This then is what you are called to do: to love and
to evangelise, using all the media at your disposal in
order to present the Face of Jesus to the world.
Today, we gather to thank God for the way in which so
many women in your order have so generously, through His
grace, sought courageously to live out this demanding
apostolate in Great Britain over the last half century.
It is a work that has unquestionably borne great fruit.
As we look around, we see Pauline Books and Media Centres
in four of our key cities - London, Liverpool, Newcastle
and Glasgow – while today we find ourselves at the
hub of the operation, the Production Centre here at
Langley.
The history of the order, which is
given us in the booklets, published to mark today’s
occasion, makes fascinating reading. We hear of the first
sisters, three Italians and an Irish lass, getting to
know the locals through house-to-house-visiting and
distributing religious books; we hear of astute
stewardship as you gradually extend your field of
operation in response to the needs of the local Church;
we hear of the major contribution that the sisters made
at the notable National Pastoral Congress in Liverpool in
1980; of their setting up of what is now Pauline Books
and Media Productions; and we learn how the sisters are
increasingly engaged in the vigorous marketing of their
products in a commercial world in which it is not easy to
remain buoyant.
Anybody who enters one of your Centres cannot fail to be
impressed by the high level of courtesy, combined with
professionalism. There is no doubt that you set a
noticeable high standard in this field. Each of the
Centres is first and foremost an attractive
environment. They are places in which people linger and
search. What a boon it is for the likes of us priests and
catechists and teachers to stumble across a stock of such
a variety of media that they stimulate us to get to grips
with the new and wonderful opportunities for
evangelisation which modern technology makes possible.
What a contribution alone that is.
You cater for a whole range of needs. Some of your
customers are deeply imbued with the faith and are
looking for materials to deepen their own knowledge of
the Lord or to share their faith with others. Then there
are those who consider themselves to be on the fringes of
the Church. Perhaps they have been invited to a baptism
and enter the Centre rather gingerly, looking for
something appropriate. They may buy a bible or a prayer
book or an icon or a rosary. The importance of such a
moment can never be calculated - God’s Providence is
so very mysterious and the use He makes of those who
serve Him with the whole of their lives is never in vain.
The one thing that most sets your Centres apart is that
they are not just places of commercial excellence: they
constitute part of a religious house. The sense of calm,
which is so typical of them, proceeds from the presence
of the Blessed Sacrament in some part or other of the
Centre. The message is clear – Christ’s abiding
presence is at very heart of your apostolate, of all that
you do.
It would be difficult to calculate how many of the
conversations with customers have a deep and much needed
pastoral dimension. People in need, I know, find in you
attentive listeners; they enter ostensibly to buy a card;
they leave consoled, having had an opportunity to
unburden themselves to somebody whom they know they can
trust. I know too that you engage in many other forms of
pastoral work in the local Church. Love and
evangelisation – the two dimensions of your
apostolate bound together in such a practical way –
being alongside your brothers and sisters and preaching
in the market place!
Today is a wonderful feast to be
celebrating: the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The
original prayers of this Mass were composed by St Thomas
á Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and those opening
phrases of the Collect are so apt for you:
Father, you sent your Word
to bring us truth
and your Spirit
to make us holy.
What is the Church saying to us
today about truth and holiness?
You know better than I, Blessed James Alberione was very
fond of often repeating Jesus’ words: I am the
Truth.
His whole life strained to communicate that Truth to the
people of his day using all the means at his disposal.
Jesus, as today’s feast reminds us, is that creative
Word uttered out of sheer love by the Father – its
very utterance reveals the depth of the Father’s
love for us and all human beings. Everything that we are
capable of understanding about God, we see in Christ.
Without Him the picture is incomplete. This is so central
to our faith that every now and again we need to allow it
to strike us with fresh force. God has revealed Himself
to the world in Christ in order that men and women
everywhere might discover Him as a merciful Father who
burns with love and longing for each one of us.
The world in which we live is full
of deserts, to quote our new Holy Father – the
deserts of loneliness and unfriendliness, of
un-forgiveness and rejection, of intolerance and
violence, of closed suspicion, intemperateness, of deep
hunger and of empty greed. How the example of the
Witchells speaks volubly for a much needed experience of
mercy - God’s mercy! People need to hear and
experience that God is doing wonderful things! Jesus
says in today’s gospel, I did not come to
condemn, but to save. And yet how ready so many
people are both to condemn themselves for falling short
of what they feel they should be, and also, in their
unhappiness, in their unease with themselves, to condemn
others. I asked Monsignor Atherton yesterday what was the
most important lesson that he had learnt as a prison
chaplain for 24 years. His answer was short: he said, the
wisdom of Jesus who said, Do not condemn. The
mercy of God cuts through the cycle of negativity that is
eating at the heart of our society today. The goodness of
Jesus reveals to us both that we are sinners and that He
offers us salvation. He no sooner shows us how helpless
we are than He rescues us and takes us to Himself. It is
only in Him, as we all know but as we all need to be
constantly reminded, that we discover the purpose of our
being and the sure hope for the future. Without Him the
picture will always be incomplete.
This truth of our faith is communicated to us first and
foremost in Sacred Scripture. One of the things that most
satisfied your founder, I know, was the knowledge that
the Pauline Family had distributed millions of bibles
throughout the world during his own lifetime.
The centrality of the bible to our
faith was very finely and simply expressed by the placing
of the Book of the Gospels on Pope John Paul’s
coffin. One day it will be placed on ours, too. We
watched its pages flickering in the strong breeze,
testifying at that moment, we can confidently say, to the
magnificent way in which the late Pope had lived out the
gospel in his own life. It is an image, which has
remained with people throughout the world. It is in that
book, in that message, that true greatness lies!
Part of John Paul’s greatness
was that he never tired of preaching in season and out
of season. And whether the world agreed with him or
not they sat back stunned as the world, particularly of
the young, responded in their millions and recognised the
authenticity of his Master’s message because he
clearly and courageously lived by it himself.
Your apostolate is very demanding
and you always respond with such generous giving, but the
old adage is true: in order to give you also need to
receive.
The challenge before us all who are
involved in the task of evangelisation today, and
especially for a Daughter of St Paul, is that we too must
allow ourselves to be evangelised in order to take the
Word of Life to a waiting and needy world. This is what
holiness of life is about. Blessed James Alberione was
insistent on this theme. He urged you to give
particular attention to the life of prayer. And he
also urged you to deepen your learning. I think I am
right in saying that you were among the first groups of
women ever to cross, with intent, the forbidding doors of
the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome! Through
prayerful reading of Scripture and through theological
and scientific studies, you open up your hearts to be
converted so that you may become channels of God’s
mercy in our society. Your hallmark is what we may call sanctification
through evangelisation. Every conversation you have,
every stock check which you dutifully undertake, every
item which you prepare for publication and for sale, when
seen in this perspective, is a moment of preaching or
preparing to preach the Good News and a moment of
holiness, as you follow not your own will but that of
Christ whose deepest desire is to reveal through you the
Father’s love and the Spirit’s strength.
Along the way, I have no doubt that
at times you will have felt disheartened! That’s
fine. We are not to worry when we feel like that. That
too is part of the task as your founder noted:
The
wearying labour of the apostolate is to be joined to the
labour of Jesus, he said. The apostolate brings
fatigue, discouragement, disappointment. There are those
who fail to understand this. One wonders, have they
understood the whole apostolate of Jesus? Let us think of
Him.
Thank God that in the midst of whatever difficulties
you have had to endure, the Lord has blessed your work
abundantly. Who knows what the second fifty years will
bring? Yet, as you begin your second half-century, the
need for your unique contribution to the Church in these
countries has never been greater. Now, much more than
ever before, we are conscious that we need to devote our
energies to communicating the gospel to the people of our
society. We need to establish new and innovative points
of contact with people who are searching often for
they-know-not-what. In this you have always been on the
front line. You stand in the high streets, making the
full treasures of the Church accessible to an
un-evangelised and un-catechised people. You are like
signposts pointing to a greater and more life-giving
reality. Like sentinels of a new dawn standing
confidently in the hazy mists of difficult times, a lamp
burning in your hearts, a light shining in lives of
dedication to God. Thank you for what you do; thank you
for coming to us and for staying with us; thank you above
all for what you are – true sisters of Christ –
courageous daughters of Paul the Apostle with a thirst
for truth and holiness, who are not afraid to stake your
lives on the very things in which you so ardently
believe.
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