JUNE
GENERAL INTENTION That a culture of dialogue, listening, and mutual respect may prevail among peoples. PASTORAL COMMENT The desire for connectedness and the instinct for communication that are so obvious in contemporary culture are best understood as modern manifestations of the basic and enduring propensity of humans to reach beyond themselves and to seek communion with others. In reality, when we open ourselves to others, we are fulfilling our deepest need and becoming more fully human. Loving is, in fact, what we are designed for by our Creator. In this light, reflecting on the significance of the new technologies, it is important to focus not just on their undoubted capacity to foster contact between people, but on the quality of the content that is put into circulation using these means. Those who are active in the production and dissemination of new media content, therefore, should strive to respect the dignity and worth of the human person. If the new technologies are to serve the good of individuals and of society, all users will avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable. The new technologies have also opened the way for dialogue between people from different countries, cultures and religions. The new digital arena, the so-called cyberspace, allows them to encounter and to know each other’s traditions and values. QUESTIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP REFLECTION The dialogue must be rooted in a genuine and mutual searching for truth if it is to realize its potential to promote growth in understanding and tolerance. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by those who see us merely as consumers in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth. The enemies of religion see in religion one of the principal sources of violence in the history of humanity and thus they demand that it disappear. But the denial of God has led to much cruelty and to a degree of violence that knows no bounds, which only becomes possible when man no longer recognizes any criterion or any judge above himself, now having only himself to take as a criterion. The horrors of the concentration camps reveal with utter 46 46
THE SEED - VOL 25, No. 7 JULY 2013
MISSION INTENTION That where secularization is strongest, Christian communities clarity the consequences of God’s absence. may effectively promote a new evangelization. I consider it opportune to offer appropriate responses so that the entire Church, allowing herself to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, may present herself to the A favourite old evening prayer began “Enclose in your Sacred Heart all the members of this community.” June, the month of the Sacred Heart calls us to a culture of dialogue, listening and mutual respect in ways that were probably not imagined by the ones who prayed those words a hundred and seventy years ago. The community then was very self contained with next to no access to news of the world outside. There was no breaking news that flashed “Burma”, “Syria”, “Pakistan” or “Sudan” onto our TV screens and iPads. As we watch and hear and experience news of traumatic events we know the suffering that deafness to dialogue and lack of respect and empathy bring to many people. In a small reflection centre called Metta Karuna (“Mercy and Loving Kindness” in Khmer) in Northeast Cambodia, people are encouraged to see the world through the eyes of the poor and the lense of many faiths. Kashmiri Hindus from India dialogue with Christians and Muslims from Pakistan in at first firey debates and then in increasing understanding. War-wounded people from South Sudan’s new government meet landmine and cluster bomb survivors from Cambodia to exchange stories of grief and despair leading to a resilient hope. People evicted from their land learn to represent their case in a respectful way that may bring justice. contemporary world with a missionary impulse in order to promote the new evangelization. This pertains to Churches of ancient origin, which live in different situations and have different needs, and therefore require different types of motivation for evangelization: in certain territories, in fact, despite the spread of secularization, Christian practice still thrives and shows itself deeply rooted in the soul of entire populations; in other regions, however, there is a clearly a distancing of society from the faith in every respect, together with a weaker ecclesial fabric, even if not without elements of liveliness that the Spirit never fails to awaken. This variety of situations demands careful discernment; to speak of a “new evangelization” does not in fact mean that a single formula should be developed that would hold the same for all circumstances. And yet it is not difficult to see that what all the Churches living in traditionally Christian territories need is a renewed missionary impulse, an expression of a new, generous openness to the gift of grace. Indeed we cannot forget that the first task will always be to make ourselves docile to the freely given action of the Spirit of the Risen One who accompanies all who are heralds of the Gospel and opens the hearts of those who listen. To proclaim fruitfully the Word of the Gospel one is first asked to have a profound experience of God. PASTORAL COMMENT How, in our present cultural and ecclesiastical context, can we respond to th