{"id":2812,"date":"2020-05-21T22:47:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T21:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stthomasneilston.co.uk\/?p=2812"},"modified":"2020-05-21T22:47:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T21:47:42","slug":"popes-message-for-world-day-of-social-communications-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/?p=2812","title":{"rendered":"Pope\u2019s Message for World Day of Social Communications 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope\u2019s Message for World Day of Social Communications 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat you may tell your children and grandchildren\u201d (Ex\u00a010:2). Life becomes history <\/strong><\/p>\n

I would like to devote this year\u2019s Message to the theme of storytelling, because I believe that, so as not to lose our bearings, we need to make our own the truth contained in good stories.\u00a0 Stories that build up, not tear down; stories that help us rediscover our roots and the strength needed to move forward together.\u00a0 Amid the cacophony of voices and messages that surround us, we need a human story that can speak of ourselves and of the beauty all around us. \u00a0A narrative that can regard our world and its happenings with a tender gaze. \u00a0A narrative that can tell us that we are part of a living and interconnected tapestry. A narrative that can reveal the interweaving of the threads which connect us to one another.<\/p>\n

Weaving stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Human beings are storytellers. \u00a0From childhood we hunger for stories just as we hunger for food. \u00a0Stories influence our lives, whether in the form of fairy tales, novels, films, songs, news, even if we do not always realize it. \u00a0Often we decide what is right or wrong based on characters and stories we have made our own. \u00a0Stories leave their mark on us; they shape our convictions and our behaviour. \u00a0They can help us understand and communicate who we are.<\/p>\n

We are not just the only beings who need clothing to cover our vulnerability (cf. Gen 3: 21); we are also the only ones who need to be \u201cclothed\u201d with stories to protect our lives. \u00a0We weave not only clothing, but also stories: indeed, the human capacity to \u201cweave\u201d (Latin texere) gives us not only the word textile but also text. \u00a0The stories of different ages all have a common \u201cloom\u201d: the thread of their narrative involves \u201cheroes\u201d, including everyday heroes, who in following a dream confront difficult situations and combat evil, driven by a force that makes them courageous, the force of love. \u00a0By immersing ourselves in stories, we can find reasons to heroically face the challenges of life.<\/p>\n

Human beings are storytellers because we are engaged in a process of constant growth, discovering ourselves and becoming enriched in the tapestry of the days of our life. \u00a0Yet since the very beginning, our story has been threatened: evil snakes its way through history.<\/p>\n

Not all stories are good stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you eat of it \u2026 you will be like God\u201d (cf. Gen 3:4): the temptation of the serpent introduces into the fabric of history a knot difficult to undo. \u00a0\u201cIf you possess, you will become, you will achieve\u2026\u201d\u00a0 This is the message whispered by those who even today use storytelling for purposes of exploitation. \u00a0How many stories serve to lull us, convincing us that to be happy we continually need to gain, possess and consume. \u00a0We may not even realize how greedy we have become for chatter and gossip, or how much violence and falsehood we are consuming. \u00a0Often on communication platforms, instead of constructive stories which serve to strengthen social ties and the cultural fabric, we find destructive and provocative stories that wear down and break the fragile threads binding us together as a society. \u00a0By patching together bits of unverified information, repeating banal and deceptively persuasive arguments, sending strident and hateful messages, we do not help to weave human history, but instead strip others of their dignity<\/p>\n

But whereas the stories employed for exploitation and power have a short lifespan, a good story can transcend the confines of space and time. \u00a0Centuries later, it remains timely, for it nourishes life.<\/p>\n

In an age when falsification is increasingly sophisticated, reaching exponential levels (as in deep fake), we need wisdom to be able to welcome and create beautiful, true and good stories. \u00a0We need courage to reject false and evil stories. \u00a0We need patience and discernment to rediscover stories that help us not to lose the thread amid today\u2019s many troubles.\u00a0 We need stories that reveal who we truly are, also in the untold heroism of everyday life.<\/p>\n

The Story of stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sacred Scripture is a Story of stories. \u00a0How many events, peoples and individuals it sets before us! \u00a0It shows us from the very beginning a God who is both creator and narrator. \u00a0Indeed, God speaks his word and things come into existence (cf. Gen 1). \u00a0As narrator, God calls things into life, culminating in the creation of man and woman as his free dialogue partners, who make history alongside him. \u00a0In one of the Psalms, the creature tells the creator: \u201cFor you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother\u2019s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made \u2026 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth\u201d (139:13-15). \u00a0We are not born complete, but need to be constantly \u201cwoven\u201d, \u201cknitted together\u201d. \u00a0Life is given to us as an invitation to continue to weave the \u201cwonderful\u201d mystery that we are.<\/p>\n

The Bible is thus the great love story between God and humanity. \u00a0At its centre stands Jesus, whose own story brings to fulfilment both God\u2019s love for us and our love for God. \u00a0Henceforth, in every generation, men and women are called to recount and commit to memory the most significant episodes of this Story of stories, those that best communicate its meaning.<\/p>\n

The title of this year\u2019s Message is drawn from the Book of Exodus, a primordial biblical story in which God intervenes in the history of his people.\u00a0 When the enslaved children of Israel cry out to Him, God listens and remembers: \u201cGod remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. \u00a0God saw the people of Israel \u2013 and God knew\u201d (Ex 2: 24-25). \u00a0God\u2019s memory brings liberation from oppression through a series of signs and wonders. \u00a0The Lord then reveals to Moses the meaning of all these signs: \u201cthat you may tell in the hearing of your children and grandchildren\u2026 what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord\u201d (Ex 10:2). \u00a0The Exodus experience teaches us that knowledge of the Lord is handed down from generation to generation mainly by telling the story of how he continues to make himself present. \u00a0The God of life communicates with us through the story of life.<\/p>\n

Jesus spoke of God not with abstract concepts, but with parables, brief stories taken from everyday life. \u00a0At this point life becomes story and then, for the listener, story becomes life: the story becomes part of the life of those who listen to it, and it changes them.<\/p>\n

The Gospels are also stories, and not by chance.\u00a0 While they tell us about Jesus, they are \u201cperformative\u201d[1]; they conform us to Jesus.\u00a0 \u00a0The Gospel asks the reader to share in the same faith in order to share in the same life. \u00a0The Gospel of John tells us that the quintessential storyteller \u2013 the Word \u2013 himself becomes the story: \u201cGod\u2019s only Son, who is at the Father\u2019s side, has made him known\u201d (Jn 1: 18).\u00a0 The original verb, exeg\u00e9sato, can be translated both as \u201crevealed\u201d and \u201crecounted\u201d. \u00a0God has become personally woven into our humanity, and so has given us a new way of weaving our stories.<\/p>\n

An ever renewed story<\/strong><\/p>\n

The history of Christ is not a legacy from the past; it is our story, and always timely. \u00a0It shows us that God was so deeply concerned for mankind, for our flesh and our history, to the point that he became man, flesh and history. \u00a0It also tells us that no human stories are insignificant or paltry. \u00a0Since God became story, every human story is, in a certain sense, a divine story. \u00a0In the history of every person, the Father sees again the story of his Son who came down to earth. \u00a0Every human story has an irrepressible dignity. \u00a0Consequently, humanity deserves stories that are worthy of it, worthy of that dizzying and fascinating height to which Jesus elevated it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u201d \u2013 Saint Paul wrote \u2013 \u201care a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts\u201d (2 Cor 3:3). \u00a0The Holy Spirit, the love of God, writes within us. \u00a0And as he writes within us, he establishes goodness in us and constantly reminds us of it. \u00a0Indeed, to \u201cre-mind\u201d means to bring to mind, to \u201cwrite\u201d on the heart. \u00a0By the power of the Holy Spirit, every story, even the most forgotten one, even the one that seems to be written with the most crooked lines, can become inspired, can be reborn as a masterpiece, and become an appendix to the Gospel. \u00a0Like the Confessions of Augustine. \u00a0Like A Pilgrim\u2019s Journey of Ignatius. \u00a0Like The Story of a Soul of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus. \u00a0Like The Betrothed, like The Brothers Karamazov. \u00a0Like countless other stories, which have admirably scripted the encounter between God\u2019s freedom and that of man. \u00a0Each of us knows different stories that have the fragrance of the Gospel, that have borne witness to the Love that transforms life. These stories cry out to be shared, recounted and brought to life in every age, in every language, in every medium.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>A story that renews us<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our own story becomes part of every great story. \u00a0As we read the Scriptures, the stories of the saints, and also those texts that have shed light on the human heart and its beauty, the Holy Spirit is free to write in our hearts, reviving our memory of what we are in God\u2019s eyes. \u00a0When we remember the love that created and saved us, when we make love a part of our daily stories, when we weave the tapestry of our days with mercy, we are turning another page. \u00a0We no longer remain tied to regrets and sadness, bound to an unhealthy memory that burdens our hearts; rather, by opening ourselves to others, we open ourselves to the same vision of the great storyteller. \u00a0Telling God our story is never useless: even if the record of events remains the same, the meaning and perspective are always changing. \u00a0To tell our story to the Lord is to enter into his gaze of compassionate love for us and for others. \u00a0We can recount to him the stories we live, bringing to him the people and the situations that fill our lives. \u00a0With him we can re-weave the fabric of life, darning its rips and tears. \u00a0How much we, all of us, need to do exactly this!<\/p>\n

With the gaze of the great storyteller \u2013 the only one who has the ultimate point of view \u2013 we can then approach the other characters, our brothers and sisters, who are with us as actors in today\u2019s story. \u00a0For no one is an extra on the world stage, and everyone\u2019s story is open to possible change. \u00a0Even when we tell of evil, we can learn to leave room for redemption; in the midst of evil, we can also recognize the working of goodness and give it space.<\/p>\n

So it is not a matter of simply telling stories as such, or of advertising ourselves, but rather of remembering who and what we are in God\u2019s eyes, bearing witness to what the Spirit writes in our hearts and revealing to everyone that his or her story contains marvellous things. \u00a0In order to do this, let us entrust ourselves to a woman who knit together in her womb the humanity of God and, the Gospel tells us, wove together the events of her life.\u00a0 For the Virgin Mary \u201ctreasured all these things and pondered them in her heart\u201d (Lk 2: 19). \u00a0Let us ask for help from her, who knew how to untie the knots of life with the gentle strength of love:<\/p>\n

O Mary, woman and mother, you wove the divine Word in your womb, you recounted by your life the magnificent works of God. \u00a0Listen to our stories, hold them in your heart and make your own the stories that no one wants to hear. \u00a0Teach us to recognize the good thread that runs through history. \u00a0Look at the tangled knots in our life that paralyze our memory. \u00a0By your gentle hands, every knot can be untied. \u00a0Woman of the Spirit, mother of trust, inspire us too. \u00a0Help us build stories of peace, stories that point to the future. \u00a0And show us the way to live them together.<\/p>\n

From the Vatican, 24 January 2020, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales<\/p>\n

Francis<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter\u00a0Spe Salvi, 2: \u201cThe Christian message was not only \u2018informative\u2019 but \u2018performative\u2019.\u00a0 That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known\u2013it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Pope\u2019s Message for World Day of Social Communications 2020 \u201cThat you may tell your children and grandchildren\u201d (Ex\u00a010:2). Life becomes history I would like to devote this year\u2019s Message to the theme of storytelling, because I believe that, so as not to lose our bearings, we need to make our own the truth contained in … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-ryan-black","post-2812","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p85OtW-Jm","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2813,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions\/2813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stthomasneilston.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}