NEWSLETTER INSERTS - FOR WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS

‘Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred. All too often it simplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt’.

From Pope Francis’ Message for 59th ‘World Day of Social Communications’.

‘I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to hope in these troubled times. A communication capable of speaking to the heart, arousing not passionate reactions of defensiveness and anger, but attitudes of openness and friendship. A communication capable of focusing on beauty and hope even in the midst of apparently desperate situations, and generating commitment, empathy and concern for others. A communication that can help us in “recognizing the dignity of each human being, and [in] working together to care for our common home’.

From Pope Francis’ Message for 59th ‘World Day of Social Communications’.

‘Try to promote a communication that can heal the wounds of our humanity… Be witnesses and promoters of a non-aggressive communication; help to spread a culture of care, build bridges and break down the visible and invisible barriers of the present time’.

From Pope Francis’ Message for 59th ‘World Day of Social Communications’.

The Journalists’ Prayer

‘Almighty God, strengthen and direct, we pray, the will of all whose work it is to write what many read, and to speak where many listen. May we be bold in confronting evil and injustice, and compassionate in our understanding of human weakness, rejecting alike the half-truth that deceives, and the slanted word that corrupts. May the power that is ours, for good or ill, always be used with respect and integrity; so that when all here has been written, said, and done, we may, unashamed, meet Thee face to face, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen’.

‘C.S. Lewis once wrote that our lives in Christ are meant to be like a kind of ‘good infection’ where the life of Jesus does things to us from within. His spirit slowly begins to work in us, turning us around to become more like who he is. His Holy Spirit and his Word invades our hearts, minds, imaginations, attitudes and actions. Eventually, we become so united to him in love that we can say he lives his life in us. That is why St Paul could say: ‘It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 3:20)’.

Fr Billy Swan