The Power of Stories in Preaching
Among the friars, there’s a well-known anecdote – told in many versions – about a time when someone asked a Jesuit, “Is it true you always answer a question with another question?” The Jesuit simply smiled and replied, “Who says that?”
A similar story could easily be told about the Dominicans, with the claim that every preacher has a story ready in response to any question. Ask a Dominican something simple, and often the reply is a tale – long, colorful, expansive. Some of our preachers can speak for hours, so vividly and richly, that one begins to wonder if they really had enough lifetime to experience it all. And what does any of it have to do with the question?
So if the reader can muster enough imagination, let them look at the General Chapter in this light. Let us imagine nearly a hundred brothers, coming from all corners of the world, each with their baggage of memories, images, languages, and histories. Each of them has seen beauty and touched the wonders that came from the hand of the good Lord. Each of them also knows what suffering, poverty, loneliness, and fear are. Some have experienced war, others struggle daily with hunger, natural disasters, and oppression. They are fluent in many languages, but they are most fluent in the language of human suffering.
Listening to the Parables of the World
In today’s homily, the preacher, Brother Luis Javier Rubio Guerrero, OP, reminded us that each of us – brothers preachers – is a confidant of parables. We are sent to listen to parables, to read them, and finally, to understand them:
“Today, as friar preachers, we must continue to ask ourselves if we are willing, like Dominic, to listen to the parables of this world, of the innkeeper, of the woman who had her son imprisoned, the parables of the poor of Palencia; and, today of so many men and women who suffer from war, economic insecurity, migration, while also listening to the parables of all those who have distanced themselves from the Church, of those who want to deepen their faith, of those who have not known the message of the Gospel, and of so many young people who live in discouragement or lack of meaning, as the Master of the Order invites us to do in his Relatio.”
All this, he pointed out, must be practiced in the spirit of “misericordia veritatis,” the mercy of truth, that is, an attitude open to the good and truth hidden in other people and in every event – even if it leads us down unexpected and difficult paths.
Yes, we know many parables. But we cannot close ourselves off to listening to new ones – new, difficult, often foreign to our experiences, yet very real and present.
Learning to Listen
The brothers came here from all over the world not only to speak. They also came – and perhaps above all – to listen: to each other, to other people, and to God himself. Today was spent in intense meetings and discussions. In the evening, there was a meeting with the former Superior General of the Order, Brother Timothy Radcliffe. He shared his experience, thoughts, and faith. He shared his parables about the good God, encouraging the brothers to have open and listening hearts.
Today’s Gospel, as the preacher reminded us, encourages us to have a heart of flesh, not stone. A heart that can listen and accept what reaches our ears and eyes.
“This exercise made our father a man of communion in the midst of divisions, facing with compassion the complex realities of his time, adapting the teachings of the Gospel to the needs of hope of his contemporaries, and transmitting joy to all those he met along the way.”
Communication Office of the General Chapter of Provincial Priors
Kraków, July 24, 2025
Photographs by: @dominikanie.pl
