Adutiful premise: this communication of mine, articulated as it may be, cannot be anything else but a shared reflection. I am a journalist and not a person specialised in this sector. In fact, I generally deal with Contemporary History and History of Journalism, but I put my professional action at disposal of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, sharing their charism, their journey of faith and work, obviously according to my lay state of life and my professional competences.  

Let us enter, therefore, the substance of our meeting. 

The world that moves forward under our eyes, from the Television images up to the pages of newspapers, up to the media of the new generation, a world to which each of us is a part in one’s own way, is the least part of the real world. It is the vision that the mass media give us.

The more the consulted sources multiply themselves (newspapers, television news, deepening programmes, internet), and the more the horizon amplifies, the more the possibility of arriving closer to reality grows. However, our vision of reality will never be completely or exactly super-imposable to it. There is a gap between the reality and its narration, even through images. It is a vain claim that of reaching the core of reality and the objective truth.

Anyhow, for the believer, the Lord of history and creation, the Truth itself, is God alone, One and Triune.

This first reflection places us in a particular optics.

Challenged

First, let us consider a verb that questions us: to challenge. This verb derives from Latin, whose origin is “to interrupt with objections”, addressing questions, but also directing. Its first meaning in the Italian language, anyhow, is that of addressing a question to somebody, while in the juridical language it means asking the fulfilment of an obligation

Choosing to use this verb means entering directly the question, abandoning a kind of algid detachment. It is the matter of a “strong” verb, almost obliging, which we must read just as if it implied a duty. This already tells us that we are in the field of commitment and not of a pure observation of phenomena, though this has its undeniable importance. Thus, surely the world questions all those who, living in it, are ready to be called into question, therefore to be in it as active and not as passive subjects of history in its developing. 

We do not enter, deliberately, the discussion on the very much-debated concept of History: we use it in its common and current meaning.

How does today’s world question, call into cause the religious life, especially the feminine one? What can religious life give to the same?

There will be a space in the debate to answer, or at least to seek secure answers to this question.  In the field of communication, we could start from the knowledge of two factors: 1. how is the today’s world, broadly speaking? 2. In which case and how is the religious life available to confront itself with it?

Can we speak only of subjectivity and neo-paganism?

The Western world lives a period of strong secularisation (this is not an absolute newness, but this phenomenon has never had so far today’s strength, as a fruit of globalisation). It has almost the aspect of spoliation and total denial of some core values, inherited from the Greek  or the Judaic-Christian civilisation, which have been, and whatever we say about it, will remain its foundations. 

The beginning of the third millennium, however, seems to miss the solid roots. It seems that it has cut off the roots that have been supporting the categories of reference to values, to the end of searching, perhaps, new core elements. However, these seem not be found, unless in the exasperation of subjectivity elevated to universal or almost universal norm. Obviously, we say all this with the due exceptions that, luckily, do exist.

The values of life are theoretically manipulated and, unluckily, in practice (see the recent Englaro event), many do not even consider their sacred reality. They have substituted the term person, which subtends many implications, with that of individual and its different baggage of values. 

Sometimes we have the impression that this substitution is made without even knowing the “I distinguish” that these two words contain which, in the common speaking, often finish by being used as synonyms.

Under some aspects, it seems that we have gone back to the epoch of the pre-Socratic Sophists, when man was at the measure of all things and of the world. We mean this man with small letter, not as a human gender, but as single. Man puts himself at the centre of the world, not as God had put him in Eden, but as self-creator of a plasticized and dummy eden, played over everything and soon, where the end justifies any means.

We read around us disquieting messages of a domineering neo-paganism (they have used this term also to indicate the ideology of the Nazists regime), that sees the only end to pursue in the cult of the young, beautiful and healthy body, as well as in the satisfaction of senses and impulses. 

Life is here, now, soon because there is no certainty about tomorrow. In reality there is no tomorrow, understood as interior tension, as project. If they speak of projects, these are always of short terms.

Recent events of chronicle have dramatically put us in front of the conception that subtends the following statement: life belongs to me and I use it as I like, from the very beginning to its end. All this, perhaps, happens in perfect good faith. What a sadness, what a poverty and, above all, what a lack of hope and charity this encloses!

Has God truly died?

Which god died the god of Nietzsche, or the god we had built up to our image and similitude? A god like this is not God. Only Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose, is the true God and true man. The core of difference is here. The remaining things are fried air, consolation vision like the New Age, or a prelude of emptiness and desperation.   

A society like ours, which says of wanting the best of the best, should exult with joy at the proclamation of the Good News, yet in most cases, we do not see this joyful exultation. Is it the fault of those who should witness to this proclamation, but do not know how to reach the heart? Or, is it the fault of society (just if society were something different from us, almost a scapegoat)? 

The Kingdom of God starts here and now. Of course, there is a long way to cover; there are sacrifices, which we must take into account, (though sacrifices are always there: to save money in order to buy a car at large displacement is a sacrifice). We need to get out of the “I” to enter a respectful and true contact with the “you”, that we must appreciate and recognise as end, never as means

Summing up, it is a choice for the true athletes of the spirit, and not for “palestrati” in designed habits, whose heart is encumbered with knick-knacks and had no space for other possible values. The Gospel speaks clearly; your heart is there where your interests are.  

Does the religious life move the consciences?

Does the religious life move the consciences and lead man to touch with his hand that God is made man, has accepted to die, but has risen? If not it would speak of Jesus as of a great story, but faith would be vain. Religious life is an abstract term; its reality is made up of women and men who have chosen this state and in their being religious they keep and should exalt their being women and men. The proclamation is actual and urgent more than ever before, because the false prophets keep on spreading and making proselytes. What is the use of being beautiful outwardly with an empty interior life? What is the use of pursuing the myth of the eternal youth and perfect health, if the impious life proves every day, luckily or unluckily, that life is different from that of the advertising posters and television spots (often even vulgar)?

It is here, in this separation between the impossible desires and the objective reality that the religious life can and must find its way to propose what the contingent world does not give. The religious can give light and hope; charity and not crumbs of absent minded alms. The world is hungry of certainties, yet it seems that it seeks its contrary.

Why should we spend our life on small projects of low cost, when there is the possibility of making it fructify with a larger project? Why should we not accept a higher challenge? Is it truly very much impossible and uncomfortable?

It is here that the religious life can give its example, can create a contact, can stretch its hand and seek the hand of him who does not know where to find help. If we look around us, we discover that there are many persons in this situation (perhaps hidden behind smiles due to circumstances). There are men and women who stretch their hand, but cannot find a solid hold to save them from the abyss into which the easy hedonism of ready consumerism attempts to precipitate them.

A practical example can be that of the contact, in the school area, with divorced parents with a double companion. Many of them feel excluded, but hunger for the Word. This keeps on becoming ever more a field of apostolate, with its complexity and specificity, therefore requiring an ad hoc preparation. They are our brothers and we cannot abandon them.

The perception and sense of time

The sense and perception of time have changed, yet time remains the same, though it is missing. We miss the time of pure thought (they teach the metaphysics only in few universities), the time for meditation and prayer, substituted by chatters, by the Television sitting room and the domestic silence. This is not an interiorisation silence, but a dough that communicates nothing, unless banal things.

We miss the sacred time, the time of the feast, substituted by the time of great mass events or by a constant passing on where everything is equal (for instance many shops are open on Sundays and shopping has become a rite). The birth of “free time”, between the end of the XIX century and the dawning of the XX century, has played its role. A free time understood as extra-working days not only to restore the strength, but also as sign of disengagement from what is sacred, in favour of what is profane. 

The religious life (the consecrated men and women) can and must confront itself with them, it must recognise them, must be aware of them, well prepared and informed, with its strong and well vehicles proposed alternative.

It must be in the world without being of the world, in order to gain more brothers to faith in Christ.

Dirtying our hands

It must be willing and available to dirty its hands in this society, where the term “neighbour” seems to indicate only an adjective of place (an unknown person and not a brother). While the Gospel never stops and will never stop teaching us about a condition of interior nearness, of spiritual proximity.

Do women and the religious not feel the need of taking to heart, as mothers, as sisters, as friends, the urgency of moving towards this neighbour often left to its destiny?  

The time of man seems to have become something divorced from reality, something virtual (if ill-used, internet creates illusions of alternative worlds), yet, willingly or unwillingly, it is in this.

Let us refer to the phenomenon of the second life, a virtual world created on internet (something similar and yet different from the “games of roles”). Here persons create “another” identity of themselves, in a “true” alternative world.

The Sanskrit term Avatar –earthly manifestation of a divinity- today means:  to give life to an alter ego for the internet world. This is not mere fantasy, but can transform itself into a dangerous flight from reality.  

They change a virtual world into a real one.

Can we speak of God to persons who have “self-created” their life? It is not easy, but a similar choice denotes an emptiness of sense, a need of affirmation and love, on which a religious contribution can attempt a “true” approach, above all with the youths. The advent of gas and then electric illumination had already given a shaking to the perception of time (the “daytime”, the time of work, of amusements, but also of good), the advent of the computer has crushed it into an unreal present. Are we aware of this to its depth?

It is worthwhile to remember and to remind those who forget it, that we do not have only one time to live. At the end of this time, life does not start again as in a film, which we roll up and start it again. This time is unique, for each of us, even if it is lived among others and shared with them. It is precious for its uniqueness and it is unrepeatable (while today we live with a serial conception of everything). However, we must always give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Internet proposes new modalities also for a religious approach; internet offers many Catholic sites that can lend some help to the new form of pastoral action. 

The answer may or may not be strong, for which there is an ample space for debates.

Is it not the task of religious life, in the wake of the Master, to create “scandal” by speaking of an Eternity, which is not that of the fleeting moment, but that of God’s love? Is it not its task to let itself be mocked for its sobriety, which must counteract the richness of the few, which corresponds to the total poverty and even to the total death of many by hunger? Is it not its duty to risk the daily martyrdom of being scorned because of trusting its Creator, rather than trusting man as a measure of all things?  We are pulled by the hair to shout that this world needs trust, love, hope and charity (God alone, however, is perfect charity), daily courageous gestures as bearers of a message of life. The women religious, as women, should be the first to feel this vital quivering, to treasure it up and to arose it where it is missing. 

Acting against current

The life of women (often also of children and men) today is co-modified more than ever (it has been often, but it seems that today it is the norm). Here the religious can offer an alternative model and, in their simplicity, a disruptive model. It is difficult to counter-pose a sober uniform or an anonymous dress to a winking pair of spiked shoes and to a glamour dress, yet the heels often cause us to fall down, and the glamour withers even before a rose does. What remains is the interior habitus of the believer with the elegance of the “lilies of the fields”, which no stylist, unless God himself, can reproduce.

Women have a particular sensitivity, almost an extra march, therefore, the women religious, supported by a community, have the possibility to gear it, so that their life may be always more at the service and stimulus of others. To be in order to do and to give …..

In a world where the sex is a current and devalued currency, up to the violence of rape, chastity does not have a blunt sword to face these attitudes. Chastity is there as “contradiction”, as a different model, which must disturb and upset in the furrow of the strong and powerful love of God:  a God who made himself man in the womb of a virgin, and the virgin said “yes” trusting the unbelievable.

Mary said yes to the unbelievable of God, not to the unbelievable that some chatter boxes sell off today as the panacea of all evils (phenomena of depression and suicides keep on growing in  rich societies; this should weaken some of today’s certainties). We know that the reminder of Mary, Virgin and mother. wants to be a reminder to the material generation and, above all, the spiritual unicum of every lay or consecrated woman. Of course, with different modalities the world more than ever needs our being mothers in the spirit, to sprout out and grow in spirituality. Words may remain, perhaps also beautiful ones, but they are good for nothing.

Many boys and girls, even children, feel lonely, though they have a family. This neighbour must become “our own son”, whom we must teach with motherly solicitude and affection, to believe in the God of love. We can and must give love to these persons, a love made up of attention and concrete gestures.

We can speak also of a new conception of the body. In fact, the transplants and the artificial prothesis have “widened” our bodily reality. The medicines for many diseases considered incurable, make human life longer. For instance, let us think of the patients of Aids. They also are our brothers, whom we must follow with a pastoral contact (the Lord will give you the possibility to amplify the time at your disposal), above all the families of the donors (why has God taken away my son from me? Is donation the maximum of altruism, or does it contain, comprehensibly, the will of keeping alive “something” of the dear one?). Here we find the space for a lot of testimony, of hope and charity, together with fighting firmly against the extreme marketing of organs. Our Body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, destined to resurrection. How many persons remember this in their daily life with its consequent behaviour? The religious must become living “pro memoria”.   

Freedom or obedience?

What can we say of the disruptive actuality of the vow of obedience, against a wrong concept of freedom, which, having lost the orientation compass is making the person self-prisoner, to the point of suffocating it? The space and requests of action are many, for those who have the courage to face the mock.

The religious life is not an offside game. In fact, it has the right-duty of raising the red card and of asking the suspension of the game, to resume it with the correct rules. We must make the request, even if this does not happen, otherwise we remain blind or, at the end, we become accomplices.

This coated world promises everything, but gives nothing gratis; it rather leaves us alone and with a bitter mouth. It is a world that creates idols in an instant, or destroys and throws them away like used paper handkerchiefs. These are problems, but the world is not completely running wild. We must pay attention to pessimism, knowing that it is not constructive.

We must be cautious and never say that now everything is useless. No, there are lay and consecrated persons (all the Baptised are parts of the Church) who row against the tide. They would reach nowhere, if the pilot of their boat (small or big as it may be) were not God himself. Well, this neo-pagan world needs persons who spend (who waste according to the current opinion) their life for others, in the name of the unique Father. The world needs women fallen in love with Christ like Catherine of Siena, just to quote the example of the patron of Italy, and, therefore, ready to exist totally for all the brothers and sisters.

Honestly speaking, we must signal that persons of good will are not missing. There are persons who dedicate themselves to others, but in a “horizontal” sense, without any “vertical” vision, namely within a higher project, where discouragement, always present behind the angle, can be overcome with prayer.

Luckily we have prayer

The term prayer seems obsolete today, but its value does not depend on the analysis of the theories in this world. If supporting prayers were not there, there would be many more ugly things. Some recent scientific studies (of which the newspaper have spoken), have proved also that on a sample of persons affected by the same pathology, those who pray react better than those who do not. Therefore, there is also a therapeutic value in prayer and, above all, a different disposition of soul towards life and its trials.

Then, is this world, behind the shining scenes of Hollywood, completely rotten? Luckily, it is not. The image of the mass media is only partially true; because the good, by its nature, does not make news, and it is possible that only evil may overhang on the world under our eyes, eyes that “must be trained” to recognise it. 

We spontaneously ask ourselves whether behind this negative vision there is a diabolic director to push us towards discouragement and desperation. This could be a new form of temptation.

With prayer and example, the religious life must remind the world that the love of God is present. God allows, but is never the direct cause of evil, which instead derives from our nature corrupted by the original sin.  The presence of God is forgiveness and welcome: God is like the father of the “prodigal son”, who waits till the end to have us in his embrace. 

Are we too few to build up the rampant dam? Are we too few to show alternative and saving models? If we reasoned according to our power, we would lose the battle at its very start. However, it does not pertain to us the duty of saving or converting the world. What pertains to us is to be first in converting ourselves, to pray, never getting tired to witness to God. Everything else is in the hands of our heavenly Father. For the believer, the true motor of the world is not a still motor of Aristotle memory, but a fulcrum of love that wants the salvation of all men and women, and questions each of us personally and as community, as participants in the communion of Saints.

Rosaria Marchesi
Married, journalist