Searching Catholic Homily Resources

Father O'Brien
Father O'Brien Member Posts: 10
edited November 20 in Resources Forum

I was doing a search on Mk 4:26–34 I know that in one of my resources, "The Word for Every Season" there is a homily associated with this passage but when I do a search it tells me that there are no homily resources. I have other homily resources associated with that passage but they also do not come up. I tried various was of searching. The only way I can get to it is by going directly into the source and scrolling down to it. I have reindexed my library thinking that may have been the problem. Any thoughts or suggestions in regards to this would be appreciated. Thanks

Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,403

    I suspect that I know why you didn't get the results you want but I need to know exactly how you Searched for it? If you used the Search panel, what did you use as the search argument?

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Father O'Brien
    Father O'Brien Member Posts: 10

    I did the search through the Sermon Starter Guide and tried a few different search arguments:

    Mk 4:26–34

    Kingdom of God

    Mustard Seed

    When nothing came up under that search I called up the resource that I knew had a homily associated with the passage and searched within the source itself and it gave zero results

    I also closed everything and did a search all text in all resources just on Mk 4:26–34 and received zero results

    Thanks for taking the time to assist with this.

  • Brian Losabia
    Brian Losabia Member Posts: 245

    Hi Fr. Nick,

    Searching for Mk 4:26-34 is looking for that exact sequence of characters.  If you want to search for citations of that passage, you should search for <Mk 4:26-34> in angled brackets.  This will still be a Basic type search.

  • Father O'Brien
    Father O'Brien Member Posts: 10

    Hello Brian,

    Thanks for your input. I added the brackets and it made a difference to a degree. It appears that my resource "The Word for Every Season" as well as a couple others, don't fall under under the "sermon" category when doing a search under the "Sermon Starter Guide" 

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,403

    That is likely correct. Special tagging is required to appear under the sermon section and many resources have not yet been updated to include it.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Louis St. Hilaire
    Louis St. Hilaire Member, Logos Employee Posts: 513

    We're going to update the The Word for Every Season to add Catholic calendar milestones, so things will be easier to find that way. However, we limit sermon tagging to texts that are actually intended for preaching, and, technically, The Word for Every Season consists of reflections rather than texts actually delivered or intended to be delivered as homilies.

    I realize that, looking at form alone, books of reflections like this are in something of a gray area between the homiletical and devotional, but the plan is make devotions and reflections like this that are keyed to the liturgical calendar accessible in a manner similar to commentaries in guides and tools based on the liturgical calendar.

    In the short term, the best approach might be to create a collection containing the resources you want to search. You can then create a custom Sermon Starter Guide that includes a search of the collection.

    Fr. Nick, you mentioned that there are other homily resources that you're expecting to see but not finding. If you can name some of these we can evaluate them for any tagging they might be missing.