Power up for Lent

               Post on Facebook. Send a tweet. Less than a month before Ash Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI has called on Catholics to get into social media. He blesses the world of Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Facebook. He calls social media the new “agora,” the “open public square in which people share ideas, information and opinions, and in which new relationships and forms of community can come into being.”

            The pope lauded the latest communications breakthroughs in his 47^th World Communications Day message, “Social Networks: portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelization.” World Communications Day is marked in the U.S. on May 12.

            For Pope Benedict social media is opportunity. A Lenten exercise for us may be to help social media be worthy of the papal endorsement. We need to sanctify the net. Here are some steps:

            Go positive to counter the negative. The Web is filled with snide and snarky comments, so offer a counter balance. When you see meanness, an untruth or bias, gently correct for the record.

            Pray for the nay-sayers and character assassins who hide behind anonymity. Writers marked by mean speech reflect inner pain.  

            Resist knee-jerk responses. Ask how someone on the receiving end will feel before flinging a verbal slice and dice.

            Lent is a time for alms-giving so seek out worthy charities to which to donate. Catholic Relief Services’ Operation Rise Bowl is one. Catholic Charities agencies are always in need.

Share where you’ve seen God during the day and use pics. God’s there in the kids who make us laugh, the beauty of a flower, the images of love that touch our hearts. God’s also there in starving children and fragile elderly begging for help.

            Research sites that help you pray. The U.S. bishops at www.usccb.org/bible offer daily readings from Scripture with a reflection. The Irish Jesuits at www.sacredspace.ie use simple music and reflections to draw one to contemplative ground. Share what you’ve found with friends.

            Remember that how you say something may be even more important than what you say.

            Converse with people with whom you do not agree and seek common ground from which both of you can move on.

            Establish you own creed for social media behavior e.g.  Don’t deal in put downs, think before you type, find something positive to contribute to the conversation, don’t text while driving and don’t text while someone is sharing real time with you.

            Have the strength to power down. If social media get in the way of your relationship with God, family or friends, let yourself power down. Don’t check the computer until you’ve said good morning to God. Let the day’s last thoughts center on thanking God for his graces rather than a news flash from the Drudge Report.

            Send a tweet to Pope Benedict at @pontifex and download his app to your cellphone or I-pad so you can easily check in with him for his wisdom.

            Social media can touch hearts, notes Pope Benedict in the 2013 World Communications Day address. “When we are present to others, in any way at all, he says, “we are called to make known the love of God to the furthest ends of the earth.”

Tweet the Pope

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

With the push of a button, I sent a tweet with #AskPontifex to the pope at @Pontifex, the new Twitter account the Vatican set up for Pope Benedict XVI. It’s nice to go straight to the top. Kudos to the pope who saw that even at 85 years of age, he has to engage in social media.

Pope Benedict speaks many languages, his native German, of course, and Italian, French, English and other tongues too. But the most important language for him may be Digital, the one that reaches every nation in the world.

On Twitter, Pope Benedict will send messages in eight languages: English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, French, Arabic and Italian. His tweets debut December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who in an apparition startled the peasant Juan Diego by speaking to him instead of higher ups in mid-16th century Mexico.

When Pope Benedict joins Twitter, he endorses a community that exists on the Web, where people can even discuss matters of the soul. Its anonymity can free people to share deep concerns. It is not always pretty, of course. Recently, for example, on the USCCB Facebook page people debated whether or not there’s a religious obligation to help the poor. Arguments over such a mandate can be a healthy, though sometimes raucous religious exercise. Undoubtedly Pope Benedict will encounter cynicism, but he can handle that. He knows it is important to engage, even at personal cost.

The pope’s web leadership might encourage bishops and others to follow suit. This will be no small accomplishment. Resistance comes from more than the fact that social media is time consuming. It comes from the fact that blogging and the like defy what many have been taught. Priests and bishops, for example, learned early on: “it’s about the message, not you.” Now comes a communications vehicle where they are expected to get more personal. It jars them.

Church leaders also revel in finely nuanced theology. Tweets of 140 characters preclude nuancing. Some who think length equals profundity might pause at truths such as “God loves you,”  “Jesus died for you” and “I am with you always.” They’re short on words, deep in meaning and fit Twitter’s length restrictions.

Some fear the pope and other leaders might lose some mystique when they tweet with the hoi polloi. Yet plain speaking is not irreverent and being with the masses is not beneath a religious leader. After all, God did become man. Scripture proves simple speech can be holy. Think “Let there be light” at creation and Mary’s “Let it be done unto me according to thy word” at the Annunciation. Engaging the crowd means being with God’s children, such as the multitude Jesus addressed on the mountainside.

Social media reaches billions. Its brevity makes it accessible. It’s via the Internet, a new place people gather and that sometimes needs to be redeemed. It is interactive as it beckons web users to engage another, perhaps the antidote to the isolation many people feel today. As he wades into social media waters, the pope will encounter a sometimes cynical cyber-world, but by using Twitter with sincerity, he can elevate the medium. Some may doubt the wisdom of this papal venture, but fear has never stopped Christians from sharing their message through all available means.

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Editor's Note: Got a question for Pope Benedict XVI on Twitter? Use the hashtag #askpontifex to @Pontifex.