New Beginnings for Redwood City Paulines

Five years ago we closed up shop in San Francisco, a magnificent place, but because of economic and demographic reasons, a city that could no longer support a Pauline Books & Media Center. Loathe to leave the archdiocese, we hung out our shingle in a rented space 25 miles south of downtown, in Redwood City, right between San Francisco and San Jose, still within the archdiocese, neighbor to San Mateo and Menlo Park. God seems to have prepared the place for us in this community of almost 75,000, because we actually found housing for six before we even found a retail space.

This year the lease was up, and since our landlord chose not to renegotiate, we hunted for one who did. We found a slightly smaller spot at 935 Brewster St. (94063), just around the corner from our previous location, with an enviable amount of free parking and a monthly bill of about half of what we had been paying.

The response of our friends has been, first, the automatic “Oh no, you’re moving!” then a sigh of relief that we’re still in the neighborhood. The only disappointed customers have been San Franciscans, who watched the prospects of our return to their fair city dwindle even more. Of course, the parking is their consolation.

Letting everyone know about the change began weeks ago with advertising in the local papers and parish bulletins. The men’s group at St. Charles Church in San Carlos, about a five-minute drive north, wasn’t satisfied with passing the word on. February 16, the day of the move, eight of them joined Lou, the maintenance director at our own parish of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, to haul to the new location furniture, computers, and supplies, as well as stock in English and Spanish. Apparently they were having too much fun. A customer couldn’t resist; he dropped everything and joined in!



Before

 

After



They were amazed at how much prep work the sisters and employees had done. They also couldn’t get over how much work there still was. Even so, after a while, all that the sisters had to do was stay out of the way; the men had it under control. God pitched in, too: It was supposed to rain that day, but didn’t. To keep everyone else happy, he made up for it the rest of the week.

The only “crisis” moment came when they couldn’t get the check-out counter through the front door. They had to saw a measly two millimeters off the doorway, then repair it once the counter was in. Don’t tell anyone—you can’t even see it.

Everything was ready for the grand opening on February 22. More photos and comments can be found in the Redwood City PBM’s blog posts of Jan. 21, Feb. 20, and Feb. 23 at http://www.paulineredwood.blogspot.com/.

Right now the sisters are in three, with the fourth member, Sr. Leonora, helping her ailing mother in San Diego. One of those three, Sr. Jamie Paula, is also a part time student at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, UC Berkeley. That makes the level of their outreach even more remarkable. Besides staffing the PBM Center with two very capable employees, they host three book clubs for a total of roughly 25 readers, a monthly Faith and Film Night with a dozen people, as well as book and media displays for San Francisco and Oakland parishes whenever possible. Local pastors, educators, and parish staff members have been very welcoming. Little by little, the sisters are heading toward introducing the Pauline Cooperator Formation Program to discerning laity, who eventually will be able to take the mission beyond its present scope.

For now, though, the Paulines in Redwood City are committed to integrating their existing initiatives in the life of nearby communities and completing the PBM Center’s renovation. Chief among the needs are painting the exterior, plus what seems utterly basic, yet is unaffordable without financial assistance—a Pauline Books & Media sign. Price tag: $1,100.

At the same time, maintenance on their home is overdue and becoming more acutely felt. This includes the need to make it significantly more energy efficient. For more information, prospective donors can call either Sr. Kathleen or Sr. Jamie at 650-369-4230.

And send out the word! Copy this post, attach it to your Facebook Wall, or e-mail the address to friends in California. No effort is too small and is more than appreciated.

Information and photos from Sr. Jamie Paula Martos, FSP

Peter, James, and...Pauline



Br. Peter Lyne, SSP

You’ll remember that last month, I complained that people are forever getting us mixed up with the Paulists. This evening I returned from a weekend in Staten Island, NY, where I worked with Peter Lyne, one of our Brothers in the Society of St. Paul, to set the record a little straighter. We’re planning two events this spring to introduce people to Blessed James Alberione, SSP, founder of the Pauline Family, and help them come to know our ten institutes and associations better. In the process, we’re hoping to raise a few dollars for the upcoming documentary on Alberione. (See the film preview by scrolling down the right sidebar.)

One event will take place April 3 in New York City with 1,500 officers of the NYPD and their spouses. The other will be a family barbeque on Staten Island on June 25, ending with the sung novena to St. Paul, whose feast occurs a few days later. At each event we will party, of course (!), and will also talk for a few minutes about our charism, that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Pauline Family for building up the Church, the Body of Christ. Each event will include a showing of the preview and an opportunity for interested people to discover more.

In the course of our planning two days ago, Br. Peter, Irish-American as they come, told me stories about his experience of Pauline religious life (I’ll never tell) and waxed eloquent about what moves him about his consecration. He graciously answered a few of my questions for Pauline Faithways—and those I gladly share:

PF: What motivates you to collaborate as generously as you do on this project, other than the obvious little detail that Fr. Alberione is your founder too?
BPL: It’s very personal. Not only do I consider him our founder, but one of the greatest privileges of my life was the day I met a saint. It was brief; I was a novice. It was like a Dominican meeting Dominic, a Franciscan or Jesuit meeting Francis or Ignatius.
     When we come in the presence of great men and women of the Church, it is a powerful experience. Their sanctity is our spiritual inheritance. The example of how they  pursued holiness remains with us until the day we go home to God. That carries us through everything in life.

PF: So you see in the story of this great man of the Church a chance for people to have the same experience that you had?
BPL: Exactly. We don’t have to be in the presence of the person to have that experience. When any of us view a film, a documentary, or a newscast, even if we’ve never met the people personally, the documentary gives us a sense that we have met them. Their message, their words, their life somehow affect us.

PF: What aspect of the founder’s life or heritage inspires you the most?
BPL: His sense of determination and perseverance. In the midst of certain encounters and of trying to form this apostolic endeavor [of beginning the Pauline Family], the founder was persistent as well as persevering. He might have felt sorrow or disappointment, but his faith and trust in God made him determined to work for the honor and glory of God, the good of the Church, and the good of humanity.

PF: What are your hopes for this film?
BPL: That as many people as possible—Catholic and non-Catholic—will see this and be edified by the saint of the media.
     Everyone is more media savvy than they were thirty or forty years ago. They need to see the Church there too. People usually see the Church as a building, with its schools and institutions, but the Church is so much more than that. They need to learn more about its activity and about the Church’s interest in communication as a vehicle for preaching the Gospel. They need to see that there are congregations that minister by way of communications.

Br. Peter, SSP, Jas. Haynes III, Hibernians, Sgt. Brian
Reilly, Knights of Columbus & NYPD, Maria Haynes
and husband James IV, both Hibernians. I'm the
photographer.


PF: What message would you like to give to prospective or repeat donors of this project?
BPL: So much money is spent on media in all its forms—computers, iPhones, iPads, TVs. Donors would help the Pauline Family to invest in one of the greatest projects of the Pauline Family—this film.
     By involving donors and benefactors in this way, I think that all the members of the Pauline Family deeply and sincerely invite the laity of the Church to join with us arm in arm, hand in hand, side by side. Evangelization is not the work only of priests, brothers, and sisters, ordained and consecrated. Blessed James wanted the laity to be a part of “us.” Together we can do so much!

We’re working within a $100,000 budget and have raised almost $38,000 so far. If you’d like to outshine New York (Is that possible?) and contribute to this documentary before they do, go to http://www.alberionefilm.com/ to send a check or donate securely online. May Blessed James Alberione join his prayers to yours!

Egypt and Media Mindfulness

In last week’s blog post I mused on how vital it is to lock onto the media generated culture in which we live in order to evangelize more effectively, as St. Paul did in his day. I mentioned that the Pauline Center for Media Studies, as well as various media literacy—or as we tend to call it, “media mindfulness”—projects, are innovative ways in which the Daughters of St. Paul engage youth and those who still exert the greatest influence on them: parents and educators. Introducing them to Jesus Christ, supporting their relationship with him as Church, and providing them with tools to live as he lived—all in the languages of the media—require that we and they understand and “speak” those languages fluently.

Part of that is keeping an critical eye and ear on communicators and their messages. All media messages are constructed. That is, none of them ever truly represent reality; rather, they design it. Just snapping a photo, putting a frame around a visual, choosing one word rather than another or one element of a story over another, or juxtaposing sounds and images winnows certain aspects of one reality to create another. Add political, religious, or economic agenda to that, and you have highly constructed communication.

Enter Egypt. This month, like people everywhere, we here at 50 St. Paul’s Avenue in Boston held our breath, as we talked about and prayed over the fate of this kingpin in the Arab world. As days turned into weeks, we also noticed something interesting that clearly illustrates the nature of mass media. If we didn’t know better, we would have thought that, judging from the pictures we saw coming out of Cairo, the entire country was contained in Tahrir Square. How about you? What percentage of your exposure to the situation covered anything else?

Not that we were favoring the status quo over there, but did everyone in Egypt want an overthrow of the old guard? How would we have known? Even if a million people spent these historic days protesting, that would have represented only six percent of Cairo’s entire population—not to mention that of the nation. Because it was reasonable to assume that there were plenty of other likeminded individuals lurking in the shadows, the news media could credibly portray a nation in upheaval and actually assist in shaping it!

This question was raised by former President Carter’s national security advisor on the PBS Newshour the day before President Mubarak stepped down. I’ve attached a video of the interview. If you don’t have time to watch the whole 13-minute clip, set the time slider at 9:30 and let it run for the next two minutes. Below I’ve excerpted some pivotal statements in the conversation:

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI:…I'm also perplexed, somewhat, by the reporting we're getting, because what strikes me about the reporting is that it's totally concentrated on one square in a large city of 15 million people, one square.
JIM LEHRER: Yes.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: And that's all we have seen. And we have seen it now for 10 days.
But what about the rest of the country? Even what about the rest of Cairo? What's happening there?
JIM LEHRER: Yes.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I wish our correspondents would talk to some of the other people, because we don't really know what's going on. We have essentially a focus on a narrow, highly congested, combustible situation.
But we don't have a sense of what is really happening elsewhere in the country. In some places, it could be worse. For example, people have talked about Alexandria erupting. But, in many parts of the country, and maybe even in Cairo, it's much less volatile. So, we don't really have a good grasp, visually, and therefore intellectually, of what is really happening.
JIM LEHRER: …I'm going to pick up on a point of Dr. Brzezinski's. …
[T]here is a concern about people who are not in the square who want to go back to work, where they have got their shops open, but there's nobody there to buy anything…. [I]s that the majority, or do you think the majority is ready for -- we don't know, do we?
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: We don't know.

We don’t know. Understandably, the media wants to be where the action is. But for a profession that is presumably committed to communicating in the tradition, say, of Walter Cronkite’s “that’s the way it is,” we get very little apart from the visually and aurally tantalizing. By the way, did you notice something else? According to Dr. Brzezinski, our intellectualization depends heavily on visualization. It wasn’t always like that. I think that this is one way that with John Paul II we can speak of modern culture, for better and for worse, in terms of a new psychology.

Don't miss Angela Santana's insight under "Weekly PauLine" on the sidebar at right. It’s the responsibility and privilege of Catholic and other Christian communicators to produce media messages that do justice to the whole truth about the human person and human society. It’s the responsibility and the privilege of the Daughters of St. Paul to identify together with them the principles to help them do that, and in so far as our resources allow, to base productions of our own on those, as well. In the end it’s the responsibility and privilege of us all to “have the mind of Christ” (1Cor. 2:16) to empower us to bring the Gospel to bear on the culture we all live in.

Athenians, Corinthians, and Mediaspeak

In sharing the Jesus-story is "mediaspeak" of any use? I was thinking about this last Sunday, when I heard Paul the Apostle determined to witness to the crucified Christ.

Some scholars believe that St. Paul had made a pastoral mistake in Athens when he quoted Greek thinkers and poets to get in good with the Athenians (cf. Acts 17:16ff.). They maintain that, learning from this experience, he later cut to the chase in his preaching to the Corinthians, determined to witness to nothing “except Jesus Christ and the fact that he was crucified (1Cor. 2:2).

Other scholars, though, don’t believe that by simply recalling Greek wisdom in Athens Paul was kissing up to the culture. His mistake, one that he obviously avoided at Corinth, was that he did so at the expense of the entire Gospel message. A careful reading of his sermon at the Areopagus, the rocky hill in Athens where open air discussions were held, reveals that he side-stepped the crucifixion, probably for fear of discrediting the Gospel among these sophisticates. He jumped from a reasoned explanation of belief in God, sailed through the judgment of the world, only to land on the resurrection of Christ. It apparently didn’t occur to him that if his listeners couldn’t conceive of Someone saving the world through a form of capital punishment meted out to slaves, they would never wrap their heads around resurrection from such a death! I imagine that as he trudged the 40 plus miles to Corinth after that fiasco, he repeatedly shook his head and muttered, “What was I thinking?”

Once among the sports fans of Corinth, Paul was not above couching his Gospel in a cultural context. This is clear from the way he referenced track meets and boxing as analogies for self-discipline and self-conquest in the life of the spirit (cf. 1Cor. 9:22-27). Even so, he made sure that he offered them something other than yet another path to self-transcendence. “Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…” (1Cor. 1:22, 23).

So it is with every believer today, everyone committed to Gospel values, every witness to Christ and him crucified and risen. We live, work, and play in a world that seems irreconcilably at odds with the Gospel, with people who have no earthly idea of why we live the way we do. We want to share the life within us, but where to start? Even more, how do we help them ask their questions, or even know that they have questions?

Storytelling is probably one of the best ways to help them see themselves without making them run from us, screaming. Jesus was a Master at it. Media-makers are the storytellers of our day, but whose tale do they tell? All of us, the tellers and the told, can tease the story of the Crucified-Risen One out of the narratives we hear and see in advertising, movies, music, and more, if we become adept at understanding the media and their messages and pass those skills on to our children. The Daughters of St. Paul call it becoming media mindful. It’s an imperative from which no one—bishop, teen, parent, or civil servant—is exempted. Through our prayerful relationship with him who is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1Cor. 1:24), grace infuses those attempts and gives them life.

Since 1936, with its first papal letter about communication, the Church has constantly described the media as gifts of God (Vigilanti cura, n. 4). It’s not uncommon for sincere people to disagree, as they are affronted by the consumerism and hedonism generated by modern media. About three years ago, a diocesan director of faith formation told me that a priest-friend of hers refuses to go on the Internet, because, as he says, he’s heard too many confessions. Now, one of the criticisms leveled against Sigmund Freud is that he studied only sick people, then tacked his conclusions onto everybody else in the world. More than ever before, then, the proliferation of means and messages, as well as the culture engendered by them, calls for discernment, not for trench warfare. As Eric Clapton sings, it’s all in the way that you use them.

In his encyclical, Mission of the Redeemer, John Paul II goes even farther than Eric does. He writes that it’s not enough to simply use the media for the Gospel. To enter as Christ’s disciples into the new Areopagus of communication, he points out that we need to integrate the Gospel into this new culture’s languages, techniques, and psychology (n. 37) taking them on, as it were, like the way God became human. (See also "Weekly PauLine" on the sidebar at right.)

This is the core message of media workshops and presentations that we Paulines and our collaborators give. It’s what we share with educators through the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Culver City, CA. These FSP projects in North America may be operating on a shoestring budget, but they enrich the life and ministry of many. Media certification courses, Movie Bible Nights, film blogs and regular reviews in national and local periodicals, Catholic school book fairs, vocation discernment programs, parent-teacher conferences, and Pauline Books & Media publications are only some of the ways we work with others to Christianize the media generated culture with Gospel values.

“On the whole, I believe that there are seeds of the Gospel in a significant percentage of mainstream film releases. And if we approach films in anticipation of authentic lectio, they can create a spiritual experience—cinema divina indeed” (Sr. Rose Pacatte, FSP, director, Pauline Center for Media Studies). 

“This is a course you can’t afford to miss!  Media needs to be embedded in our evangelization…Teachers know the merits of a lesson plan that instructs through multiple intelligences.  This course unlocks the tools that are embedded in media-rich lesson plans, tools that you can use immediately” (Deacon Bill, Fremont, CA).

“Thank you, Sister, for all your work helping us to connect with God's Beauty” (Randy Heffner).

Spiritual Off-Roading

Srs. Emi, Roberta, and Joan Paula,
nearly unmindful of the path they're
paving, are in it for the adventure. 

In the high sierra of my native northern California, off-roading is not the foreign concept it appears to be here back East (or “down East,” as Canadians would have it). I hesitate to call it a sport. Without major adaptation, I doubt it would ever qualify for the Olympics. But an exciting adventure it is. You take your Jeep Grand Cherokee with its four-wheel drive, versatile suspension, yada, yada, yada, and you literally head for the hills, veering off I-80 as soon as a foothill beckons. You even thumb your nose at the side roads, and yes, the unpaved ones too. You’ve dressed for the occasion, packed light, and maybe taken a friend. There’s safety in numbers.

It’s not for those who’ve written the driver’s ed manual, quake at the unknown, obsess over scratches, or polish chrome in their sleep. It’s not for the faint of heart.

And neither is consecrated life.

Today is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, commemorating how the firstborn, 40-day-old Jesus was offered to God in the Temple by Joseph and Mary—foreshadowing his later self-offering and victory—and whose life was symbolically “ransomed” by a pair of doves, the sacrifice of the poor.

In 1997 John Paul II named this the World Day of Consecrated Life. It’s a chance for everyone to think about what he calls the “stupendous gift” of vowed life that God gives to the Church and the world in communal religious life, societies of apostolic life, secular institutes, eremitical life in solitude, and vowed virginity within the secular sphere. “Stupendous” and “gift,” because in an off-roading kind of way, it takes us on the road less traveled and, through no merit of our own, leads us in an adventure unlike any on earth—the radical following of Christ and all the consequences of that choice, here and hereafter.

The candle is the traditional symbol of this feast, which is why, centuries ago, it was named Candlemas Day. Consumed as it sheds brightness and warmth, this small light becomes an apt symbol of Christ’s self-offering and that of every consecrated person. In the Temple, Simeon called Jesus “a revealing light to the Gentiles and the glory of [God’s] people, Israel” (Lk. 2:32).  So this mystery becomes “an eloquent icon of the total offering of one’s life for all those who are called to show forth in the Church and in the world, by means of the evangelical counsels ‘the characteristic features of Jesus—the chaste, poor and obedient one’” (Message of John Paul II). 

Sr. Neville Christine makes her
first profession of vows.



In case you think this has nothing to do with you—single, ordained, married, widowed, or divorced, as you may be—John Paul has a word for you: “The life of special consecration, in its many forms, is at the service of the baptismal consecration of all the faithful. In contemplating the gift of consecrated life, the Church contemplates her own intimate vocation of belonging only to her Lord, desirous of being in his eyes ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish’” (Eph 5:27). In other words, if you’re chosen to drive the streets and highways of life, you can look at what we’re doing in the reckless abandon of love and know that you will survive and thrive. Just as baptized into Christ as we are, you are just as loved.

With biblical imagery, John Paul reflects that the consecrated life of both women and men is a sign of the Church, Christ’s Bride, tending toward the fulfillment of her union with her Bridegroom. He reminds us that for this we can rely on God’s fidelity and grace to carry us over the terrain and take us where we cannot even imagine: “You have not only a glorious history to remember and to recount, but also a great history still to be accomplished! Look to the future, where the Spirit is sending you in order to do even greater things” (ibid.).

Scroll up this blog until you see "Weekly PauLine" on the right sidebar. Does it remind you of anyone? If you know young people
• who have a sense of what’s right and good and are motivated to do it,
• who value the life of the spirit,
• who possess a tremendous capacity to love, a spirit of self-sacrifice, and a consuming thirst for the salvation of the world,
• in short, who long to be like Jesus,
encourage them to be Pauline sisters, brothers, priests or consecrated laypersons!(http://www.daughtersofstpaul.org/; http://www.vocationoffice.org/) They will be able to spend themselves completely, while their horizons continue to stretch out before them, always broader and more beautiful.

Cheers to Poverty!

Three years ago, as the entire Church prepared to observe a “Pauline Year” in honor of the Apostle, we received the following letter:

“…The coming year of St. Paul….should be a powerful year for his daughters. Expect special blessing, even more vocations and more than adequate provision for your ministry….The greatest blessing will be deeper intimacy with Jesus as you “gladly spend yourselves and are spent” for him.”
Dr. John B., Ellicott City, MD

God so graces our lives every day, that it’s hard to know whether that year was more blessed than others. It was certainly marked by a fresh impetus in spirituality and mission, new publications on Paul, communal reflection on the heritage we’ve received from him, and a month-long seminar in Italy for representatives of all the congregations and institutes of the Pauline Family. This was convoked by Fr. Silvio Sassi, superior general of the Society of St. Paul, with the express intention of jumpstarting a renewed outlook on study, spiritual life, mission, and our “lifestyle” at the service of the Gospel.

That “lifestyle,” shaped by our vowed life in community, is part of the patrimony from our founders, James Alberione and Thecla Merlo. As they meditated on the lives of Jesus and Paul, their lives were gradually marked by poverty, which they understood not as destitution, but as simplicity and a strong work ethic that’s meant to give life to individual Paulines, Pauline communities, and those we evangelize.

In fact, as they “digested” (Alberione’s word) the example and teaching of the Apostle, they ended up describing Pauline poverty as life that renounces the superfluous, preserves the goods of creation that are given to us, provides for our needs, produces for the mission, and builds up (“edifies”) the Church.

Fr. Alberione was accustomed to hard work all his life, first out in the fields of Piedmont, and later, in the religious houses he founded. So, linking his own experience with Christ, he wrote that Jesus’ sweat in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth was no less redemptive than his bloody sweat in the Garden of Olives, since it was the world’s Redeemer who underwent both. Paul was another model for him, too, since he had labored both as an Apostle and as a tentmaker, providing for his own needs and those of his companions (cf. Acts 20:34).

Neither of them ever said no to a donation, though! Time and again, in his letters to the communities he had formed, Paul thanked those whose generosity made it possible for him to live and not be a burden on those in whose city he was currently evangelizing. He boldly labeled their donation a “spiritual offering,” given in exchange for the chance they had received to share in the blessings of the Gospel he had preached to them. Jesus and his disciples, too, benefitted from the gratitude of women Jesus had healed and “who provided for them out of their means” (Lk. 8:3).

There’s the catch. Those who followed Jesus and Paul were not priests or religious. They were regular working people, family men and women with several mouths to feed, a number of them—at least in Paul’s company—slaves to unrelenting masters, adherents of a scorned religion. Relatively few were sophisticated, powerful, or born with a silver spoon in their mouths (cf. 1Cor. 1:26). Yet the Pauline poverty that renounced, preserved, provided, produced, and built up the Church was their call as much as it was Paul’s. It characterized their lives as much as it did his.

So it is with us and those who come to share in the blessings of the Gospel through our mission. While the Daughters’ ordinary way of providing for our needs is remuneration for our products and services, we also appeal to others’ generosity…in Paul’s spirit. They, in turn, gradually, maybe even imperceptibly, absorb his “style,” not in the radical way we do by a vowed life, but by integrating it into their lives. It changes them.

Yesterday the Church celebrated the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and today remembers his closest collaborators, Sts. Timothy and Titus. May they give all of us something of their mission-mindedness…and a little of their poverty!

“Our first encounter [with the Daughters of St. Paul] was when some sisters visited my home when I was first married. My wife was so impressed that she chose St. Paul as her patron saint. Then in 1978 when I was broke and out of work with a second child on the way, you fed us. I have never experienced the love of God in such a powerful way. The Church and the world are in such great need of the truth which you spread through your apostolate. You are in my daily prayers, and I unite my sufferings for the success of that ministry.”
 Gerald G., Bridgeport, CT

The Feet of Those Who Publish Salvation (Is. 52:7)

People confuse us with the Paulists all the time: St. Paul, publishing, book stores, evangelization, that sort of thing. If I myself didn’t have a problem keeping religious communities straight—what with all the Charities and Mercies, and St. Josephs—it could get maddening. After all, we’ve both been around a century each, longer in their case. What makes it even harder for people is that there’s a masculine branch of the Paulines, too, who have the same mission we have: The Society of St. Paul, with their own publishing, once known as Alba House, now “St. Paul’s,” like their—our—brothers worldwide.

The Paulists’ mission “gives the Gospel a voice today” in several keys ways. Naturally, it makes sense to do it through media, but they’re not bound to that. The Pauline Family, on the other hand, is: evangelizing specifically through media and evangelizing the media culture, as St. Paul would have done were he walking the earth today.

Same Church, different pew.

Copy editor Sr. Linda S. Boccia hugs "Goliath,"
proofs of John Paul II's monumental work,
Man and Woman He Created Them. 



With our 40 publishing houses around the world, it explains why Pauline Books & Media (PBM) gets serious about the craft. From marketing and editorial, to order fulfillment and customer service, the books and other printed materials, CDs, and DVDs we put out in either digital or hard copy are the premier way we carry out our mission. PBM covers not only our products, but our services, as well: our Web site and store, the J-Club (a school book fair program with a corresponding Web site in the works), workshops and media literacy courses, plus the array of emerging social media we engage in: Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. It doesn’t stop there, either. Whatever is coming down the technological pike falls within the scope of our mission.

Thus the need for continual discernment. PBM doesn’t exist for itself, but for the world it evangelizes. As times change, how is Christ the Master, the Teacher, calling PBM to change so he can respond to the needs, the cries, of his People?

Pauline Books & Media Mission Statement

As apostles of Jesus Christ, evangelizing today’s world:

We are CALLED to holiness by God’s living Word and Eucharist.

We COMMUNICATE the Gospel message through our lives

and through all available forms of media.

We SERVE the Church by responding to the hopes and needs

of all people with the Word of God, in the spirit of St. Paul.

You’ve told us some of what you value in Pauline Books & Media. Following are excerpts from your notes to us:

My mother passed away in May. During Mom’s final days, we played your beautiful Adoration/Eucharistic Hymns CD over and over again. The presence of the Holy Spirit is evident in your music. The CD was the last thing my Mother heard on this earth. The atmosphere it provided her was a gentle transition into Our Lord’s arms. We will be forever grateful to all of you!

Frances M., Tacoma, WA

[PBM] means a constant source of nourishment in my daily routine of spreading the Gospel always.

John, MA

Pauline Books & Media definitely is a way of evangelization, introducing Jesus to those who do not know Him yet.

Audra T., MA

I was moved [to send this contribution for your] important work in furthering the spread of the Gospel because of my personal relationships with your sisters in Pakistan over a period of 33 years while I served in Karachi and Lahore. They are a wonderful group and helped me very much in many ways.

Rev. J. M. C., OP, Hawthorne, NY

As I understand it, your mission is to bring the Word of God to the world.

Your publications and stores are one strategy to do so. These are great resources, and one particular “business model.” As a “brand” your products and recommendations, i.e., what you publish, and what you carry in your stores, provide a “guarantee” for those of us struggling to make good choices.

Robert S., Milton MA

I wish to thank you for all the beautiful tapes and books which I purchased from you. It has been a wonderful experience and I am grateful for all the joys I have received from you. May God continue to shine on all your endeavors.

Rosalind L., Long Island, NY

Clicking on http://www.pauline.org/ will help you keep up with the latest
at Pauline Books & Media. By the way, last week I forgot to tell you that you can connect with the Pauline Books & Media Centers in the U.S. and Toronto on Facebook. Become a fan and you can stay connected.

Centers Where the Word Is Made Flesh

This Nativity set filled the window display at the Pauline Books & Media (PBM) Center in Chicago this past Advent and Christmas. A favorite seasonal tradition in Chicago is to go window shopping in the city, so stores, large and small, oblige by decorating to the nines. Sr. Frances A. Obrovac (yes, we’re related; she’s my sister) is assigned to our community there and told me how our staff caught glimpses of the ways this arresting display evangelized people on Michigan Avenue.

Apparently it was common to see people stop in their tracks in front of it and smile wide in sheer joy or wonder. Some panned the scene with video cameras, or had their pictures taken next to it. Parents especially grabbed this made-to-order, teachable moment: while the kids gazed at the figures, parents pointed and talked, no doubt reminding them of the story. One family of six paused, and a girl, maybe nine-years-old, spontaneously held her hands up in prayer.

A display of faith in a business area like the Loop is striking. We North Americans have so departmentalized and even privatized religion that placing it within a commercial setting seems incongruous. Yet, “missionaries to Main Street” is precisely how Blessed James Alberione and Sr. Thecla Merlo envisioned the Daughters of St. Paul and all our co-workers in each PBM Center. People who frequent these Centers get that. Following are eleven of the many comments we’ve received from our guests within the past few years:

Pauline Books and Media is a respite and niche where I find comfort and peace. It is a pool of knowledge where I gain access to the wisdom of God.
Easter A., Hawaii

It is an extension of home, the sisters are welcoming, I know them by name, and they are extremely helpful answering questions and recommending books.
Lucia M., Florida 



Juan Villegas, PBM Chicago,
serves a guest.

 The store you operate in New York City is a great blessing to me. I know that I can get away from my troubles (whether a frustrating day at the office, need for encouragement or spiritual renewal). There is always calming, uplifting music being played, and the staff (the sisters and lay people) are always so helpful!! The store contains items not always obtainable elsewhere. Please pray for me and my intentions, and thanks for all you do to bring the WORD to the world!!
Robert G., New York

A heart doctor from Sweden just came into the book center here. He wanted me to let the sisters know how much he appreciates our mission in Manhattan. He said this is his favorite stop whenever he comes to New York.
Sr. Susan J. Kraus, FSP, New York

It is both an expansive oasis and a barren desert where I can find God in print—a fuel and water station of sorts!  Here the Word of God comes alive and penetrates the heart when one is fully and prayerfully engaged. And the Sisters, heralds of zeal and faithfulness to many!
Isabel G., Florida

Was over at the store today [Redwood City, CA] 09.03.09. No words to describe it. Like a Black Hole, something draws people from the public sidewalk, and once inside, good luck if one can ever escape....The center of this Black Hole is definitely the chapel: one's inner-light is absorbed into this core, one experiences a sort of time warp, that is, we planned to stay only 15 minutes, but when we came out it was really an hour!!!...It's a vortex; one's appetite for physical food disappears. One feels content, satisfied, and full....If one is lucky enough to escape this phenomenon, one feels rejuvenated, young, happy, content, can't stop smiling...a very, very strange and unnatural experience indeed. Please share this feedback with others. I hope I am not the only one to report this mystery.
Paul M., California

A stylish lady in her 40’s came up to the counter, and I rang out her purchases. At the end I invited her to stop in to our beautiful little chapel for a visit with Jesus.
     She said: “Sister, I really can’t stop in today, but I just want to tell you that I was in your chapel another time. At that time, although I tried not to show it, I was having a very bad day. I went in with a terrible problem for which I could see no solution. I got my answer there. Imagine my surprise when I saw it written right on the wall: ‘Do not be afraid! I am with you’” [the words of Jesus to our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, found in many Pauline chapels worldwide].
     The lady patted my hands and whispered, “That made all the difference. Everything worked out.”
Sr. Susan H. Wallace, FSP, Massachusetts, July 15, 2008

When I think of Pauline Books and Media, I think of the centers. I don't think of it as a “brand” like Coca-Cola. I was struck by Sr. Margaret [Obrovac’s] discussion of how the centers are at a point where they need to change, because retail stores no longer function as the primary places where people purchase media. What will a PBM center in the future look like? I ask myself this question as I think about the proposal I want to write for a [Pauline] Cooperator-run PBM center in Wilmington. This question gets to the core of what “Pauline Books and Media means.” It means primarily a mission to evangelize along the lines that Blessed Alberione envisioned. It means a mission to bring to the world the truths, way, and life of the gospel using modern media. How? The “good press” has been a primary means in the Centers, along with a decent collection of music and video. And the future?
Rae S., Delaware



Sr. Anna and a guest in the
PBM Center, Dedham (Boston).

 It is where I can get good books on my faith and to increase my understanding of my Lord and lay ministries duties.
Howard, Hawaii

Pauline Books and Media store is a place where Catholic faith and culture is promoted and nurtured in an increasing secular society. The Daughters of St. Paul have been visible signs of our Catholic faith and help to nurture vocations to the religious life. 
Melissa C., Hawaii

Entering a Pauline Bookstore is like coming to a welcoming home that is my home, also.  Inspiring and instructive books on many topics for all ages, religious articles that enrich our lives, as well as the presence of the Sisters make the Pauline bookstore a special place—a great source of evangelization in this most needy world.  I think that untold lives have been touched by this presence in the midst of the cities where there is a Pauline Bookstore.  
Louise H., Alabama

Making a New Year's Transition

One of the few things I remember from high school biology is that all living things change. In fact, change is a sign that an organism is alive; if it doesn’t change it’s dead.

The most consequential changes in the human spirit come in the form of transitions, those life-altering periods that catch us off-balance for a time, cause us to question what we thought we knew, then nudge us to look for more meaningful markers on the journey and begin a new phase of life’s adventure. Without a doubt, they keep us guessing, but they can also get us trusting God and others in a new way.

With the digital revolution, the book and music industries, from creation to completion, are morphing at a dizzying pace. More than ever before, this flux defies us to anchor the direction of our mission on any permanent ministry—or form of carrying out our mission—a fact that challenges us on every level. Actually, if you’ve been involved in ministry for any extended period of time, you’ve noticed that the entire Church is experiencing much the same thing, to one degree or another. We are all in transition.

As a result, we’re working with our Mission Strategy Team to determine the direction God is leading us in and the steps needed to take us there. Our Pauline Books & Media (PBM) Centers are a major player in this process. We’re currently studying ways to rejuvenate or reinvent our PBM Centers to make them even more pastoral, to meet the new needs of people, so that these centers can continue the tradition set by Fr. Alberione, to be “centers of light and warmth,” where the Gospel can be preached in new ways.

This has meant closing some of our locations in recent years, always a painful decision—for us as much as for the people we serve. We’ve received some touching letters from these men and women. I’d like to share excerpts of a few from Edison, NJ, which we closed a little over a year ago. They demonstrate how gracefully people can enter into the rocky process of transition, making way for something new:

“It is with joy that I every day I remember in prayer each of you sisters, your families and all with whom you minister. Mary and I were privileged to be the first Cooperators in Edison. Perhaps you remember that an abortion clinic was attempting to open in the Wick Plaza around the same time; the township didn't grant them a permit. I find it most interesting that people were planning to take life in the Wick Plaza and you sisters brought the Author of Life Himself to take up residence.

“The French have a saying, ‘When two people separate, each takes a part of the other and they are united forever.’ Dear sisters, you can be certain that Mary and I will take good care of the parts of each of you as gift and blessing that remain with us. God bless each of you and may your community be blessed with many new vocations.”
Mary & Jim Varick

A letter from one of our sisters reads:

“One woman told how years ago she was helped so much by our staff while she was being received into the Church. ‘Ever since then, my friends & I always get each others’ presents from here.’ One of the children who used to come for all our children’s events is now thinking about religious life. In the 1990s, Deacon Sam did much of his preparation for the diaconate using resources from our Center. Now he’s in charge of the diaconate program, and 29 new deacons will be ordained this year! The seeds of the Gospel planted through our service will indeed bear fruit for years to come!”
Sr. Karen Marie Anderson, FSP, former manager

The following person ritualized a farewell in the form of a prayer:
“Dear Lord,
Thank you for this Pauline Book & Media Store. Eleven years ago I came here with many questions and wandering in a desert – not knowing where to go. Through your guidance, early Church Fathers, and Sister Laura’s patience & encouragement – your grace led me to the Catholic Church. Bless the sisters in their new journey. Amen!
Thanksgiving – The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away – You, dear friends of St. Paul, will be so missed. God bless you.”

A new year is a natural moment to step back and reassess our life’s direction. Pray for the Daughters of St. Paul during these transitions--we'll pray for you in yours--and let us hear your ideas.

It's Christmastime in the Convent!

Monday I was talking with an acquaintance on the West Coast about how our Christmas celebrations, his and mine, had been. The holiday was fun for him, because his seven-year-old niece was still young enough to enjoy its magic. In the course of the conversation, Michael confessed that he hadn’t gone to church that day. “I haven’t been to church since I was about ten or eleven; my parents just stopped going. We observe the tradition: it’s something we’ve always done as a family, and it’s a good time for family to get together. But church just isn’t part of it.”

There was nothing hostile or defensive about Michael’s comments. He wasn’t avoiding religion and he didn’t rail against those of us who pray. It’s just that a relationship with God wasn’t on his toolbar.

It’s so hard to get through to the secular mindset these days, that many of us give up reaching out. Whether in Liturgy or school or family, we’re content to tell each other the story of Jesus, knowing it’ll receive a welcome there.

While it’s essential to remind one another of this Word and grow in our own friendship with God, we, the Church, are sent by this Word of God incarnate to proclaim him to those whose faith seems unresponsive. We need to find ways to reboot it, to click on the relationship with God that’s not absent from people’s toolbar—only hidden.

That’s the reason behind the photos below. I admitted to Michael that at Christmas, nuns go a little over the top spiritually, at least compared with most North Americans. But anyone who even glances in our direction can’t miss the authenticity of it all. It flows strong beneath the surface, so that both at prayer time and party time, it bubbles up clear and fresh. Not perfect, but life-giving, just the same.

Yes, it’s Christmastime in the convent—all 17 days of it this year. Flip through the album, offer a prayer for us, and pass both the album and a prayer on to the Michaels—or Michelles—in your world.