[1 ]<\/sup>to his fellow journalists.\u00a0I therefore wish to dedicate the Message, this year, to the call to “come and see”, as a suggestion for any communicative expression that wants to be clear and honest: in the editing of a newspaper as in the world of the web, in the ordinary preaching of the Church as in the political or social communication.\u00a0\u201cCome and see\u201d is the way in which the Christian faith is communicated, starting from those first meetings on the banks of the Jordan River and the Lake of Galilee.<\/p>\nConsume the soles of your shoes<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Let’s think about the great theme of information.\u00a0Attentive voices have long complained of the risk of a flattening in “photocopy newspapers” or in TV and radio news and essentially the same websites, where the genre of investigation and reportage lose space and quality to the advantage of pre-packaged information, “di palazzo \u201d, Self-referential, which is less and less able to intercept the truth of things and the concrete life of people, and is no longer able to grasp either the most serious social phenomena or the positive energies that are released from the base of society.\u00a0The publishing crisis risks leading to information built up in newsrooms, in front of computers, at agency terminals, on social networks, without ever going out on the street, without “wearing down the soles of shoes”,\u00a0without meeting people to look for stories or verify certain situations face-to-face.\u00a0If we do not open ourselves to the encounter, we remain external spectators, despite the technological innovations that have the ability to put us in front of an augmented reality in which we seem to be immersed.\u00a0Each tool is useful and precious only if it pushes us to go and see things that we would not otherwise know, if it puts on the net knowledge that otherwise would not circulate, if it allows meetings that otherwise would not happen.<\/p>\n
Those news details in the Gospel<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
To the first disciples who want to know him, after his baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus replies: “Come and see” (Jn 1:39), inviting them to have a relationship with him. More than half a century later, when John, very old, draws up the his Gospel, recalls some “news” details that reveal his presence in the place and the impact that experience had on his life: “It was about the tenth hour”, he notes, that is, four in the afternoon (cf. . 39).\u00a0The day after – continues John – Philip communicates the encounter with the Messiah to Nathanael.\u00a0His friend is skeptical: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”\u00a0Philip does not try to convince him with reasoning: “Come and see”, he says (cf. vv. 45-46).\u00a0Nathanael goes and sees, and from that moment his life changes.\u00a0The Christian faith begins like this.\u00a0And it communicates like this:\u00a0as a direct knowledge, born from experience, not by hearsay.\u00a0“It is no longer because of your speeches that we believe, but because we ourselves have heard”, the people say to the Samaritan woman, after Jesus had stopped in their village (cf. Jn 4: 39-42).\u00a0The “come and see” is the simplest method to know a reality.\u00a0It is the most honest verification of every announcement, because in order to know one must meet, allow the one in front of me to speak to me, let his testimony reach me.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the courage of so many journalists<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Journalism, too, as a story of reality, requires the ability to go where nobody goes: a move and a desire to see.\u00a0A curiosity, an opening, a passion.\u00a0We must say thanks to the courage and commitment of so many professionals – journalists, cameramen, editors, directors who often work at great risk – if today we know, for example, the difficult condition of the persecuted minorities in various parts of the world;\u00a0if many abuses and injustices against the poor and against creation have been denounced;\u00a0if so many forgotten wars have been told.\u00a0It would be a loss not only for information, but for the whole of society and for democracy if these voices were to fail: an impoverishment for our humanity.<\/p>\n
Numerous realities on the planet, even more so in this time of pandemic, are inviting the world of communication to \u201ccome and see\u201d.\u00a0There is the risk of recounting the pandemic, and thus every crisis, only with the eyes of the richer world, of keeping a “double accounting”.\u00a0Let us think of the issue of vaccines, as well as medical care in general, of the risk of exclusion of the most destitute populations.\u00a0Who will tell us about the expectation of healing in the poorest villages of Asia, Latin America and Africa?\u00a0Thus the social and economic differences on a planetary level risk marking the order of distribution of anti-Covid vaccines.\u00a0With the ever-last poor and the right to health for all, affirmed in principle, emptied of its real value.<\/p>\n
Opportunities and pitfalls on the web<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
The network, with its innumerable social expressions, can multiply the capacity for storytelling and sharing: many more eyes open to the world, a continuous flow of images and testimonies.\u00a0Digital technology gives us the possibility of first-hand and timely information, sometimes very useful: let’s think of certain emergencies in which the first news and even the first service communications to the populations travel right on the web.\u00a0It is a formidable tool, which makes us all responsible as users and as users.\u00a0Potentially we can all become witnesses of events that would otherwise be overlooked by traditional media, make our civil contribution, bring out more stories, even positive ones.\u00a0Thanks to the network we have the opportunity to tell what we see, what happens under our eyes,<\/p>\n
But the risks of a social communication without verification have now become evident to everyone.\u00a0We have long ago learned how news and even images are easily manipulated, for a thousand reasons, sometimes even just for banal narcissism.\u00a0This critical awareness pushes not to demonize the tool, but to a greater capacity for discernment and a more mature sense of responsibility, both when spreading and when content is received.\u00a0We are all responsible for the communication we make, for the information we give, for the control we can exercise together over false news, unmasking them.\u00a0We are all called to be witnesses of the truth: to go, see and share.<\/p>\n
Nothing replaces seeing for yourself<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
In communication, nothing can ever completely replace seeing in person.\u00a0Some things can only be learned by experiencing them.\u00a0In fact, one does not communicate only with words, but with the eyes, with the tone of the voice, with gestures.\u00a0The strong attraction of Jesus to those who met him depended on the truth of his preaching, but the effectiveness of what he said was inseparable from his gaze, his attitudes and even his silences.\u00a0The disciples not only listened to his words, they watched him speak.\u00a0In fact in him – the incarnate Logos – the Word became Face, the invisible God allowed himself to be seen, felt and touched, as John himself writes (cf. 1 Jn 1: 1-3).\u00a0The word is effective only if you “see” it, only if it involves you in an experience, in a dialogue.\u00a0For this reason the “come and see” was and is essential.<\/p>\n
Let us think of how much empty eloquence abounds even in our time, in every sphere of public life, in commerce as well as in politics.\u00a0\u201cHe can talk endlessly and say nothing.\u00a0His reasons are two grains of wheat in two bushels of chaff.\u00a0You have to search all day to find them, and when they are found, they are not worth the search. ‘\u00a0[2]<\/sup>The lashing words of the English playwright are also valid for us Christian communicators.\u00a0The good news of the Gospel has spread throughout the world through person-to-person, heart-to-heart encounters.\u00a0Men and women who accepted the same invitation: “Come and see”, and were struck by a “more” of humanity that transpired in the gaze, word and gestures of people who witnessed Jesus Christ.\u00a0All the tools are important, and that great communicator who was called Paolo di Tarso would certainly have used e-mail and social messages;\u00a0but it was his faith, his hope and his charity that impressed the contemporaries who heard him preach and were lucky enough to spend time with him, to see him during an assembly or in an individual conversation.\u00a0They checked,\u00a0seeing him in action in the places where he was, how true and fruitful for life was the announcement of salvation of which he was the bearer by the grace of God.\u00a0And even where this collaborator of God could not be encountered in person, his way of life in Christ was testified to by the disciples he sent (cf. 1 Cor 4:17).<\/p>\n“In our hands are the books, in our eyes the facts”, St. Augustine affirmed,\u00a0[3]<\/sup>\u00a0exhorting to find in reality the occurrence of the prophecies present in the Holy Scriptures.\u00a0Thus the Gospel happens again today, whenever we receive the clear testimony of people whose lives have been changed by the encounter with Jesus. For more than two thousand years, a chain of encounters has communicated the fascination of the Christian adventure.\u00a0The challenge that awaits us is therefore that of communicating by meeting people where and how they are.<\/p>\nLord, teach us to come out of ourselves,
\nand to set out in search of the truth.
\nTeach us to go and see,
\nteach us to listen,
\nnot to cultivate prejudices,
\nnot to draw hasty conclusions.
\nTeach us to go where no one wants to go,
\nto take the time to understand,
\nto pay attention to the essential,
\nnot to be distracted by the superfluous,
\nto distinguish the deceptive appearance from the truth.
\nGive us the grace to recognize your homes in the world
\nand the honesty to tell what we have seen.<\/i><\/p>\n
Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano, January 23, 2021, Eve of the Memory of St. Francis de Sales.<\/p>\n
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From the Vatican: [Note: the Pope was recently himself a target of fictional ‘news’ with a report that he had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[44,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-church","7":"category-commentary","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}