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Consecrated Life in the Communications Era (excerpted from To Become Jesus in Order To Communicate Jesus) Sr. Joana Puntel and other Daughters of St. Paul In the social reality which the Church defines as "the areopagus of communications" (RM, n. 37), consecrated persons are called to live the evangelical counsels carrying out the specific mission of their institute (cf. VC, n. 99). For Paulines, the culture of communications is the privileged place of evangelization. In response to the appeals of the Church, and at the invitation of our Founder, we are asked to look at history and to give attention to the journey of humanity in order to communicate the Truth of Jesus, always open to the advancement of technology and of the languages of communications. Today more than ever, to live the following of Jesus, means "to descend" into the kenosis of the Master in order to humanize and enliven our culture. To do this, it is important to understand the principal changes in the communications scenes where the Daughter of St. Paul is called to contribute to the "dialogue between faith and culture." The Journey In the era of communication:
In culture To live life in the following of Jesus implies a profound process of inculturation, whether for the Church, or for consecrated life. Jesus offered himself to communicate life, so that the authentic disciple of Christ will be able to descend into the kenosis of his Master in order to humanize and enliven our post-modern culture.1 But why is it necessary to speak of culture? Culture is perceived as that fundamental dynamism through which humanity expresses itself at the social, economic, political, and international levels. People have always sought to improve their existence on the physical, psychic, and spiritual levels, in private and public life.2 What appears new today is the perception of culture as an anthropological reality. Self-expression, self-improvement, and the search for meaning all produce culture. Culture is the human phenomenon which concerns itself with meaning (sense). The human person cannot live without some sense of meaning. The human person creates a personal world which becomes a point of reference for thoughts, words, actions, and labor. To create meaning and culture also signifies an enhancement of one’s personality. Culture is a system of expression and communication of human life itself, a reality above and beyond the cultures of individual peoples, for which this system is the basis and foundation. Today we are immersed "in the global communication era,"3 we are, therefore, immersed in uncharted ways of living and self-expression (culture). This comes from the very fact that there exists new ways of communicating with new languages, new techniques, and new psychological attitudes.4 Global Communication In what sense does one speak of communication as a culture? If culture is a ways of self-expression, then the culture of communications is a new way of being, a style of life generated by and living in communication.5 In time, communication as a social phenomenon has undergone great transformations. Every transformation has produced a new culture: oral culture, written culture, mass media culture, and global culture. In this global culture, a new kind of person is born, a new way of thinking, feeling, of using the imagination and the intelligence, a new way of relating and interacting with the world and with daily life.6 But who is emerging from the culture of global communication?7 With whom are we called to enter into dialogue in order to walk together and together search for God? The men and women of the third millennium are people unlike any before in the history of humanity.8 They are people who live the dimensions of life in different ways with regard to space and time, reality and truth, memory, pretending and knowing, criteria for good and bad, ethical choices, associations, initiation into social life, political and economic life, art and science, pedagogical relationships, and identity. New tastes are born. Fantasy, imagination, and new languages are in continuous and rapid evolution. The culture of communications was born with the introduction into of the use of instruments of social communication into history.9 But how have we arrived at the culture of global communications? Initially, the instruments of social communication were perceived as negative. Along the way, the Church’s understanding of them has changed, especially in the last two centuries. At first these instruments were seen as enemies of the faith, then as occasions of sin,10 then as neutral channels through which good passed in order to combat evil. Later these means were seen as good, but they could also be misused by human freedom; they were considered gifts of God for the good of humanity, instruments for preaching, and a means for the whole process of evangelization.11 They became a human phenomenon of universal dimensions with their own original languages which had to learn in order to translate the Christian message. The media became the place of specific scope of pastoral commitment, a characteristic of every pastoral sphere, and, finally, the original and uncharted culture and civilization.12 Today, communications resemble a new world discovered in its globality, which requires a profound process of inculturation, almost as if a new people were being discovered for the first time in a remote area of a dense forest.13 It is necessary to enter into this new culture that embraces the world and history and that is characterized by different ideas regarding time and space. Attention to the message communicated has been surpassed by attention to the creative possibilities of elaborating data on the part of the user. Interractive communication generated by the multimedia, has changed methods of work and the way of producing and receiving the message. It is increasingly the person who chooses and who involves herself in this way. The process of communicating will be always more connected to the choices a person makes, rather than the availability of data. In this process, the ability to think and reflect will be completed by the ability to resonate with and feel one’s emotions and sentiments. The intellect will be confronted with fantasy and imagination. Globalization There is no doubt that the newest and most decisive component of modern civilization is world-wide globalization. Here we are dealing with an ambivalent reality: a new phenomenon that can have grave consequences and, at the same time, new and positive aspects.14 Communication certainly has a central role in globalization, because it contains both a cause and an effect: "a cause because the innovations of the technology of communication have contributed in a determined way to generating a system of world-wide interdependence...an effect because from it is born undertakings for worldwide forms."15 The culture of com-munications is creating a global society, communications is globalizing the world. All that is local, regional, national, and continental becomes determined by the movements of an expanding global society. In fact, the direct contact between peoples of different cultural, social, and religious origins through the phones, computers, the internet, T.V. satellites, etc., eliminates spatial distance. Thus the world becomes a "global village," where different lifestyles are unified and individuals living at opposite ends of the globe are brought together and connected. The world is so interconnected that there is no longer any distance. Today, through the network of communication, one can live in every part of the world at the same time.16 It’s almost as if history has begun again. Global society is developing new ways of being, living, working, acting, feeling, thinking, dreaming, imagining. It’s changing the historical horizon and everything takes on a new meaning. More than ever it will be necessary in the future to look for balance between the global culture and local culture,17 between the universal and the particular, between the big and the small, between inculturation and interculturation. The economies of different countries are integrated in a global system through processes of interdependence and globalization via large, technologically advanced information systems. This certainly creates interesting economic solutions, but it also generates new problems for the weakest. Developed countries are considered centers of cultural diffusion, while the rest of the world remains on the periphery. Ways of life, cultural symbols, and economic products are integrated, while national roots and local cultures are broken down. And yet, the true wealth of any country is its people with their gifts of intelligence, creativity, and capacity to assimilate, transmit, and renew their knowledge and traditions. Perhaps a corrective history already exists due to a growing post-modern mentality according that weakens the concept of a "center." In fact, it is said that we are walking toward a world without a center, without great myths, without ideologies and universal religions. We are walking toward a world that is being dispersed in a post-modern fragmentation. In this phase of great transformation, the globalization of culture requires a new humanism that will promote the great values of the human person.18 For the first time in history, the entire human family is called to take hold of their future and to conscientiously construct a new world worthy of all peoples. Born of convictions and creativity, humanity will build the culture of the future with its own hands.19 Consecrated life in the global communications culture The process which is globalizing the world offers the Church a propitious occasion to be what it is called to be, and to become always more a sacrament of Jesus "light of the world." On the one hand globalization tends to keep the weak and poor outside great economic movements, on the other hand the Church cannot accept wealth as being central or the free market as being dogma. The mission of the Church—through the relationship between the global and the local Church—is to become "a sacrament" of globalization or of the unity of humanity, excluding no one. It is the hour of the Church’s catholicity; it is the moment of universality, of unity, of globalization, of solidarity. The spirit of our times urges the Church to intensify the process of inculturation and incarnation in the local and worldwide culture.20 Perhaps we are still far from being an ecclesial community recognized as the house of all people and cultures.21 In this ecclesial vision and in the context of catholicity and local inculturation, consecrated persons can bring to the countries and people with whom they are called to live "a scale of humanized values." The goal is not consumerism, but to work for a culture of life and truth on all levels in order to increase the spirituality of justice and peace. The fundamental element of consecrated life always remains the following of Jesus as he appears in the Gospel, but the most dynamic element will be its connection with culture22 and the signs of the times. Understood as culture, communications directs some interesting and inevitable questions to consecrated life: What is the relationship between consecrated life and the culture of communications? For what society does consecrated life seek to be a sign? Is the present witness of consecrated life understandable? Is consecrated life stuck perhaps in an era of individual "inventions"? Is it stuck in the era of mass media communications? We are living in a time in which the phenomenon of communications has ceased to be a collection of technologies and has begun to exist as a culture. And so a radical change of human communications experience is announced, which will realize its potential near future. The culture of communications is an extraordinary occasion for all believers and for all consecrated to create a dialogue between the Word and the new hearts born out of this new culture. Consecrated life is called to be a true workshop of the Spirit and of a discernment23 capable of stimulating the creativity of Christian witness. It is urgent to put out to sea, entrusting oneself to the inexhaustible newness of the Word, which can still take flesh in a new culture, in a new era of history.24 The Daughter of St. Paul: "women
of the media" The universal and local ecclesial community and all of humanity living today, ask of the Daughters of St. Paul, now more than ever, to become women26 capable of communicating life, of sharing and of giving love and hope.27 They ask us to be women who know God and know how to present him to the world with all the communications possibilities of the third millennium.28 In the global network that envelops the world, and with the infinite possibilities of surfing the net, we are sent to proclaim the happy news of a God, who for love made himself a servant of humanity. This God is still capable of astonishing us, of breaking communications barriers, of urging us beyond the frontiers of our small horizons, of enkindling love, of building peace. To evangelize in this new culture, we must first of all know it. In the communications space surrounding the world, a different humanity is being born, which in the next few years will grow and develop according to forms and criteria that we can neither imagine nor foresee, but only intuit29…. This transformation is radical. With this famous "mother of all nets"30 (the internet), everyone can speak and participate, learn, organize, invent, and much more… If then we go beyond the threshold of the virtual world, we realize that we are encountering circumstances without precedence: seeing, hearing, touching, manipulating objects that don’t exist, passing through space without places in the company of people who are elsewhere. All of this occurs while we continue to hold a conviction of reality and the presence of others. As fish in the ocean, virtual images become a sea in which we can completely immerse ourselves. We can actually "enter" fantasy, a new time, a new space. It seems impossible and yet two people living at opposite ends of the globe can meet in a virtual image or even better in a virtual world where places, things, and colors are contemporaneously image and reality. The person can become disoriented by the communications whirlwind, which in a certain sense modifies (changes) the dimensions of space and of time.31 Virtual reality amplifies and transforms our experience of the world,32 opening up imaginary spaces that we can enter and explore.33 Today, we can reconstruct the past and make it visible once again, and we can also project ourselves into the future to explore the infinite possibilities of new creations. "Communications penetrates everything and everywhere, creating a platform where everything becomes involved and where everyone can encounter and debate."34 "In communication, the instruments that are born today can seem strange. They produce light, fleeting images, luminous shadows, shadows penetrating everywhere, limitless impulses, stimuli that leap over the distance…. These are strange instruments that are not geared toward what can be made real, but toward anticipated dreams. They are no longer instruments of making, but instruments of thought or living emotions. And today these instruments are so intimately tied to a dream that even science dreams and plans things about things about which we still cannot possibly think of imagining.35 In this magical atmosphere,36 in this changing history,37 we Paulines feel driven by the love of the Master38 to participate in the passion of God for humanity.39 We are kneaded into the food and drink of humanity,40 adopting an attitude of listening intently to every new communications possibility,41 so as to realize that communication with God, which gives meaning and significance to our days and can make us feel one heart and one soul with all humanity.42 "Come to me all of you.43" "Fidelity to the charism of the Founder, to the Church’s mandate",44 to the new evangelization, passes of necessity through the global communications culture.45 As women on the move, witnessing to a life that can be reborn, to a truth that does not compromise, we enter into this new millennium with profound humility, as did he, who although he was God made himself a man and the servant of humanity. Let us open ourselves with faith to the new ways of God and collaborate with all our strength to bring together the divine dream with our human reality, the source with the fulfillment.46 We believe that every person today can find in the Gospel the joy of finding in Jesus, "the one true Master of humanity,"47 the all that one can desire. To bear in our own life the history of our time is to feel in our heart what Alberione felt: "We must always lead souls to paradise, not those who lived ten centuries ago, but those who live today. It is necessary to take the world and mankind as they are today, in order to do good today".48 The today of God and the today of humanity, should become always more our preoccupation. This is "the historic responsibility and the prophetic duty"49 of the consecrated Pauline life:50 poor, obedient, and chaste, with fidelity always more clear, creative, and responsible. In fact, "if other institutes have to update themselves by counsel, we must renew ourselves by command, in order to become unified to the Constitutions, to not allow ourselves to become spiritually sluggish, anemic Christians, or indifferent."51 A profound discernment and a communitarian reading of the signs of the times52 will give prophetic continuity to the Pauline charism. This "reading" should lead to a communion among the sisters of various generations: those of the mass-media to those of computers, of telecom-munications and virtual reality. It will be necessary to move from a mentality that is attached to small ways with one direction53 to a mentality that is, instead, attached to the possibilities of navigating uncharted ways with infinite directions. From us, new generations await "new wine in new wineskins"54: a formation, spirituality, and com-munication of the future opening new horizons of hope to the windows of the world. From this point of view it seems urgent to take advantage of this time for a profound renewal, to think "together," in a new way, about our life as Paulines within our charism of communications.55 Let us move forward together without fear, beyond every attempt to hold back, and with profound hope, certain that the Gospel is the power of God for those who believe. Consecrated for the Gospel, we announce that beautiful Truth56 on whom we risk our entire lives, a Truth57 who, in its beauty58 and goodness does not impose, but rather fascinates, proposes, gives light to the world,59 shares sorrows, changes life from within.
IN SUMMARY 1. The following of Jesus (consecrated life) means descending into the kenosis of the Master. The "becoming flesh" of the Master is the model of every inculturation. We must inculturate ourselves in order to humanize and enliven culture. But what is culture? It is that fundamental dynamism through which humanity expresses itself in every form of life: social, economic, political, and international. The person builds her way of relating with herself, with others, and with things…and that becomes her way of giving meaning to life. It becomes her culture. 2. Today we are immersed in an uncharted way of living and of expressing ourselves, which we call global communications culture, generated also by new means of social communications (more accelerated and interactive)…. Thus, the person moves within a "new relationship," that is, the person begins to act and to relate in a new way to the world and to everyday life. Even the idea of space and time (with new technology) is transforming itself and changes the way of perceiving, of feeling things. It’s not only knowledge that is developed with intensity, but also the imagination through images. Even the way of working, of producing, undergoes great transformations. All of this makes up "the culture of global communications," and its "language" is the great revolutionary impetus. 3. From within this new culture, globalization is the newest component of modern civilization. It’s an ambivalent reality: it can have grave consequences and at the same time it can have positive aspects. The new technology of communications has contributed to creating a worldwide interdependence (cause), but also has given birth to worldwide communication undertakings (effect). The result is a global society, developing new and other ways of being: it unites ways of life, cultural symbols, and economic products. The need to look again at negative consequences is also born…. However, "to object to the process of globalization is to be naïve." One must rediscover a new humanism, a new valuing of the human person. 4. What is happening in the culture of global communications today, offers the Church a propitious occasion to become always more the light of Christ in the very process of globalization, without accepting wealth as being central, or the free market as being dogma. The Church is asked to intensify its inculturation and incarnation in the local and world culture. In this context, consecrated life is called to question itself as to which society it must become a sign. The culture of communications is an occasion to create dialogue between the Word and the people born into this new culture. In the midst of an ideology of the market place and consumerism, consecrated life is called to be "evangelical life." 5. By the very nature of her charism, the Daughter of St. Paul will always be a "woman of the media," consecrated for the Gospel. She will work in the complex areopagus of the world of communications. The communications possibilities of the third millennium multiply and urge us to take the world and humanity as they are today. This is the "historic responsibility and prophetic duty" of the consecrated Pauline: to be poor, chaste, and obedient in this new culture in a creative and responsible fidelity. A profound discernment and a communitarian reading of the signs of the times can give prophetic continuity to the Pauline charism. The present global society requires that the Daughters of St. Paul be present as apostles who are "kneaded" into the world and announce the truth of Jesus Christ with social communications. 1 Cf. C. MACISSE, Proposals for the Synod of Religious: "Consecrated life and its mission in the Church and in the world," Ed. O. Lutador, Belo Horizonte-Brasile, 1995, n. 40. 2 Cf. S. BABOLIN, Making Sense (philosophy of culture), Gregoriana, Rome, 1992, p. 5. 3 Cf. John Paul II, theme of the 35th World Day of Social Communications, "Preach it from the rooftops": the Gospel in the era of global communication," May 27, 2001. 4 Cf. Redemtoris Missio, n. 37. 5 Cf. J. T. PUNTEL, Communication as culture, SICOM-FSP, Rome, booklet n. 5, pp. 8–10. 6 Cf. J. T. PUNTEL, Global Communication, SICOM-FSP, Rome, booklet n. 3, pp. 3–7. 7 Cf. S. SASSI, "Consecrated Life and the new communications technology," in Communications and Consecrated Life (supplement to Consecration and service), USMI, Rome, 1995, n. 10, pp. 91–99. 8 Cf. The Church in Africa, n. 71: "new universal culture…." 10 Cf. Vigilanti Cura (Pius XI, 1936), Discourses on the ideal film (Pius XII, 1955), Miranda Prorsus (Pius XII, 1957), Boni Pastoris (John XXIII, 1959). 11 Cf. Inter mirifica (1963), n. 3; 13. 12 Cf. Communion et progressio (1971), n. 181; Redemptoris missio, n. 37. 13 Cf. S. SASSI, "Consecrated Life and the new communications technology," op. cit., pp. 94–99. 14 Cf. C. RUBBIA, " ‘Unpretentious’ Science for the first world of globality," in The Sun-24 hours, Two Thousand 11/17/99, p. 1; "The ONU report on human development" (published 7/12/99), cited in AA.VV., Which globalization?, Las, Rome, 2000, p. 11 15 Cf. M. MORCELLINI, "Communication in the global society," in Sociology and social research, 1999, p. 378. 16 Cf. G. MURA, "Process of globalization and cultural pluralism," in AA.VV., Which globalization?, Las, Rome, 2000, pp. 111–120. 17 Cf. D. CRANE, The Production of culture. Media and the Urban Arts, Newbury Park, California, 1992, pp. 207–209. 18 Cf. R. L. MONTALCINI, "The new humanism of globalization. The future of planetary man," in Corriere della Sera, Milan, 9/16/1999, p. 35. 19 Cf. H. CARRIER, Dictionary of Culture for cultural and intercultural analysis, Vatican City, 1997, pp. 120–135. 20 Cf. P. GIUNTELLA, The world on line, solitary people in the crowd, hyper-information and convivial communication, Reports for the FSP, Ariccia, 2001, p. 9. 21 Cf. 58th Theological Commission USG, Inside Globalization: hacia una communion pluricentrica e intercultural, implicaciones eclesiologicas para el gobierno de nuestros institutos, Working Document, November 2000, pp. 16–24. 22 Cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 20. 23 Cf M. I. RUPNIK, Discernment, Lipa, Rome, 2000, p. 22. 24 Cf. Novo millenio inuente, nn. 1; 39–40. 25 Cf. S. SASSI, Apostles of Jesus Christ in the World of Communication – 7th General Chapter FSP, Ariccia, 1995, Contributions of the speakers, p. 92. 26 Cf. P. EVDOKIMOV, Woman and the Health of the World, Paris, 1978, p. 188: "The vocation of woman is not in the role of society but in the role of humanity; her field of action is not civilization but culture." 27 Cf. S. SASSI, Apostles of Jesus Christ in the World of Communications, op. cit., p: 99 "… convergent forms of apostolate: praying for our audience, suffering (sacrifices of sleep, extraordinary fatigue), sickness, death (offered for the apostolate), the full exercise of the apostolate (editorial, technical, diffusion), a spiritual way of looking (every action, even if modest, contributes to the realization of the Apostolate, like in the Mystical Body)…." 28 Ibid. p. 96: "Mission is a full communicational activity of the presence of God assimilated personally and communitarianly. Mission is the synthesis of communication with God and with others, the destined audience of our apostolate. Mission is not given without the supernatural spirit or without preoccupation for the audience." 29 A. JOOS, Evangelization and inculturaization in multimedia, SICOM-FSP, Rome, booklet n. 9, pp. 6–7. 31 Cf. A. JOOS, Evangelization and inculturaization in multimedia, op. cit., p. 10. 32 Cf. C. COLOSIO, Virtual Communication, SICOM-FSP, Rome, booklet n. 6, p. 10. 33 Cf. C. CADOZ, Virtual Reality, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1996, pp. 1–13. 34 Cf. A. JOOS, The Christian Message and Communications Today, (anthropology of communications and Christian insertion, in 5 parts: languages, signs, communicational methodology, information, symbolism) Negrar (Vr), 1989, vol. I, p. 29. 36 Cf. C. M. MARTINI, The hem of his garment, n. 12: "Media is an atmosphere, an ambient in which one is immersed, which surrounds us and penetrates us on every level." 37 Cf. F. MASCOLO, L. FIORELLA, G. MICHELONE, Internet, Paoline, Milan, 1997, pp. 136–138: "Let’s think for just a moment of the innovative range of the famous ‘Internet; mother of all nets’ that challenges and surpasses the traditional rules related to theory and to standard communications procedure. The Internet takes completely new and original ways with creativity, with fantasy, with the editing of content and with the marketing of goods and services. No one knows how to foresee in detail what the impact of a medium of such capabilities will have, in short or long range, on the daily life of the young, of adults in the working world, of schools and of families…. The new telecommunications reality will overturn all the criteria that is tied to old rules, will consolidate habits, and will put the adaptability of many to a hard test." 38 Cf. Jn. 13:1; Phil. 2:6–11. 39 Cf. S. M. SCHNEIDERD, Finding the treasure – Locating catholic religious life in a new ecclesial and cultural context, Paulist Press, New York, 2000, pp. 138–141. 40 Cf. B. SORGE, The Daughters of St. Paul, Eucharist of the world, Reports to the FSP, Rome, 2000, pp. 4–5. 41 Cf. FSP Constitutions, nn. 12, 19. 44 Cf. Constiutions FSP, n. 109. 45 Cf. Final Document, together toward 2000—7th General Chapter FSP, chapter 10; M.A. QUAGLINI, Pauline charism and communications, SICOM—FSP, Rome, booklet n. 1, p. 5. 46 Cf. A. JOOS, The Christological/Communicational aspect of the vows in the post-modern society, Reports for the FSP, Rome, 1999, p. 22. 47 Cf. Message of the Pope to the Daughters of St. Paul—7th General Chapter, 1995. 48 Cf. J. Alberione, Points of Pastoral Theology, 1915, p. 93. 49 Cf. FSP Constitutions, n. 12. 50 Cf. A. MARTINI, The Daughter of St. on the way of the evangelical counsels, reports for the FSP, Korea, 1999, p. 3: "The charism that the Spirit has entrusted to Fr. Alberione is a pearl that shines with a blazing light. It is made up of a profound integration between the apostolate and consecration in the way of the evangelical counsels. The counsels are therefore not an addition, but an essential part of the face of the Pauline Charism. One cannot conceive of the apostolate without consecration in the way of the evangelical counsels, and one cannot conceive of consecration without the apostolate." 51 Cf. J. ALBERIONE, For a spiritual renewal (1952), pp. 32–33. 52 Cf. Consecrated Life, nn. 9, 37, 73, 94. "To adequately confront the great challenges that are put to the new evangelization by actual history, what is necessary first of all is a consecrated life that allows itself to be continuously challenged by the Word revealed and by the signs of the times." 53 Cf. J. T. PUNTEL, Global communication as mentality, apostolic duty and style of life, Manila, 1999, p.17: "To revisit communication requires a change of mentality since communication has become a very complex phenomenon. The quality of evangelization as Daughters of St. Paul will depend on the integration of communication as a scenario, a key for interpreting life, studies, living the vows and in projecting oneself in the mission." 55 Cf. S. SASSI, The total Christ for the age of global communications, Acts of the seminar on Jesus Master, yesterday, today and forever, Ariccia, 1996, pp. 505–525. 56 Cf. J. ALBERIONE, Explanation of the Constitutions, p. 233–236. 57 Cf. Message of the Holy Father for the 35th World Day of Social Communications; "Preach it from the rooftops: the Gospel in the era of global communications," 5/27/2001, p. 2: "the Church and the Christian communicator have the duty and the privilege to announce the truth, the glorious truth about life and about the destiny of man revealed by the Word Incarnate." 58 Cf. C. M. MARTINI, Saving Beauty, Pastoral Letter 1999–2000, p. 11. 59 Cf. Jn. 1:14; 8:12.
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