May 12, 2013, the 47th World Communications Day. The date for the Universal Church affirming the increasing importance on the reality of the Digital Social Networks, it's relevance and necessity to deliver the Gospel effectively in this medium - an open public square in which people share ideas, information and opinions.
Pope Benedict I could recall said that spreading the Gospel as commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ is still the same, as "the instruction is the same, but only the medium changes", and this is the very core of our foundation and mission, in the social Communication Ministry of our parish, and my firm belief that the availability of the Social Networks and its capacity for evangelization is vast and compelling to the Holy Father to commit everyone of us as virtual men of god in the web.
As we go today for the 47th anniversary of World Communications Day, it is obvious that the the chunk of cyber space is the picture of this Day, focused on digital forms of communications. Topping the list are the Social Networks; Facebooks, twitters, You tube, and all sorts of applications from desktops computers, cellphones, tablets, and laptops, etc., which had become part of our lives.
As the gospel should constantly be spread for all, and as our church is Universal, the enormous task of reaching every creature is a mission unchanged until today- a fact to carry on.
He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Mark 16:15
Neither by foot, by bus or by air, or on anywhere else, the gospel should constantly be spread, in every possible way, as gone wild and high tech in this digital age.
We have our obligation as Christ's digital apostles, bringing the faith in social networks whenever possible. Our accounts should exist and gather friends, more members for our Groups, and more likes for our pages, for what? To reach everyone, to all the world, preach the gospel through our posts and updates (Mark 16:15), we should be open not close, for our Church is open for all and universal.
There are 1.2 Billion Catholics today of the world's population of 7.1 Billion. Are we spreading the gospel enough? Do you think the figure is fair to say that we are doing our homework of baptizing every creature on earth? (Mark 16:15)
Evangelization of the Gospel is about open minds. We have to attract everyone, make them believe in Christ for in him is salvation.
The World Communications Day is about opening our church to the world, to let everyone in- in the Door of Faith "PORTA FIDEI" - This is the Year of Faith, an open faith.
Our Mass goers are shrinking, collections baskets running empty and servers dwindling, yet we opt to "close" our group page settings - hide the good parish activities to others?How many will know? We have more or less 200,000 parishioners in the Bago Bantay, and we have only 1,400 member groups in our FB page. Are we for the New Evangelization?
Admins can delete, hide, report or spam irrelevant posts in groups, easy.
The parable of the Prodigal Son speaks it all.
God with us, our group page will reach them one by one, - let the other 198,600 parishioners find their way back home to our parish.
God is OPEN for all, specially calling those unchurch.
Let them know our Parish is alive, make known our activities now.
We should communicate. The 47th World Communications Day.
Bro. Gilbert
Pope Benedict on the 47th WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY
