Model Communicator-Pastor
(ANS - Rome – January 24) – Gathering with the bishops of Peru last week, Pope Francis began his address
speaking of the great bishop St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, proposing him as an
example of a pastor: “He wanted to go to the other [river] bank in search of
those who were far away and those who were missing. To this end, he had to
leave the comforts of his episcopal see and travel across the territory
entrusted to him, in continual pastoral visits, trying to reach and stay
wherever he was needed.... Today we would call him a ‘street’ bishop – a bishop
with the soles of his shoes consumed by walking, from encounters to announce
the Gospel to everyone, in all places, on all occasions, without delay, without
repulsion and without fear.”
Speaking of this pastor, the Pope reminds us of
many pastors; among them St. Francis de Sales, an innovative man and
communicator par excellence, who in his time sought the way to bring people to the
faith with profound creativity; he is considered a tireless communicator of
truth and the Gospel through his simple, handmade writings distributed door to door,
house after house.
Like all great communicators, he had an
understanding of the language of his time, understood the concerns and
experiences of his people, discovered their deepest needs; from there, he
arrived at the truth.
These communicators and pastors who did not refuse
or fail to see the tensions of their time, nor the differences within their
people, came to understand perfectly that words and writings are not enough;
they also intuited that if we want to reach the hearts and minds of people and
truly communicate with them, it is necessary to transform one’s own attitude of
life, assume as one’s own those very same values one wishes to communicate.
St. Francis de Sales was aware that evangelization
could not take place at any distance from charity; the best way to communicate
the truth was to shape the gift of Jesus into his own life for the love of
everyone and make of his own person and his own life the means of transmitting
the message.
St. Turibius of Mogrovejo and St. Frances de Sales
lived in different social contexts, but both men shared this profound intuition
of understanding the reality of their time, capable of sharing questions and
doubts, able to walk a path, free themselves from any presumption of
omnipotence, and humbly put themselves at the service of the common good.
Both serve as examples and challenges for Catholic
communicators everywhere as every era stands as an invitation to learn in order
to speak “giving a reason for our hope” (1 Pet 3:15), to spread the Gospel as
the Pope proposes today: denouncing social injustices, promoting the unity of
the Church, and speaking the current languages of today’s young people.
Finally, both figures are examples of a Church that
is constantly on the move, shepherds who wore out their shoes walking the streets
and went wherever they were needed; both tried to reach the other shores, not
only geographically, but existentially approaching those who were far away with
the keen desire to meet and know them, to understand their needs, and to
propose the Gospel to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment