Social Media is the new Areopagus of the kerygma by an Evangelized evangelizer

              Last July 14-15, 2012, I, together with Fray Alvin John Salgado, OSA and Asp. Keith Lawrence Ermac, attended the First Catholic Social Media Summit in Renaissance Convention Center in Marikina City.

I am grateful and thankful to our community (San Agustin Center of Studies – Formation house of the Order of St. Augustine – Philippines) for allowing us to participate in the summit. With a positive outlook from our formators, they strongly supported us with this endeavor. For without them, we won’t experience the many wonderful things we encountered and nourished, particularly, the thoughts, ideas, information, trends, workshops, variety of sharing, stories and the people as well.

After that two-day summit, I was blissfully evangelized by the various speakers from the uninterrupted wonderful teachings and information about social media. Listening to them may look tiresome yet I never got bored and fell asleep to their practical and trending concerns of the society. We had speakers like Fr. Stephen Cuyos, MSC, who talked about becoming a true and authentic Christian in the Digital World, Arch. Luis Antonio Tagle, who shared about the spirituality of Social Media, Carlo Ople from TV5 sharing his marketing experience in the Social Media and finally Msgr. Pedro Quitorio, who shared about winning the Digital World through the Word. Moreover, there are other breakout sessions within the summit especially workshops, a talk show, and a free concert with Rivermaya.

            All the talks were fully loaded with essential content that missing a single part wouldn’t create the puzzle to form an aesthetic value. From the various speakers, I would much want to share my reflection about the thoughts of two speakers: namely Bishop Joel Baylon of the Diocese of Legaspi and Msgr. Pedro C. Quitorio III about the role of social media as the new areopagus for evangelization.

Social Media is the New Areopagus

            Bishop Baylon is the head of the Episcopal Commission on Youth of the CBCP. In a video interview, he asked young people that are very present in the cyber world, (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Linkedin etc.) the social networking sites, to join him in the endeavor to evangelize the world, this cyber world. It has been the recent call of the Church through the Holy Father Benedict XVI that this is the “new Areopagus”, the new place, for us to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, where many young people are present.

            This is the urgent call of the bishop about entering into a new place of evangelization, the Areopagus. This word is derived from the Sacred Scripture that refers to the place where Paul proclaimed the Good news.  “Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: ‘You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar in inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.” (Acts 16:22-23) At the time of the ancient world, Areopagus is a kind of a cultural center. Areopagus in Athens is a place of access for knowledge. It is where it is popularly known in ancient world. It is considered the birth place of great minds like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and other great philosophers. Paul went there because a great number of audiences are present. Eventually, he was led by the Epicurean and Stoic Philosophers to go to the Areopagus.  However, what matters here is not the place but the message that was proclaimed by Paul. His proclamation on the Gospel of Christ made the place coined word for evangelization. The same message then should be proclaimed in our time despite the long span of years from Paul’s time and people of the 21^st century.

            The reality of social media in the 21^st century is an undeniable truth that should be considered in the life of many. In our context, social media has dragged people, especially the young, to be involved in this world wide trend, wherein people have all the access to everything in which they need and want to know either one is rich or poor.

It follows then that the Church should go to this place, the social media, as the new areopagus for the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Since we have identified the social media as the new areopagus for the proclamation of the Gospel, it leads us to ask, “How then are we going to preach it?”

           

Kerygma is E2E

One of the highlights of the talk was the six ideas of “Winning the World through the Word: Shaping a Digital Full of HOPE” shared by Msgr. Pedro Quitorio III. Among the six ideas, the third idea was simply relevant and timely for this year’s theme about Kerygma or proclamation. Msgr. Quitorio said that “The Catholic Social Media is the E2E way of proclaiming the Gospel.”

Above all it is called, ‘Catholic’ because it is not only associated to technology but it is also about the content and the unique perspective of truth, which is proclamation of the Gospel. On the other hand, ‘E2E way’ is the means to proclaim the gospel from an Evangelizer to another Evangelizer. Before a person becomes an evangelizer he/she then must first be evangelized. Then, the former is the evangelized evangelizer of the Word of God. E2E way is quite different from the P2P way (the old way) which means “Pulpit to People”. Through this, E2E intensifies the subjective value of the evangelizer rather than sounding objective (the P2P perspective).

Msgr. Quitorio then gave us the best example of an evangelized evangelizer. They are ‘Elizabeth’, the mother of John the Baptist and ‘Mary’ the Mother of Jesus (Luke 1:1-80). Both of them were provoked by the Word of God that was revealed to them through the same angel. As to Mary, she became the first woman to rejoice by praying the Magnificat that the savior of the Israelites is about to be born through her. Elizabeth also rejoiced when John was conceived that despite her being advanced in age she can still carry and deliver a child through the grace of God. Both of them were provoked with the Word but Mary had the greater part since in her womb was the savior of mankind. The Word was viral, in the language of social media, from the positive perspective that made Mary become and evangelized evangelizer. She was the first one to use the E2E way that contains the Gospel, which is our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Above all, a new frontier for mission has been opened to us as young servants of God. With the gift of technology in our generation, we were able to discover our purpose not only as mere active users of the social media but as emphatically as an active Christian Catholic user.

            I think it is clear that the kerygma or the proclamation of the Word of God is to be done in the social media but not as the sole means but one of the many ways.  

            Lastly, I strongly call my brothers in the community and also to you my reader to make use of social media as a means to proclaim the Word of God to people of every nation even when you are just at home.  And as Arch. Luis Antonio Tagle said in his talk on the Spirituality of Social Media let us adhere to call also “Don’t use it in a mere label. But use social media to proclaim the Word.”

Article 1-07-31-12