wish to hear a grand speaker, go to this or that church; but if you wish to hear an apostle, go to St. Ursula's."

It will suffice to add but a word about the preparation which Hofbauer made for his sermons. Guenther remarked that one could readily perceive that the sermons of this apostolic man were the combined product of previous meditation and of the inspiration of the moment. 

During the week he would get some one to read to him the Gospel for the following Sunday; and having heard the Gospel he would meditate upon it in his spare moments. At times, after only a few passages had been read, he gave a sign to the reader to stop by saying: "Sufficit! " ("That will do.") The thoughts suggested by the Gospel would pour in upon him like a steady stream. Usually it was Don Pajalich who did him this kindness. 

One day Hofbauer asked him what he considered the best preparation for a sermon; and without waiting for an answer, the Saint struck his knees with his hands, wishing thereby to signify that prayer was the most needful preparation for preaching the Word of God.

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