PRINCETON: Booking on sermons to fund local charities

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   Jim Knipper, a deacon at St. Paul Catholic Church in Princeton, had never done anything like this.
   About a year ago, he started a project to create in book form an ecumenical collection of sermons and homilies from across three denominations of Christianity.
   The result: “Hungry, and You Fed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle C,” 65 sermons and homilies from 15 Catholic and Protestant clergy and laypeople.
   The book, which he edited and was released last year, has a double-purpose to feed the spirit and the body. Proceeds from the book are going to support four charities that include Cranaleith Spiritual Center, Several Sources Shelter, the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen and Womanspace Inc.
   Mr. Knipper’s book follows the order of scripture readings, know as a cycle in Catholic and some Protestant denominations, for every Sunday during the liturgical year that began last fall. Other books are planned for the two other reading cycles, known as A and B.
   ”Homilies have been a passion of mine. Growing up I’ve always had great homilists as pastors,” Mr. Knipper said during a recent book signing with five other contributors in the St. Paul Church basement.
   Mr. Knipper is one of the contributors to the 308-page book. In the preface, he writes his goal was to edit a book “that would feed the heart and soul of the readers and act as a vehicle to raise money to feed the hungry and homeless.”
   All four charities are evenly splitting the money — so far $2,000 that has been divided four ways. Representatives of each was at last week’s event.
   It was Mr. Knipper’s job to contact the 14 contributors.
   ”I knew it was going to come together, and everyone was excited about it,” he said.
   Contributors include the Rev. David Davis, pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church, and Msgr. Walter Nolan, the former pastor at St. Paul’s.
   Greg Kandra, a deacon at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forrest Hills, Queens, said Mr. Knipper had contacted him to see if he would be interested in contributing some of his writings.
   ”I think it’s beautiful,” Mr. Kandra said of the finished product. “It exceeded all my expectations. The quality of the writing — all the other contributors are so superlative.”
   Just under 5,000 copies of the book were printed, with around 750 to 800 of them sold so far, Mr. Knipper said. Books can be bought at www.cvpublishing.com or www.facebook.com/Homilists.