We publish below the Message of the Holy Father Francisco for the LIV World Day of Social Communications that this year is held in many countries on Sunday, May 24, 2020, solemnity of the ascension of the Lord.
Message from the Holy Father
So you can count and record in memory (cf. ex 10,2)
Life becomes history
I want to dedicate this year's message to the subject of narration, because I think that not to lose ourselves we need to breathe the truth of good stories: stories they build, not to destroy; stories that help to meet the roots and strength to advance together. In the midst of the confusion of the voices and messages that surround us, we need a human narrative, that speaks of us and the beauty we possess. A narrative that knows how to look at the world and events with tenderness; that tells that we are part of a living fabric; that reveals the interwoven of the threads with which we are united with each other.
1. Weave stories
Man is a narrator being. From childhood we are hungry for stories as we are hungry for food. Whether in the form of stories, novels, movies, songs, news ..., stories influence our lives, even if we are not aware of it. We often decided what is right or badly doing based on the characters and the stories we have assimilated. The stories teach us; They express our convictions and our behaviors; They can help us understand and say who we are.
Man is not only the only being who needs to dress to cover his vulnerability (cf. Gen 3,21), but is also the only being that needs to "cover" stories to guard his own life. We do not weave clothes, but also stories: in fact, the human capacity of "weaving" implies both tissues and texts. The stories of each era have a common "loom": the structure foresees "heroes", also current, that to carry out a dream face difficult situations, fight against evil by a force that gives them courage, that of the love. Immersing ourselves in stories, we can find heroic motivations to face the challenges of life.
Man is a narrator because he is a being in realization, which is discovered and enriched in the plots of his days. But, from the beginning, our story is threatened: in history it serves as evil.
2. Not all stories are good
"The day you eat of Him, [...] you will be like God" (cf. Gn 3,5). The temptation of the snake introduces into the plot of history a node difficult to undo. "If you own, you will become, you will reach ...", still whispers today who uses the so -called Storytelling for instrumental purposes. How many stories are drugged, convincing us that we continually need to have, possess, consume to be happy. We almost do not realize how we become avid of gossip and talk, how much violence and falsehood we consume. Often, in the looms of communication, instead of constructive stories, which are a binder of social ties and cultural fabric, destructive and provocative stories are manufactured, which wears out and break the fragile threads of coexistence. Collecting not contrasted information, repeating trivial and falsely persuasive speeches, harassing with hate proclamations, human history is not weaved, but the man of dignity is stripped.
But while the stories used for instrumental and powerful purposes have a short life, a good story is able to transcend the limits of space and time. At a distance of centuries it is still current, because it feeds life. At a time when falsification is increasingly sophisticated and reaches exponential levels (the Deepfake), we need wisdom to receive and create beautiful, true and good stories. We need value to reject those who are false and evil. We need patience and discernment to rediscover stories that help us not lose the thread among today's many lacerations; stories that take to light the truth of who we are, even in the heroicity ignored of everyday life.
3. The History of the stories
Sacred writing is a story of stories. How many experiences, villages, people present us! It shows us from the beginning to a God who is creator and narrator at the same time. Indeed, he pronounces his word and things exist (cf. Gen 1). Through his narrative God calls things to life and, as a climax, creates man and woman as his free interlocutors, generators of history next to him. In a psalm, the creature tells the creator: «You have Created my entrails, you have woven me in the maternal breast. I thank you because your works are admirable […], you did not know my bones. When, in the hidden, I was forming, and interwoven in the deep of the earth ”(139,13-15). We are not born, but we constantly need to be "fabrics" and "embroidery." Life was given to us to invite us to continue weaving that "admirable work" that we are.
In this sense, the Bible is the great love story between God and humanity. In the center is Jesus: His story leads to compliance with the love of God for man and, at the same time, the love story of man for God. The man will be called, from generation to generation, to tell and record in his memory the most significant episodes of this story of stories, which can communicate the meaning of what happened.
The title of this message is taken from the book of Exodus, fundamental biblical account, in which God intervenes in the history of his people. In fact, when Israel's children were enslaved they cried out to God, he heard them and recalled: «God remembered his alliance with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God noticed the children of Israel and appeared to them ”(Ex 2, 24-25). From the memory of God the liberation of oppression springs, which takes place through signs and wonders. It is then that the Lord reveals to Moses the meaning of all these signs: «So that you can tell [and record in the memory] of your children and grandchildren [...] the signs I made in them. Thus you will know that I am the Lord ”(Ex 10,2). The experience of the exodus teaches us that the knowledge of God is transmitted above all telling, from generation to generation, how he continues to be present. The god of life communicates by telling life.
Jesus himself spoke of God not with abstract speeches, but with parables, short stories, taken from everyday life. Here life becomes history and then, for which he listens, history becomes life: that narrative enters the life of those who listen and transforms it.
It is no accident that the gospels are stories. While they inform us about Jesus, they "perfore" [1] to Jesus, they make up to Him: the Gospel asks the reader to participate in the same faith to share the same life. John's Gospel tells us that the narrator par excellence - the verb, the word - was narrated: "The only son, who is in the Father's bosom, has told him" (cf. Jn 1,18). I have used the term "counted" because the original exeghésato can translate is as "revealed" that as "told." God has interwoven personally in our humanity, thus giving us a new way of weaving our stories
4. A story that is renewed
The history of Christ is not the heritage of the past, it is our history, always current. It shows us that God cares so much, our flesh, our history, to the point of becoming man, flesh and history. It also tells us that there are no insignificant or small human stories. After God became history, every human history is, in some way, divine history. In the history of each man, the father see the story of his son who went down to earth. Every human history has a dignity that cannot be suppressed. Therefore, humanity deserves stories that are at its height, at that vertiginous and fascinating height that Jesus raised it.
Saint Paul wrote: «You are a letter of Christ […] written not with ink, but with the spirit of living God; not in stone boards, but in the hearts of meat ”(2 co 3,3). The Holy Spirit, the love of God, writes in us. And, when writing inside, it records good, reminds us. Re-chair effects effectively leading to the heart, "writing" in the heart. By the work of the Holy Spirit every story, even the most forgotten, even the one that seems to be written with the most crooked lines, can become inspired, can be reborn as a masterpiece, becoming an appendix of the Gospel. As Agustín's confessions. As the story of Ignacio's pilgrim. Like the story of a soul of Teresita del Niño Jesus. Like the bride and groom, like the Karamazov brothers. Like so many innumerable stories that have admirably staged the encounter between the freedom of God and that of man. Each of us knows different stories that smell like Gospel, who have testified to the love that transforms life. These stories require that they be shared, tell them and make them live in all times, with all languages and by all media.
5. A story that renews us
In every great story, ours comes into play. While we read the writing, the stories of the saints, and also those texts that have been able to read the soul of man and bring to light his beauty, the Holy Spirit is free to write in our heart, renewing in us the memory of what We are in the eyes of God. When we remembered the love that created us and saved us, when we put love in our daily stories, when we weave the plots of our day, then we spend the page. We are no longer knotted to memories and sorrows, linked to a sick memory that imprisons our hearts, but opening to others, we open ourselves to the narrator's very vision. To tell God our story is never useless; Although the chronicle of events remains unchanged, they change meaning and perspective. To tell the Lord is to enter his compassionate love look towards us and others. We can tell him the stories we live, take people, entrust him with situations. With him we can knot the fabric of life, recalling the broken and the jirs. How much we all need it!
With the gaze of the narrator - the only one that has the final point of view - we then approach the protagonists, to our brothers and sisters, actors by our side today. Yes, because no one is an extra on the stage of the world and the history of each one is open to the possibility of changing. Even when we count evil we can learn to leave room for redemption, we can recognize in the midst of evil the dynamism of good and make room.
It is not, therefore, to follow the logic of the storytelling, or to make or advertise, but to recall who we are in the eyes of God, of giving testimony of what the spirit writes in the hearts, of revealing to each one that its history contains wonderful works. To do this, we entrust ourselves to a woman who wove the humanity of God in her bosom and, "says the Gospel," interwoven everything that happened to her. The Virgin Mary kept everything, meditating on her heart (cf. Lc 2,19). Let us ask for help from the one who knew how to undo the knots of life with the soft force of love:
Oh Mary, woman and mother, you wove the divine word in your bosom, you narrated with your life the magnificent works of God. Listen to our stories, keep them in your heart and make those stories that nobody wants to hear. Teach us to recognize the good thread that guides the story. Look at the cluster of knots in which our life has been entangled, paralyzing our memory. Your delicate hands can undo any knot. Woman of the Spirit, mother of trust, also inspire us. Help us build stories of peace, future stories. And show us the way to go together.
Vatican, January 24, 2020, Fiesta de San Francisco de Sales.
Francis