Last Chance To Join in Media Spirituality Retreat!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, September 21), is the cut-off date for registration for the Clay Pots Retreat for communications artists, professionals, and enthusiasts. Last week our team of sisters finalized the schedule and conference topics. If you need a little get-away or want to revitalize your spiritual life and your media life, or simply to learn more about living a genuine communications spirituality, this will be an awesome retreat!

We #MediaNuns are already praying for the retreatants! You can find out more information or register at www.pauline.org/retreat

 

Insights from Pope Francis on How To Communicate Effectively

To read the rest of the excerpts and my reflections, click on the link below:

PopeFrancisPastoralCommunication

Prayer Book for Evangelizers of the New Evangelization

This is a wonderful day because I can finally share with you something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time: a prayer resource specifically for those who evangelize and/or work in the media or the arts. Drawing abundantly from the prayerbook of the Pauline Family–which is a private edition, intended only for members of the Pauline Family–Live Christ! Give Christ! Prayers for the New Evangelization is an inspiring prayer book with wonderful prayers by Blessed James Alberione and others from our Pauline tradition, as well as from contemporary Paulines. The title captures our spirituality (inasmuch as any 4 words can capture a spirituality)–that our communicating Christ flows from our dynamic relationship with him. It’s a really moving collection of prayers that can inspire a deeper living in, through, for and with Christ, as well as a spirit of evangelization that encourages us to testify to Christ not just with our words and media work, but with our whole lives.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know some of the characteristics of our Pauline prayer and life:

• Trinitarian (the Most Holy Trinity gives us the basis for our communication spirituality)
• Eucharistic
• Scriptural
• evangelizing
• ongoing conversion
• Jesus Way, Truth, and Life
• Marian (Mary, Queen of Apostles, consecration to Mary, etc.)
• St. Paul as mystic and apostle
• reading the signs of the times
• holistic (bring the whole person to the whole Christ)
• searching for the seeds of the Gospel in popular culture
• continual search for how to express the compelling beauty of the Gospel for people today
• praying for evangelizers, media professionals and artists
• praying for all those who use the media
• reparation for the abuse or misuse of the media

This prayer book includes prayers that focus on all of these aspects! I cannot wait to begin praying with it myself.

Although I was blessed to be a small part of this project–the editor included a number of prayers that I wrote and asked for my input on this manuscript when it was in development, I’m sharing my enthusiasm because of the wonderful prayers that are new to me, that all media professionals, artists, and Catholics involved in evangelization in any way will find helpful for their prayer and work. As soon as I received my copy, it traveled to our chapel with me, where I can personally pray with it. I was going to share a couple of favorite prayers with you, but as I flipped through the pages, I could not choose…they are each so beautiful.

For more information, the tip sheet is included below.

Living “in the Trinity”

Today starts our centenary celebration for the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Daughters of Saint Paul on June 15, 2015! How appropriate that a congregation whose spirituality is founded on the ultimate communication–communion–found in the Most Holy Trinity should begin its celebration on the feast of the Most Blessed Trinity. I posted a short post on how the Holy Trinity is the foundation for our communications spirituality here.

The event from which we date the beginning of the Daughters of Saint Paul is the meeting of our founder, Blessed James Alberione, with our co-Foundress, Venerable Mother Thecla Merlo. I haven’t written very much about Mother Thecla because I haven’t had access to her writings in the same way as those of our Founder. But this year, as we have reflected more on her life and have read some new translations of her personal writings, I was amazed to discover how much Mother Thecla prays to the Blessed Trinity.

Here are a few of her beautiful, personal reflections. (For more, visit our new webpages dedicated to her.):

“It is Jesus who lives in me, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. To remain united to the Divine Master.”

“Holiness–I want it! To live the Trinitarian life like Mary most holy. To trust the heavenly Father; to love his Son, who came to save me; to rely on the grace of the Holy Spirit. The heavenly Father is always close to me, within me, thinking about me and providing for everything. Jesus is with me; the Holy Spirit sanctifies me. To live in union with the three divine Persons.”

“To think often that the most Holy Trinity is within me. Adoration, union, recollection…and…to keep such distinguished guests company.”

“The Trinity is my family.”

So often for the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, I focus on the theological mystery. Instead, Mother Thecla goes right through the mystery and focuses on what’s most important–her relationship with the Trinity! Absolute confidence in the Father, living in the love of Jesus Master, counting on the gift of love of the Holy Spirit to open her further to the action of the Holy Trinity in her life: this is how she describes her relationship with God. What a model for us as communicators today!

 

James Alberione doc to be produced!

Sister Helena R. Burns, FSP (Chicago) is producing a PBS-style documentary on Blessed James Alberione, the founder of the Daughters of St. Paul and the Pauline Family. Historical footage and commentary intertwine with modern cinematography and current interviews with his contemporaries, to bring Alberione and his message to life for the 21st century.

Here’s the trailer, which gives a glimpse of the scope and depth of Alberione’s vision:

Sr. Helena offers the following reasons for producing the film:

► to offer Alberione as a role model for those who foster within society a media culture built on faith values and the dignity of the human person.

► to better connect the Church with the world through the media by presenting this man and his mission as an antidote to polarization and fundamentalism;

►to help people, especially the young, envision themselves growing as persons in an ever more technological and “wired” world;

► to help young people discern within themselves a possible vocation to the Pauline Family as a sister, priest, brother or lay person.

Visit here for more information about the film as it develops!