The Heart of the Story

Rose Pacatte, FSPPauline Center for Media Studies

PaulineCMS.com

Slideshare.net/rosepacatte

What was the last one you saw that impressed you?

The glory of God is the human person fully alive

• http://youtu.be/lNBhwTUZVe4

• Babies playing with rubber hands

• Jesus told parables, stories about something else to make a point about some truth or reality.

• What holds us back from doing the same?

• Take a moment. Close your eyes. Can you think of a parable about your own life? Your vocation story.

• What is a visual that represents your life thus far?

• Make a note of that on your iPhone or devise. When you get a chance, share it with your friends on social media – if you wish

SILENCE

What you are doing is so noisy

I cannot hear what you are saying.

Stories are facets of grace let loose in the world

Katy Perry and Jodi singing “Fireworks”

The shortest distance between the truth

and the human person is a story

Anthony de Mello

Storytelling makes people thrivein a series of endless

holy moments

“The Sultan’s Wife”Angela Carter (1940-1992; as quoted by Marina Warner in From the Beast to the Blonde: Fairytales

and Their Tellers, 1994, xi

The history of grace within the heart of the

world

Storytelling

Sacramentality of film:

Makes visible invisible realities

Revelation

God’s loving self-communication

We know God when God communicates

• The self-communication of God is transcendent.

• It transcends all of the tangible means in history by which we have known God, such as holy people, places, and things.

• God cannot be contained by them.

• If not, then how do we know God? We know God when God communicates, that is, gives to us the divine self.

Gift & Forgiveness

• The gift takes place in the human being, the person who is the "event" of God's call.

• When God gives people a share in the divine self, God not only frees them to respond.

• God also offers forgiveness.

• God forgives in the ever-renewed offer of a relationship with God. (Karl Rahner)

The Trinity: Communio

“Through the contemplation of this icon we come to see with our inner eyes that all engagements in this world can bear fruit only when they take place within this divine circle.”

(Nouwen, Henri J. M. Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1987.)

By: Andrei Rublev

And all things are made new again

“One might say that the first pastoral plan in communication was Creation, the second was Revelation, the third was Incarnation, but the fourth pastoral plan involves evangelization: how to communicate the significance of Creation, the richness of Revelation, and the tremendous reality of the Incarnation….”

Cardinal John P. Foley (Pastoral Planning for Social Communication, ed. Sunderaj, 1998, Montreal)

Speaking of revelation: Exodus: Gods and Kings

A story’s beginning

• http://youtu.be/xtE0SyqIdFI

• Little boy upset to learn mom’s news

Introducing Liz Dunbar, our first vocation from

Sometimes it’s not what it seems

• http://youtu.be/v76f6KPSJ2w

• Apple Christmas Commercial

Eat Pray Love? Alas

• http://youtu.be/mjay5vgIwt4

• Trailer

Hearing the voice of God on the bathroom floor

Grace

Storytelling reveals meaning without

committing the error of defining it.

Hannah Arendt

Joe vs the Volcano & the stories we hear

• http://youtu.be/A9lceeNQMwk

• Trailer

The Missing: An Encounter

• Five People You Will Meet in Heaven

• A Journal

• Self knowledge

Elements for Storytelling

• Imagination: moral, spiritual, religious

• Really living

• Humor

• Brevity

• Passion

• Premise: God’s loving self-communication in the world.

Why?

• Vocations? It’s starting

• Funders are increasingly coming from the web

• Sharing the heart for no reason other than to share the joy and passion of religious life:

• You have to give away something for free without expectation of gain – even for a good cause.

Be organized

• W, W, W, W, H, Why?

• Review current practices

• Revise as necessary

• Give people a reason to return to your website

• Brevity

• Good writing

• Articulate your vision your story (story board as the organizational tool)

• Budget, fund raising

The Personal

• We are all watching something on TV – what is it?

• Many of us are online – what are we communicating?

• As a community, how do we process the entertainment and information media we consume?

• Intentionality

• Discernment

Before and after you watch, play, create, post ….

?

Cinema Divina annual retreats

• 7 - 8 days

• Films on six days

• Silent

• Directed (or not)

• Informal conversation after each film

• Liturgy

Why? To experience the ineffable

• http://youtu.be/nhQzn2gVGjQ

• Of Gods and Men Swan Lake or scene “Allow a free man to pass”

The Cinema Divina format follows that of the lectio:

• Lectio (attending; listening; experiencing the Word of God in the film; not always as an explicit “word” but as “reality”; what did I hear, experience? What is the story?)

• Meditatio (reflecting on the film and the Word of God; what aspect of the Gospel and film “chose me”?)

• Oratio (prayer; how has the Word touched my heart? what feelings does God’s reality evoke in me?)

Cinema Divina: Lectio

• Comunio (how has the Word influenced my communication, my communion, with God and neighbor?)

• Contemplatio (contemplation; entering into the silence)

• Actio (what does God ask of me through Word and film?)The participants sharing on the film can respond to any of the questions above; a person may remain silent.

Sewing Hope

• http://youtu.be/hUbGD6waqvs

“The cinema has always been interested in God” – Andre’

Bazin

Christ has no online presence but yours 

Christ has no online presence but yours,No blog, no Facebook page but yours,Yours are the tweets through which love touches this world,Yours are the posts through which the Gospel is shared,Yours are the updates through which hope is revealed.Christ has no online presence but yours,No blog, no Facebook page but yours. (© Meredith Gould based on the prayer of Teresa of Avila)

Resources

SisterRoseHomePage.com

SisterRoseMovies.net

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