COMMUNICATING OUR FAITH

For a long time now, I felt in my heart the need to preach on the way we communicate our faith in a very troubled world. Today’s scriptures and especially the Gospel acclamation moved me to research just the right message. What follows is what the Spirit lead me too an article, published in “L’Osservatore Romano” on how to communicate the Christian message effectively and convincingly in the context of today's society, entitled “Nine Keys for Communicating Faith”. While I only focused on a couple points of the article in my homily this morning, I want to post the article in its entirety. 

NINE KEYS FOR COMMUNICATING FAITH

by Professor Juan Manuel Mora, 10/12/2011 

The Church has always seen herself as a messenger, entrusted with good news that has been revealed to her and that needs to be passed on to others. This is an old issue, then, but also a pressing concern today. From Paul VI to Benedict XVI, recent Popes have not failed to point out the need to improve the way we communicate our faith to others. Often, this question is connected to the "new evangelization." In this context, John Paul II said that the communication of the faith must be new "in its ardor, its methods, and its expression" (Speech to the Assembly of CELAM in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 9, 1983). This article will refer in particular to newness of methods. 

Certainly, external factors today hinder the spread of the Christian message, factors that are difficult to eliminate in the short run. But with other factors, which are within our reach, there is scope for progress. If we want to pass on to others the Christian experience of faith, first of all we need a deep knowledge of the faith that we desire to pass on, and we must also know the rules governing effective communication. 

Drawing both on recent important Church documents and on the essential reference points of effective communication, I will offer here a number of principles. The first set refer to the message being broadcast, then to the person who is doing the communicating, and finally to the way that message is to be conveyed to the public. 

Above all, the message must be positive. The general public receives all kinds of information and takes note of protests and criticism. But what receives the greatest attention are positive projects, proposals and causes. 

Characteristics of the message 

1. Positive John Paul II said in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio that morality is a path to happiness, not a series of prohibitions. This idea has been frequently stressed by Benedict XVI: God gives us everything and does not take away anything; the teaching of the Church is not a set of limitations, but a light that is received in freedom. 

The Christian message must be transmitted as it is: a huge “Yes!” to all men and women, to life, freedom, peace, development, solidarity, the virtues. To pass it on effectively to others, we must first understand and experience the faith in this positive way ourselves. In this context some words of then Cardinal Ratzinger take on particular meaning: "The force that carries the truth to others must be the joy that is its clearest expression. Christians should stake everything on truth, and it should be passed on to the world with joy." Communication through the radiance of joy is the most positive approach of all. 

2. Relevant  Secondly, the message must be relevant and meaningful for the listener, not just for the speaker. Thomas Aquinas says there are two types of communication: locutio, a flow of words that do not interest those who listen, and illuminatio, which is saying something that enlightens the minds and hearts of the listeners on some aspect that really affects them. 

Communicating the faith is not arguing to beat an opponent but having a dialogue to convince someone of the truth. The attitude of the speaker (or writer) is a desire to persuade without defeating. Listening is fundamental: it enables us to learn what interests or concerns the other person. We must listen to their questions before proposing any answers. The opposite of relevance is self-referencing. Just talking about ourselves is not a good basis for dialogue. 

3. Clear  Thirdly, the message must be clear. Communication is not primarily what the communicator says, but what the recipient understands. This applies in all fields of knowledge (science, technology, economy, etc.). To communicate we need to avoid complexity and obscure language. In religious matters too, we need to look for clear arguments and simple words. Therefore, we should recognize the value of rhetoric, literature, metaphors, movies, advertising, images, and symbols, in spreading the Christian message. 

At times, communication fails because it shifts the responsibility onto the receiver. Our rule should be the opposite: to strive to become clearer and clearer in what we say, until we reach our objective. 

Qualities of the person who communicates

1. Credibility  For a recipient to accept a message, the person or organization that offers it must merit credibility. And since credibility is based on truthfulness and moral integrity, lies and suspicions always undermine the communication process. The loss of credibility is one of the most serious consequences of the crises that have occurred in recent years. 

2. Empathy  The second principle is empathy. Communication is a relationship established between people, not an anonymous mechanism for the dissemination of ideas. The Gospel is addressed to people: politicians and voters, journalists and readers. People with their own views, feelings and emotions. Speaking in cold, impersonal terms creates a widening gap between speaker and listener. 

An African writer has said that maturity lies in the ability to discover that we can wound others and acting accordingly. Our society is overpopulated with broken hearts and bewildered minds. We need to approach physical pain and mental suffering with the utmost sensitivity. Empathy does not mean giving up our convictions but putting ourselves in the other person’s place. In today's society, the answers that will convince people are the ones that are both sensible and humane. 

3. Courtesy  The third principle relating to the communicator is courtesy, good manners. We know from experience how personal insults proliferate in public debate. In a context like that, if we do not take care of the way we treat people, we run the risk of making the Christian standpoint be seen as just another fundamentalist position. Even at the risk of sounding naive, I think it is very necessary to distance ourselves from such a context. Clarity is not incompatible with kindness. 

With kindness we can hold a conversation; without kindness, failure is guaranteed from the outset: the person who was on our side before the debate may still agree with us afterwards, but the person who was against us will seldom change his or her mind. I remember seeing a sign at the entrance to a pub near Windsor Castle, in the UK, which said, more or less: "Gentlemen are welcome here. And one is a gentleman both before drinking beer and afterwards." We could add that one is a gentleman both when people agree with him and when they contradict him. 

Principles on how to communicate

1. Professionalism  Gaudium et Spes recalls that every human activity has its own nature, which we need to discover, use and respect if we want to take part in it. Each field of knowledge has its methodology, each activity has its rules, and each profession has its mindset. Evangelization is not divorced from human reality, but takes place from within: politicians, businessmen, journalists, teachers, writers, and trade unionists, each must solve the problems that arise in their respective fields. 

St Josemaría Escrivá insisted that it is individual people, committed to their beliefs and to their own profession, who will find the right approaches and solutions for today's problems. If it is a parliamentary debate, they do so on political grounds; if it is a medical debate, they do so with scientific arguments, and so on. This principle also applies to the field of communications, which has developed remarkably in recent years, both in its growing quality and increasingly broad and active citizen participation. 

2. Gradualness  The second principle of good communications is gradualness. Social trends have a complex life: they are born, grow, develop, change and die. Consequently, communicating ideas has a lot in common with gardening: sowing, watering, pruning, cleaning, waiting, before the harvest comes. 

The phenomenon of secularization has strengthened in recent centuries. Processes that have such a long gestation period are not resolved in a matter of years, months or weeks. Cardinal Ratzinger said that our world view tends to follow a “masculine” paradigm, where what matters is action, effectiveness, programming and speed. He concluded that more space should be given to a “feminine” paradigm, because women know that everything to do with life requires waiting and patience. 

The opposite of this principle is the hustle and short-sightedness that lead to impatience and often discouragement, because it is impossible to achieve major objectives in the short term. 

3. Charity  Charity is a principle that affects all of the above: the message, the communicator, and how to communicate. Some authors have noted that in the first centuries the Church spread very quickly because it was a welcoming community, where people could experience love and freedom. Catholics treated others with love; they cared for children, the poor, the elderly and the sick. All this was irresistibly attractive. 

Charity is the content, the method and the style of all effective communication of faith. Charity makes the Christian message positive, relevant and attractive. It provides credibility, empathy and kindness to the people doing the communicating, and it is the force that enables them to be patient and open. The world we live in is all too often a cold, hard place where many people feel excluded and battered, and long for light and warmth. In today's world, the greatest argument of Christians is charity. Thanks to charity, evangelization is always truly new.

From an article published in "L’Osservatore Romano" by Juan Manuel Mora, professor of Institutional Communication at the University of Navarra. Between 1991 and 2006 he worked in the Department of Communication of Opus Dei in Rome. He has combined professional practice and consulting with teaching and research. https://opusdei.org/en-us/article/nine-keys-for-communicating-faith/ 

JESUS IS WATCHING YOU!

[1]Late one night, a burglar broke into a house he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say; “Jesus is watching you.”  Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. “Jesus is watching you.” the voice boomed again.  The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. Frightened, he frantically looked all around the room. There in a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and, in the cage, was a parrot. He asked the parrot: “Was that you who said, Jesus is watching me?”  “Yes,” said the parrot.  The burglar breathed a sigh of relief.  Then asked the parrot: “What’s your name?”  “Clarence,” said the bird.  “That’s a dumb name for a parrot.  What idiot named you Clarence?”  The parrot said, “The same idiot who named the Pit-bull Jesus.”

An old joke that rings of the strong words Amos used to address and chide those who obey the law by doing only what is necessary, rather than taking on the mind and heart of God.  These merchants just can’t wait for the feast day to pass, so they can get back to selling, manipulating the scales, and cheating the poor.  God is watching and “never will [he] forget a thing they have done!” (Am 4:7) They obey only to serve themselves, not God.
  

“Jesus is watching you” is occasionally used as a motivating statement to keep young people on the right path.  We may even use it on ourselves, in times of temptation, as a motivator for our own choices.  Unfortunately, this is usually a short-term motivator, as the world presses on us with images and slogans perpetuating values of wealth, success, beauty, popularity, and anything else we feel we deserve.  After all the world wants us to believe it’s all about me.  Or… in an effort to protect our own interests, reputation, or standard of living, we act without prudence, like the Steward in today’s Gospel, whose focus is on the short-term gains versus long-term growth.  It’s only once he is dismissed, that he realizes his error in trusting his own talents for short-term gain that it can’t bring him true and lasting rewards.  In a life course correction, he rewrites the debtor’s notes, essentially giving up his commission, that he is commended by the Master and gains the opportunity to be welcomed the other debtors. 

To help us explore the path to long-term growth let’s start with the question, “Who or What is our master?”  Who or What dominates our mind, our heart?  What are my most important values?  The things we are willing to live and die for?  In my many years of facilitating groups, when it comes to naming values, the top two are very consistent.  What do you think they are? … (God & Family).  When asked in a church environment, 99% of the time God tops the list, yet in the world, we seem to struggle to find this value lived because other people and things become our masters.

Consider our electronic devices, they were invented to help us master our lives; instead these devices have mastered our attention.  iPhone, iPad, laptops, gaming counsels, Blueray, Bluetooth… it’s to the point I don’t know if the person next to me is talking to me or on the phone?!  We claim to be more connected, yet seem to be increasingly disconnected, distracted from to the important things in life?  Satan uses worldly things to divide; divide friends, family, even nations.  This separatist approach destroys the “unity of life” God desires and creates a modern madness leaving us feeling distant, detached and often very alone.  There are disciplines and practices we must abide by if we are to walk faithfully along the path to salvation, fulfill our destiny, and experience the lasting joy God desires for us.

How do we do this when worldly allurements and distractions are so powerful?  Scripture tells us we can’t serve both God and worldly gain (mammon).  Choose one master, God!  Infuse God into every aspect of your life.  Turn everything we do into a prayer, an offering to God.  Like athletes who discipline themselves to develop positive habits, make right choices to keep them eligible to play, and practice consistently training their mind and body to perform at its peak. 

This is why we gather here each week at this Eucharistic celebration—to be nourished and to nourish others.  It was the Jesuit theologian Robert Taft who said that the purpose of Eucharist is not to only change bread and wine, but to change you and me—for through Eucharist it is we who are to become Christ for others. We must be wise to the way of the world in our daily lives, and let God be our only Master.  “Jesus is watching you” and challenging us to be good stewards of the gifts we have received, not sprinting for a short-term gain, but running a marathon, on the long road of our spiritual journey to an eternal reward.

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[1] New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition © 1986.  Scriptures: Am 8:4-7; 8-10; 1Tm 2:1-8; Lk 16:1-13.

BECOME WHO YOU WORSHIP

John Chrysostom was ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach ailments from his desert days as a monk. He became a bishop under the cloud of imperial politics.  Yet, if his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point. Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty.

St. John Chrysostom’s preaching, by word and example, exemplifies the role of the prophet to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. For his honesty and courage, he paid the price of a turbulent ministry as bishop, personal vilification, and exile.  

St. Paul too, in today’s reading, is sharing a turbulent journey in ministry. After being knocked of his horse and years of being formed by the Christian community and in a special Jesus himself, he came to realize who he became in his original zeal to uphold and defend the Law, and how it blurred his vision of his true identity in God’s eyes and plan.

I’ve often emphasized entering into the paschal mystery we approach, on a weekly or daily basis. What I mean is, it’s more than just approaching the altar and receiving, we must become who we worship.  This means making a daily inward trek to discover our authentic self, the identity God created us to be.  It’s about recognizing and reflecting upon “the wooden beam in our own eye.”  To know this beam, its texture, size, and weight so well so that when we approach our brother or sister, we can set our self aside to be fully present to them.  Over the years as a human relations trainer one of the common road block to self-knowledge (freedom) is complacency.  We become comfortable with who we’ve become, without reflecting on the external forces that shape our identity: our parents who were our first teachers of the faith and appropriate community engagement.  Our race, ethnicity, national origin, and geographical location, how others see and respond to us forms our identity.  The schools, jobs, and military service influence our conforming to social and organizational norms impact the formation of our identity.  Our political affiliation, religion and even our ministerial duties influence who we believe we are and how we view and sometimes judge others.

From the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has urged priests, bishops, and seminarians to imitate what they celebrate, to follow the example of the Good Shepherd, to become Christ for others. He puts it bluntly: “Words without example are empty words.” Such hypocrisy would be a perfect example of the blind leading the blind.  

How do we become who we worship?  Those influenced by Ignatian spirituality are often called “contemplatives in action.”  They cultivate a habit of regular reflection in order to detect the presence of God in their lives. They employ the tools of Ignatian discernment to make sound decisions. The fruit of this contemplative effort is action.  Take some regular time to reflect on who you really are in God’s eyes, knowing he created us in His image and likeness to be full of compassion, hopeful, and joyful.  Then become like Jesus, whom we worship, throughout the day, even in your most ordinary tasks.