|
|
|
|
|
 |
A Fire on the Earth by Sr. Kathryn James, fsp
I was attracted to the Daughters of St. Paul because I saw these sisters as missionaries to a new people. It’s as if a new missionary country exists with a "geographical" area that covers the world, crosses national boundaries, and connects everyone into a giant web of relationship. This new people is being created and formed through the use of the media in such a way that we can almost say many of these people have never heard the Gospel preached to them before in their language. They are still waiting to hear the Good News of life and salvation. It is a missionary country that often isn’t poor, yet it marginalizes and impoverishes a large percentage of its people in different ways. The people in this country ride a roller coaster of quick success and fast wealth, they entertain themselves with images and audio almost 24/7, surf the crest of consumerism and fear the fallout of lay-offs. To these people the Daughter of St. Paul is sent. She is sent to Main St., U.S.A. Her language is the media. Her message is Jesus Christ. As Daughters of St. Paul, we walk with people whose attitudes, values, styles of life, and choices have been significantly formed by the TV shows they watch, the music they listen to, the video games they play, and the books and newspapers they read. We seek to understand people’s search for meaning and appreciation. We let the movies we watch and the music we listen to become the roads we walk with people to invite them to "come" with us to Christ. Preaching Jesus Christ to these people calls for women who can both produce media that speaks of him as well as understand how people have changed, what they are looking for, and what they most urgently need. What do we do? You’ll find Daughters of St. Paul doing all kinds of things. I just finished writing a book, Beginning Contemplative Prayer: Out of Chaos into Quiet. In Boston, Sr. Ruth prepares radio programs aired by satellite throughout Latin America and the States. Sr. Donna William directs the publishing house in Jamaica Plain. At our Pauline Book & Media Center in Los Angeles, Sr. Helena Raphael helps people meet Christ through the vast inventory of books, albums, and videos– and most importantly, in the small chapel for adoration. Sisters from across the country meet each year in the sound studio to record their best selling albums, such as Touched by Love and Adoration. Sr. Anna keeps our website and online store up-to-date (www.pauline.org), creating interactive games and software on the side. Sr. Rose and Sr. Julie Ignatius travel across the country speaking to young people and educators on media education. Editors and designers put together My Friend , the only Catholic magazine for children in the U.S. In over 100 major cities on the American Continent, including such bustling centers as Boston, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Mexico City, Buenes Aires, Colombia, Bolivia, Caracas, Santiago, and São Paolo–to name just a few–Daughters of St. Paul evangelize people and labor to transform society through their work in Pauline Book & Media Centers and cooperation with the diocese and churches in their area. A few of the sisters are writing screen plays. In our convent chapel you can always find several sisters in Eucharistic adoration. Prayer, community, study, and mission are the backbone of our activity. Through our mission we touch the hearts of individuals while broadcasting a message: the message of salvation in Christ, to as many as possible. Missionaries are more than what they do, however. That has been one of the greatest secrets I have slowly learned through my years in the convent. As religious we are consecrated by God to himself. Our response can be synthesized by the vows we take in this covenant relationship: obedience, chastity and poverty. Every religious community has a special way of understanding and living the vows that is characteristic of their spirit and mission. The way we as Daughters of St. Paul live our vows, therefore, reflects the centrality of communication in our life: Jesus’ communication and ourselves as a communication of Christ. In his last conversation with the apostles on the night before he died, Jesus tells his disciples: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I’ll come again and take you to myself so that where I am you too may be. Yet where I am going, you know the way (Jn. 14:3–4). Thomas, who so infrequently speaks in the Gospels, pipes up with one of those questions we all would ask if we had the courage. "Lord, we don’t know were you’re going so how are we supposed to know the way to get there?" At first glance, Jesus’ answer doesn’t seem to shed a whole lot of light on the situation. "I am the way." Then he added, "I am the truth. I am the life." Obedience "I am the way." What Jesus says to us is this: "If you want to know the way, you have to become me. You also have to allow me to carry you where I wish to take you. I am the way." What is our response as consecrated women? Obedience. Observe the commercials in your favorite TV programs. In the flashing images, how many different ways to achieve happiness are we being shown? What is the subtle message we’re being given? "Me first"? "Just do it"? "Get rich"? By saying that we will be obedient, following Christ who was obedient, we do two things: first, we give up our own way of seeing things so that we can take on God’s way of seeing things. In the same way Jesus did while he was on earth, we enter into life with all our dreams and passion, but we also give first place to God who directs our life sometimes in very mysterious ways. It takes faith to believe that however our life unfolds in the community, and whatever way the community decides to use our gifts at any particular time, God is working out his plan of salvation for us and for the world. Sometimes like everyone else, we’d rather just do what we think is best! Chasitity "I am the truth." Jesus was also saying: "My coming to you, my death, my resurrection are proofs of the fidelity of God’s love for you. Through me and in me a new covenant has been established between God and humanity that shall never be broken. I am the truth of this love, the guarantee of this covenant." Everyone knows that the truly enduring movies and timeless songs are the ones that address the very human struggle to love, to believe, to receive love, to be faithful. By vowing chastity, we are vowing to love like Jesus. We are promising to live a universal, selfless love that speaks to a world where love and life are cheap. We tell the world that there is Someone who remains faithful to them through everything. This Someone can be the strength of their own fidelity. It points to the unconditional love every human heart is seeking and can ultimately find in God. Chastity is about so much more than giving up sex. How much would just giving up sex have to say, anyway, to Hollywood or to a battered wife? Chastity says more. It makes us a sign of God’s love, a love that everybody is somehow trying to find, whether they realize it or not. They are trying to find it, because God has found them first. Poverty "I am the life." Lastly, Jesus was saying: "There is an inner logic, a pervasive meaning, an ultimate experience that the human heart is made for. This experience, this spiritual reality is a gift. And I will give it to you. I am the life." A phenomena that accompanied the growth of the internet was this: businesses raced to figure out how best to utilize it for commercial purposes. Business asks: How many ways can I get people to see and buy my product? By promising to follow the poor Jesus, we are not calculating poverty in dollars and cents. We are publicly asking the world to think about what is the human person’s true dignity. With the vow of poverty we are saying: God is all I need. So when we see commercials, movies, banner ads, or walk through malls, we remember that we are loved by God. He is all we need. Though I have a computer in my office where I edit a magazine and prepare content for the web, I live a personal life that is very simple. I do without many things that some would consider necessary. But I have everything I need. Like Christ who in the Gospels is depicted as eating at the banquets of the wealthy and also teaching and healing the very poor, I move among the wealthy and the poor easily with the same message: we are creatures. We are dependent on a loving God. It is the poor whom Jesus declared "blessed." In the magazine for children I edit, I often put in stories about children who, though they are among the poor, are working in joy to make a better life for themselves and others. These articles are meant to awaken in young hearts the desire to be concerned for the situation of those who have less than they. We have made a choice to become the voice of the poor. Through the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, then, our lives become a communication. Our lives themselves are meant to be a book people can read, a life people can "surf" in order to learn that Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life for which they long. By becoming a visibly Christian presence in the entertainment world, we help humanity channel their creativity, the depth of technological expertise, their deep longings, and all their dreams in a Christian way. I know I couldn’t last long in this mission without daily spending time in prayer and with my community. Both are a place where I am accepted and supported, a place I can be myself, a place I can serve others and learn to forget myself. Prayer is the source of the fountain of love and activity that overflows into the world. What we communicate in our albums, books, and videos is not what has already been said by someone else. In prayer we speak with God about the new needs of people, their hopes, dreams, and fears. We take our own contemplation and turn it into text, audio, and video that people today understand. I recently received an e-mail from a woman who had read something on prayer I had contributed to a discussion forum on the internet. "These words," she said, "gave confirmation and understanding to my experience! I came home to the Church after being away for thirty years." After sharing the story of God’s grace in her life she concluded, "Your words helped me see that the Lord works gently in our lives. After reading about the great saints, I thought contemplative prayer was only for them, but I see that in my life it is exactly as you have described—a gentle lifting of all my thoughts, words, and actions to God. Sometimes the consolations are like roaring fires, but mostly it is just the quiet peace of Gods unfathomable love." The fire Jesus came to set on the earth is blazing. Like Jesus I can truly say, "How I wish it were blazing everywhere and in every heart!" Multiplying his words, his voice, his presence on the earth through the media, our vision of communication is that of Jesus, the Word made flesh, who so long ago and still today comes and communicates the life, the truth, and the way of the Kingdom through the gift of himself–and does so through us.
|
Sometimes
when I look out my window at the beautiful trees that surround our house
in Boston, I think of missionaries working in Tanzania, New Guinea or
Chile. I know people with whom I’ve studied who are ministering as
pastors and teachers to their brothers and sisters in those countries.
What a great contrast exists between their ministry and mine. In another
way, however, our work is so similar. It’s all about fire; Jesus
said to his apostles: "I have come to set a fire on the earth, and
how I wish it were already blazing!" (Luke 12:49) "I have
come," Jesus stated. Not "I’m telling you...,"
"You must...," "I wish...." Rather the second person
of the Trinity, the Word of God, came. The Word became flesh, became
one of us. The divine "language" was translated into a human
"language" we could understand. Jesus entered into a specific
culture, was born in a particular place, at a definite point in time.
Through his coming, all cultures, all persons, all times have been redeemed
and are bathed in the glory of his resurrection. Because of his incarnation,
every culture, every person, every time is filled with the gracious life
of the Spirit. 