Go digital, go tell the Good News

Today Pope Benedict XVI mentioned World Communications Day, held this Sunday, May 24. Since you're reading this, you're no stranger to new communications media. Neither is he.

The Vatican is taking the occasion to launch iPhone and Facebook apps to reach young Catholics (and ages on up) and to launch a new site, http://www.pope2you.net/, going live Sunday.

Beyond the bling of blogs and treat of Tweets, content is still king. That means it is still the message that counts most. And what better message than "the Good News of God's infinite love for all people"? Christians in the digital world have the job of witnessing our faith -- in the words we choose to read (or skip past) and especially the words we write.

The Holy Father's words on the topic:

"I am inviting all those who make use of the new technologies of communication, especially the young, to utilise them in a positive way and to realise the great potential of these means to build up bonds of friendship and solidarity that can contribute to a better world.

"The new technologies," he added, "have brought about fundamental shifts in the ways in which news and information are disseminated and in how people communicate and relate to each other. I wish to encourage all those who access cyberspace to be careful to maintain and promote a culture of respect, dialogue and authentic friendship where the values of truth, harmony and understanding can flourish.

"Young people in particular, I appeal to you: bear witness to your faith through the digital world! Employ these new technologies to make the Gospel known, so that the Good News of God's infinite love for all people, will resound in new ways across our increasingly technological world!"

Under the Rainbow

CS&T reader John Firn sent us the above photo some weeks back. With apologies to John for the delay -- as the CS&T has shown over the past six weeks, it's been a busy/hectic/frantic time. (Holy Week and Easter, the Catholic Charities Appeal, Priesthood jubilarians and ordination, two multi-part series including parish life and violence among youth, Bishop Cistone's appointment to Saginaw, Mich. -- and they're just the high-profile items.)

Here are John's words after he snapped this photo at the Burholme Ambulance Station in Northeast Philadelphia, reminding us all of the beauty and fragility of our earthly home, and Who is ultimately in charge of it...

"On the 8th of April, at 1830 hrs, a heavy rain and wind came on suddenly. To the north, it was dark , cloudy and raining, and to the south, behind our Station it was sunny.

"A large rainbow appeared where the two fronts met, just out front of the Station. I took a couple of pictures with my cell phone, and the one here was the one I sent to my e-mail.

"Something in the picture caught my attention. Hardly anyone notices it the first look, but keep looking."

That something is, with the gift of imagination, an image of a man's arms spread wide. Thanks to John for sharing a reminder of God's gift of salvation through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ.

A new economic order?

“Economies based on greed must be replaced,” read the headline on Catholic News Service.

Interesting concept from the Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is president of the Catholic relief organization Caritas International.

OK, your eminence, but replaced by what?

Agencies like Caritas, Catholic Relief Services in this country and many others work to ease the suffering of poor people. They naturally look at the economic system in which those who are well off tend to get richer, while the poor struggle to survive.

To paraphrase Churchill’s description of democracy, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.

Certainly communism has failed in most cases, though the jury is still out on the long-term economic success of China’s mix of repressive communism and competitive capitalism. Socialism compares poorly with capitalism in terms of prosperity, especially when the latter is functioning in a healthy manner. A barter system, while it has merits on a small scale, is impractical to meet the demands of global and interdependent commerce.

One emerging idea is peer-to-peer commerce, part of what is called cooperative economics. Here’s an interesting read on it plus a broader economic overview.

Don't get anxious, fellow democratic capitalists. Free-market capitalism didn’t surpass feudalism overnight, and the former likely won’t be supplanted any time soon.

Cooperative economics might not be what Cardinal Rodriguez was thinking, but getting people to consider a more charitable, more sustainable economic system might really be what he had in mind.

Using natural resources as though they were infinite cannot continue as it has. Nor can wealthy nations give lip service to development in poor nations.

If there is going to be economic progress after the crash of 2008, a system must emerge in which resources are used efficiently while jobs are created by entrepreneurs. At the same time, governments with the means must seriously address the lack of basic necessities and education in poor countries that lead to radical movements and that ultimately threaten prosperity (perhaps even life) for all.

How to do that? There is no agreement at this point, but one couldn’t disagree with John Lennon’s line: “We’d all love to see the plan.”

Eucharist every day, from the beginning

Along with the other unasked-for mail I received at home last week was a brochure addressed to Current Resident, from the local congregation of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

It was slick, tri-fold, full color and invited people to join the congregation's reenactment of the Last Supper. It quoted from the (synoptic) Gospels how the Eucharist was instituted by Jesus the night before He died. Of course the words were familiar: "... this is my body ... this is my blood."

Since the congregation takes the command to "do this in memory of me" (First Corinthians) literally, they are doing so on April 9, Holy Thursday -- on just this one day of the year!

Excuse me, but as a Catholic I have to ask, if it's so important to print a brochure, mail it to every home in the local area, and ask folks to share in this great feast by the Lord's command, why do it only once a year?

I do hope their celebration, in whatever form it takes, leads the participants to a deeper and yes, literal understanding of the Eucharist: Christ, the son of the Father, second person of the Holy Trinity, becomes truly present among the community of the faithful in the appearance of bread and wine. I hope they discover that in the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is celebrated every day of the year as it has been from the beginning of the Church!

The Eucharist is our Lord Jesus Christ's gift of himself to us every time we participate in the sacrifice of the Mass. What a great gift we share as Catholics. Christ established his Church and gave us His real presence in the Eucharist as spiritual food for the journey, as memorial sacrifice to help remember all that he did and said, as a sign of unity and of thanksgiving -- the literal meaning of Eucharist.

This source and summit of our worship bonds us together with one another in the Church and to our Lord Jesus. More than community, this is communion, thanks to the Eucharist whose institution we celebrate tonight, at the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.

As Lent ends tonight we begin the Triduum -- three days of intense communal prayer leading toward Easter. Tonight we thank God in the most solemn way for the gift of himself.

Personally, tonight I pray also for those who have heard and read the Lord's command to "take, eat, this is my body..." but do not share full communion with the Catholic Church. In a special way, I pray for those people who were raised Catholic with the gift of the Eucharist but have chosen a different path.

May they, through the providence of God acting perhaps in an unasked-for brochure, find their way to Jesus Christ the bread of life, in his most precious body and blood.

Welcome to church. Take some palm.

You might have heard the complaint that goes something like, “Some people only go to church on Christmas and Easter!”

True, it’s not the optimal expression of one’s faith, but it’s better to have full churches one some occasions rather than none, right?

Two other times that witness full churches are Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday, which is coming up this April 5. Ash Wednesday of course is where last year’s palms are recycled into the ashes marking Catholics’ foreheads.

Palm Sunday packs in the crowds too, as churchgoers take home blessed palm fronds. Whether you display the palm in your home in a vase or turn the fronds into simple crosses tacked above doorways (my family’s preferred practice over the years), there’s an art to handling palm.

This week the Catholic Standard & Times shows how the masters weave palm – both in step-by-step photos and a fascinating story by Lou Baldwin in the newspaper, and four videos of the nimble fingers at work on our web site, cst-phl.com.

The video is new for our web site, but weaving palm is nothing new for the parishioners of Our Lady of Consolation in the Tacony neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia. Basically an Italian immigrant tradition, intricate palm displays are becoming more prevalent throughout the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s churches.

They’re a beautiful way to welcome the King of Kings as we commemorate his entrance in Jerusalem this Sunday.

Just as palms give way to ashes then to the giving of new palms at the end of the Lenten journey, so too do we journey with Jesus from the excitement of this palm Sunday to the nadir of his Passion and death on Good Friday, and the joy of His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

And please God, perhaps some of the Palm Sunday Mass participants will be moved to stay with Jesus, like the disciples in Gethsemane, throughout Holy week to Easter.

As you try your hand at weaving some palm, try also to devote more intense prayer next week beginning Sunday.

Are knit ties far behind?

Every business article produced these days mentions something like “the lowest since 1982” or “worst since 1983.”

The last was from today, as it’s been announced that unemployment is its highest since 1983. I remember those days well. I had graduated high school the year before with no prospects for college, believing the chatter all around that I was "lucky to have a job.”

So I worked third shift in a supermarket, stocking cans of beans from midnight to 8. I should have felt lucky, but didn’t.

Point is, these days again folks are fortunate to have a job, and more fortunate to have a career in which they can grow. Those career paths still exist, even if their roads are showing potholes and detours.

It’s even true for journalism. This field and many others are going to change and demand different ways of thinking and acting from its remaining adherents. But most embattled industries aren’t going away.

The larger point is that as bad as the early ‘80s were, 2009 could be worse. Pop music isn’t as bad (remember “Safety Dance” and “Flashdance”? Don’t get me started.). Interest rates remain at rock-bottom. Squared knit ties (guys) and leg warmers (ladies) are as out as zoot suits.

Also gone from those days is a sense of the inevitable decline of America. We’ve been down this road before. Few today think that we’re consigned to the ash heap of history. Though we don’t know how long the current troubles will last, we have confidence they’ll bottom out and our rebound will begin.

Americans continue to show a resilience and optimism that as bad as things are, they’ll get better. Tough times come, but they also go.

Happy days (not the TV show, which was another 80s casualty) will be here again. Our country will be changed when the recovery comes, but perhaps not worse off.

Another relic of the 1980s might stay with us as we turn our eyes upward to the cross, source of hope in dark, uncertain times: “Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.”

Glimpsing Tooker's world

A recent 60-degree day invited me out for a midday walk in center city. I had seen an ad in the Catholic Standard & Times for an art exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

I had never heard of the artist George Tooker, but the poster featured his painting “Subway” and that was so striking, I wandered over to the museum.

The exhibit was more than worth the price of admission. Organized mostly in chronological fashion, the paintings tell the artist’s story from an early self-portrait through the period where he made his significant mark on the art world.

Tooker uses an ancient technique called egg tempera (you can tell I never studied art in school), so his paintings seem to project light from the canvas. The effect is astonishing.

From “Subway” placed midway through the exhibit, I was not surprised to find similar works of social commentary. Tooker amply explored themes such as alienation, totalitarian fear and urban isolation especially in the late 1940 through the ‘50s. Those images burn themselves into one’s mind and challenge us to think about the culture and society of the time in which they were created, and our own.

But what really surprised me was Tooker’s volume of work from the last 30 years. He had already made a name for himself in the 1950s as a young man. In the 1960s he became involved in the civil rights movement with other artist friends.

After his homosexual partner died in 1975, Tooker became introspective. To deal with his grief, he turned to religion: not the Episcopalian church of his birth, but to the Catholic Church. In 1976, he converted to Catholicism.

Ever since, his works reflect not only the beauty of the human person, but people in relationship. Gone (mostly) were the disturbing images of fear, paranoia and alienation in harsh, urban landscapes. They’d been succeeded by scenes of people in warmer light -- in a sense, from broken and disconnected individuals to a harmonious, even redeemed, humanity.

While the exhibit’s companion book is pricier than admission, it reveals more of Tooker’s emerging spirituality of his later period. Particularly remarkable are the commissions of sacred art for his parish church in Vermont.

The Stations of the Cross and a triptych depicting the seven sacraments accurately express orthodox Catholic theology, according to the parish’s pastor, for whom Tooker presented early sketches to ensure he was on the right track theologically.

The triptych, for instance, shows people receiving such sacraments as baptism, holy orders (this one depicts a man kneeling before the crucified Jesus) or reconciliation. The people receiving the sacraments are pointing to the work’s center panel, which is the sacrament of the Eucharist as the host is being raised at the moment of consecration. The symbolism that the Church is oriented toward and draws its life from the Eucharist is unmistakable.

The George Tooker exhibit runs through April 5 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Here is an excellent review of the show when it was in Washington, DC last year.

The experience is worth the trip into center city. And because the Academy doesn’t draw the big crowds, you can linger on the stunning pieces in the Tooker show. Enjoy.