Homily

A homily is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, offering the public explanation of a sacred text or doctrine to a congregation. The word comes from the Ancient Greek homilia, meaning conversation or interaction among people, itself from homilos, a gathering. In the Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox churches a homily is typically delivered during Mass at the close of the Liturgy of the Word, and the term is often used as if interchangeable with sermon, though the two are usually understood as distinct: a homily stays tied to the passage of scripture just read, where a sermon can range more widely. Origen is credited as the first to draw a technical line between logos, or sermo, and homilia, or tractatus, a distinction traced through his own writing and that of John Chrysostom, whose Paschal Homily is still cited as a model of the form.