Preaching at the Areopagus, they laughed at him. Only a few were converted. Evangelically speaking, Paul’s famous sermon given before the good and the great of Athens was not all that successful. Bemused mostly, they thanked him for his words, asking him to come again some other time. We don’t know if he ever did. Probably not.

Paul’s sermon comes to mind reflecting upon Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. Like Paul, Bishop Curry spoke before the good and the great, an opportunity few preachers get—the opportunity to preach to the world.

But, from a homiletic point of view, was it successful? And what might preachers learn from this now globally famous sermon? What might Catholic preachers, so much in need of renewal, learn from this remarkable latter day example of an American Paul preaching before the areopagi of not only the world’s elite but also a billion screens?

Like St. Paul, Bishop Curry spoke before the good and the great, an opportunity few preachers get.

Before anything else, we learn that a preacher should not pass up an invitation to preach, anywhere, at any time.

Ready to give witness to the reasons for our hope, a preacher should be willing to stand up and speak, whether in the hallowed shrines of a former empire, a humble old parish or a dirty street corner. Each place is challenging in its own way, but the preacher should be willing to go anywhere, thankful people still want a preacher at all. Bishop Curry’s sermon should encourage us that preaching still has a part to play in the public sphere. This should inspire us to be ready.

We should also learn from Bishop Curry’s natural gifts. He instinctively understands what Aristotle taught long ago, that ethos and pathos matter but also lexis and taxis—that is, style and arrangement.

Fabricated and impersonal, too many Catholic preachers hide themselves, forgetting that personality matters in preaching.

Before my conversion, when I was still an Episcopal priest, I heard Bishop Curry preach once in North Carolina. What the world saw Saturday was vintage Michael Curry. Rhythmic, echoing not only Dr. Martin Luther King’s words but even his tone, Bishop Curry’s style bore witness to his ethos. And this is precisely what so much Catholic preaching lacks, what Yves Congar called “real” preaching. Fabricated and impersonal, delivered in what Bishop Kenneth Untener famously called the “pulpit tone,” too many Catholic preachers hide themselves, forgetting that personality matters in preaching, that one should preach from the heart.

And, if not fully respecting the privileged coiffed pathos of his congregation (hence the startled looks on so many faces), the bishop did what Aristotle said a good speaker should do—that is push, nudge and shape the emotions of listeners, in this instance in the “way of love.” Beyond the pomp and fantasy of a royal celebration, Bishop Curry challenged the world to discover love everywhere, in ourselves and in our ethics, to discover love’s power, as did African slaves long ago when they sang of that balm in Gilead that makes the wounded whole.

Though his sermon has been widely praised, Bishop Curry has been subject to some criticism. Did he preach Christ or rather some vaguer love for which Christ simply serves merely as an example? This, really, is a minor question, considering the moment. Paul preached an “unknown God.” Bishop Curry preaches a formerly known God. A God whose name is love. And as Paul had to start somewhere, so, too, did Bishop Curry—with a moment, the world watching, when two people sealed their love before a God so many have forgotten.

Which is the final lesson we Catholic preachers could learn—and that is how to preach to a people who know love but not so much its author. To preach more from the heart to a people still willing to listen, even if they no longer know why.

The Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield is a priest of the Diocese of Dallas and pastoral administrator of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas, Texas. He is also a regular contributor to The Dallas Morning News.