Preaching

As you know, many seminaries send their advanced students into parishes for a kind of internship before ordination. As one such seminarian was concluding the last sermon of his internship, he noticed a woman in the congregation who was crying. Immediately after the final blessing, he went outside the church to ask the woman why she was crying and if he could be of any help. She said, “It’s because you are leaving us.” With greatly affected modesty he replied, “I’m sure they will send someone better to replace me.” Whereupon she really started crying and said, “Oh, that’s what you all say but every year it gets worse and worse.”