VATICAN: 57th World Day of Social Communications, Pope Francis Encourages Friendly Conversations that can Open Hardened Hearts
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
In his message for the 57th World Day of Social Communications slated to be celebrated on Sunday, May 21, the Holy Father has called upon Catholic Communicators to develop a cordial way of communication which can influence hardened hearts to open.
He empathizes in the message that “friendly conversations can open a breach even in the most hardened of hearts,” and at the same time, those who read or listen to communicators who disseminate information through cordial communication, are led to participate in the “joys, fears, hopes and suffering of the women and men of our time.”
According to the Pontiff, the contemporary society is marked by “polarizations and contrasts,” a situation which he laments “not even the ecclesial community is immune.”
Expounding on the theme of the 57th World Social Communication Day that was announced last year September to be: “Speak with the heart: Veritatem facientes in caritate” (Doing the Truth in Charity), the Pope said, “We should not be afraid of proclaiming the truth, even if it is at times uncomfortable, but of doing so without charity, without heart,” since “We are all called to seek and to speak the truth and to do so with charity.”
The theme created after the past two years reflections: “to go and see” and “listening with the ear of the heart” as conditions for good communication, the message published on Tuesday, January 24, stressed that “It is the heart that spurred us to go, to see and to listen, and it is the heart that moves us towards an open and welcoming way of communicating.”
Once we have practised listening which demands waiting and patience, as well as foregoing the assertion of our point of view in a prejudicial way, the Pontiff underscored in his Tuesday message, “We can enter into the dynamic of dialogue and sharing, which is precisely that of communicating in a cordial way. After listening to the other with a pure heart, we will also be able to speak following the truth in love.”
Giving reference to the late Pope Benedict XVI message that “the Christian’s programme is a heart which sees,” Pope Francis narrated that “A heart that reveals the truth of our being with its beat and that, for this reason, should be listened to.”
This he says, “Leads those who listen to attune themselves to the same wave length, to the point of being able to hear within their heart also the heartbeat of the other. Then the miracle of encounter can take place, which makes us look at one another with compassion, welcoming our mutual frailties with respect rather than judging by hearsay and sowing discord and division.”
Even though the message for the 57th World Social Communication Day is addressed to media practitioners, the Pope clarifies that the commitment to communicating with open heart and arms does not pertain exclusively to those in the field of communications but it is everyone’s responsibility.
As St. Luke the Evangelist explains in his writings about Christ’s warning that every tree is known by its fruit, the message reads in part, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Pope Francis therefore notes that to communicate truth with charity, it is necessary to purify one’s heart and “Only by listening and speaking with a pure heart can we see beyond appearances and overcome the vague din which, also in the field of information, does not help us discern in the complicated world in which we live.”
In conclusion the Pope prayed that “the pure Word poured out from the heart of the Father may help us to make our communication clear, open and heartfelt, the Word made flesh may help us listen to the beating of hearts, to rediscover ourselves as brothers and sisters, and to disarm the hostility that divides and that the Word of truth and love may help us speak the truth in charity, so that we may feel like protectors of one another.”
