Getting Connected
by Leon J. Suprenant, Jr.

            In a recent edition of his syndicated “On Language” column, William Safire chronicled the development of the word “connect” in our culture. The usual meaning of this verb is to “tie,” “bind,” “fasten,” or “join,” but its secondary meanings and connotations have undergone an interesting transformation in our computer age. We now frequently use “connect” in the sense of to “establish rapport” or “feel a surge of mutual understanding.” People who have “connected” have established a certain commonality or comfort level, or in a romantic sense a certain chemistry. People don’t want to be lonely or out of touch. They want to be connected.

            But there’s more. This is, after all, the era of the Internet, cell phones, and pagers, where even the fax machine is something of a dinosaur. Accordingly, “connect” has come to imply a certain speed and immediacy.

            This new, personalistic, yet high-tech usage of connect has everything to do with the spread of the Gospel in our time. Clearly, to be effective witnesses to Christ and His Church, we must connect with people and establish some rapport. There certainly is nothing new about this requirement. However, the speed, immediacy, and downright ubiquity of the means of social communication dramatically affect the increasingly global playing field of human interaction, including the work of evangelization and catechesis. That’s why this issue of Lay Witness is devoted to the critically important issue of effectively using the media to spread the Gospel.

            Today’s Catholics are called to be leaven in the new millennium. This is a tremendous challenge, as the richness of our Catholic faith isn’t reducible to mere soundbytes, and timeless Christian wisdom is often portrayed today as simply one voice among many or as the “spin” of the religious right. This all points to the ongoing need for prudent inculturation, which is the process of adapting—without diluting or disfiguring—the Gospel for new cultures and generations. Rather than withdraw into a secure Catholic ghetto, we’re called by our Holy Father to be an evangelizing presence in the world, allowing God’s grace to transform a generation that longs to be connected.

Child’s Play

Once, for my own amusement, I read Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott (not exactly Dr. Seuss!) out loud to my then infant daughter Mary Kate as I was rocking her to sleep. I had to give up the enterprise before completing the first paragraph, as Mary Kate’s cries reached new, unprecedented levels of intensity.

            As my daughters have become a little older, I still have to be attentive to what they’re able to handle. There is so much I desire to teach them about Jesus Christ, His Church, and living as Christians in the world today. I’m usually loaded for bear, but if I’m too abstract or theological they’ll start to squirm. I’ll ask my six-year-old Virginia, who does not have a single ounce of guile in her, what I just said. She’ll look up at me with her innocent blue eyes and confess, “I don’t know.”

            Conversely, when I’m more patient and recollected, I leave my “important” adult world behind and enter my daughters’ world. Then I’m able to talk with them in a way that’s more in keeping with their experience and level of understanding. Then connections are made, and I’m able to communicate not only my fatherly love for them, but also the Gospel.

Filling the Glass

            The Catechism provides an excellent exposition of the catholicity of the Church, which is one of her distinguishing “marks” (we believe in “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”). The Church is catholic or universal, both because she has already received from Christ the fullness of salvation (cf. Eph. 1:22-23), and because she has been entrusted with the mission of bringing the Gospel to the entire human race.

            Regarding the Church’s missionary nature, the Catechism devotes an important paragraph to inculturation (no. 854), worth quoting in full:

By her very mission, the Church travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God. Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ, continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are a sign of God’s presence in the world, and leads to the foundation of local churches. It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people’s culture. There will be times of defeat. With regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them, and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic. (Citations omitted.)

            This incarnational, sacramental dimension of the “new evangelization” requires profound respect for other peoples, cultures, and generations and absolute fidelity to the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ. It’s not an either-or proposition.

            Similarly, the Church calls us to build on the truths we already have in common with others (i.e., connect) while patiently fostering full communion in the Body of Christ. The glass is never only half full or half empty, it’s both. Connecting without ever summoning to conversion is cowardly and weak; summoning to conversion without first connecting is foolhardy and harsh. We need grace and courage to hold these two realities together in our own particular network of relationships.

A Family Affair

            St. Paul tells us that our faith transcends race, culture, or generation. For the Christian, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This commonality is much more profound than our shared human nature or even our professing the same creed—important as these things are. Rather, we are brought together through Baptism as children of God and heirs of heaven (cf. Gal. 4:5-7). The life of grace connects us not only with Christ, the head of the Body, but it intimately and supernaturally joins us to all the diverse members of Christ’s Body through all of time. Welcome to the eternal, Trinitarian life of God in what we call the Communion of Saints, the only satisfying and real answer to our innate yearning for connectedness.

            This discussion of the Family of God (super) naturally leads us to Our Lady. As Mother of Christ in the flesh (cf. Gal. 4:4) and the spiritual mother of all Christians (cf. Jn. 19:26-27), she provides a dynamic, maternal connection within the Body of Christ. Theologians of past centuries, such as the great Franciscan doctor St. Bernardine of Siena, have referred to Mary as the neck of the Mystical Body, a principle of connection between head and members. This unique role of our Blessed Mother has never been understood as competing with or substituting for that of Christ, the only begotten Son of God, but rather magnifies the sublime gift of divine sonship (cf. Lk. 1:47-49). Interestingly, the word in Latin for neck (cervix, as in cervical spine) is also the word we use for the outer end of the uterus, through which every child is welcomed into the world.

            Modern technologies offer many new and exciting ways of quickly communicating with others. Let us effectively put these tools at the service of the Gospel, as we patiently strive to connect with a world that in many ways is lost in cyberspace. Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, may we help lay the groundwork for the renewal of the whole world in Christ.

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