Preaching to the Christmas and Easter Crowd

Twice a year, the church fills. Folding chairs line the side aisles, the parking lot overflows, and the pew your daily communicants have occupied for twenty years is taken by a family you have never seen. For many priests and deacons, Christmas and Easter are exhausting — the most liturgically demanding days of the year, with the largest crowds and the least margin for error. But they are also the two days when the Catholics who have drifted away walk back through your doors on their own.

For a meaningful share of the people in front of you, this may be the only homily they hear all year. That is a sobering thought, and a hopeful one. What follows is a practical approach to the Christmas homily and the Easter homily when many of your listeners are returning Catholics — how to preach so that a person who has not been in a year leaves wanting to come back.

Who Is Actually in the Pews at Christmas and Easter

It helps to picture the congregation honestly, because on these days it is not one audience but several:

• Your faithful regulars, often tired — many of them serving as ushers, lectors, choir members, and sacristans on the busiest day of their year.
• The once- or twice-a-year Catholics, who still feel connected to the Church and would describe themselves as Catholic, but whose Sunday habit faded long ago.
• Visiting family, home for the holiday, some practicing elsewhere and some not at all.
• A non-Catholic spouse, fiancé, or friend, who came out of love for someone and may be quietly curious.
• The grieving, marking a first Christmas or Easter since a death, for whom the season's joy can feel almost unbearable.
• The quietly searching, who came because something in their life cracked open this year.

Your homily has to reach all of them without talking down to the regulars or over the heads of the visitors. The good news is that the great mysteries of these two feasts are exactly what every one of them needs to hear.

Resist the Joke About Seeing Them at Easter

There is a familiar genre of Christmas and Easter humor from the ambo: "Look at all these new faces!" or "Merry Christmas — and since I probably won't see some of you until then, Happy Easter!" It usually gets a laugh. It almost always does damage.

The people who have been away hear it as confirmation of their worst fear: that the Church is keeping score, and that they are noticed mainly for their absence. Whatever warmth follows in the homily has to climb out of the hole that one line dug.

The Gospel offers a better posture. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the landowner pays those who arrived at the last hour the same wage as those who worked all day, and he answers the grumbling of the early workers with a question: "Are you envious because I am generous?" (Matthew 20:15). Whoever arrived tonight — whatever hour of their spiritual life it is — has arrived. Treat them as guests of honor, not latecomers.

Preach the Mystery, Not the Menu

It is tempting to use the largest crowd of the year to advertise everything the parish offers: the new youth group, the capital campaign, the Bible study that meets on Tuesdays. Save the announcements for a worship aid or a card in the pew. The homily is not the place for them.

People came — even if they could not put it into words — because something in them wanted to encounter the mystery at the heart of these feasts. So proclaim it, plainly and with conviction.

At Christmas, the mystery is that God did not wait for us to climb up to Him; He came down to find us, small and vulnerable, in a place where "there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7). For the person who has felt far from God, there is no better news: God is the one who comes looking. You can say, simply, that the child in the manger is proof that no one is too far away to be found.

At Easter, the mystery is that Christ is truly risen — not as a metaphor for springtime or a symbol of human hope, but bodily, historically, astonishingly alive. The angels' question to the women at the tomb is a question for everyone who arrives on Easter morning carrying grief, doubt, or disappointment: "Why do you seek the living one among the dead?" (Luke 24:5). Proclaim the Resurrection as the fact on which everything else depends. The returning Catholic does not need a lecture on the empty tomb's historicity; they need to hear someone who believes it say so.

Speak to Someone Who Hasn't Been Here in a Year

Without singling anyone out, you can speak directly to the experience of someone who has been away. A few sentences, sincerely meant, can do more than an entire homily of general encouragement:

"Some of us come here every week. Some of us have not been here in a long time. Maybe life got full. Maybe something hurt. Whatever brought you here tonight, I want you to hear this clearly: you are welcome. You belong here."

Notice what that does. It names the reality honestly, it refuses to assign blame, and it offers the one thing the returning Catholic most needs to hear. You can then connect it to the feast itself: the God who came looking at Christmas, or who conquered death at Easter, is the same God who drew them here tonight.

Keep It Short, Clear, and Warm

The Christmas and Easter liturgies are already long. The Easter Vigil, in particular, is a marathon of readings and sacraments. Families with young children are counting minutes. Visitors who are unfamiliar with the Mass are working hard just to follow along.

This is the day to preach your tightest homily of the year. Aim for one clear message — the one central message of the feast — and resist the urge to say everything you believe about the Incarnation or the Resurrection. For most parishes, eight to ten minutes is plenty. (Our article on homily length makes the case for shorter in more detail.)

Warmth matters as much as brevity. Smile. Look at people. Let your own joy in these mysteries show. Many returning Catholics have a memory of the Church as stern; a priest or deacon who is visibly glad to be preaching the Resurrection quietly overturns that memory.

Offer One Easy Next Step

The biggest mistake on these days is asking for too much. "Come back every Sunday" is a large ask for someone who has been away for years. It feels like signing up for a lifestyle change.

Instead, offer one small, specific, concrete next step. The most effective is often a reason to return the very next Sunday:

"Next Sunday, I'm beginning a four-week series on the questions people ask me most about the faith. If you've ever wondered about any of it, come back next week."

A homily series gives a returning Catholic a reason to come back that has nothing to do with obligation and everything to do with curiosity. Other easy next steps include a specific confession time during the week after Christmas or Easter, a welcome coffee after a particular Mass, or a card in the pew where newcomers and returning Catholics can leave their name and email. Whatever you choose, make it one thing, and say it clearly.

Prepare Your Regulars to Be Hosts

Some of the most important preparation for Christmas and Easter happens the Sunday before. Your faithful parishioners can make or break the experience for visitors, and they rarely think of themselves as hosts.

Use the homily or announcements on the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Palm Sunday to ask your regulars for a few specific things: move to the middle of the pew, give up the aisle seat, greet the person beside you, help a visitor find the page, and do not grumble — even under your breath — about someone sitting in "your" spot. Frame it as a work of mercy, because it is. A visitor who is welcomed warmly by the family in the next pew is far more likely to come back than one who is merely tolerated.

Follow Up in January and the Easter Season

A great Christmas or Easter homily opens a door; the follow-up keeps it open. Plan it before the feast:

• Send a short welcome note or email within a week to anyone who filled out a card.
• Use the Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, as a natural moment to preach about God's mercy to anyone who has been away.
• Consider offering Epiphany house blessings in January — a warm, natural reason to visit homes, including those of families you saw at Christmas.

Our guide to reaching Catholics who have stopped coming to Mass goes into this follow-up in more depth, and building a culture of welcome covers what happens when they return.

A Final Word

The first witnesses of both feasts were unlikely people. At Christmas, the news came first to shepherds — ordinary working men, far from the religious center of their world — and they "returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen" (Luke 2:20). At Easter, the first to hear were the women who came to the tomb expecting only to mourn.

The people who fill your church on these two days are not so different. Some came out of habit, some out of family obligation, some out of a longing they cannot name. Proclaim the mystery to them with joy and simplicity, give them one reason to come back, and trust that the God who came looking at Bethlehem is still looking — and has brought them to you.