The Significance of the Pauline Family
Sometimes you hear it said that if the Church could match the secular media with technology and financial resources, the world would be converted in a short time.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly, the secular media use this method with devastating success, but they are preaching not the converted, telling people what they want to hear.
The Church's challenge is quite the opposite. One reason is that she has to tell people what often they don not want to hear, but another and more important reason is that she is not communicating just a message, but a Person: Jesus Christ. And Christ cannot be communicated with technology only, but with technology plus prayer.
That is why the holy founder of the PAULINE FAMILY gave his spiritual sons and daughters the practice of a daily Holy Hour during which they pray for those using the media well and invoke God's mercy on the individuals and families damaged by media misuse.
No prayer could be more urgent, no work more important than the work of the PAULINE FAMILY. All around us is the evidence of young lives corrupted, of millions of infants aborted and countless families destroyed by the quiet, insidious influence of TV and the Internet, leaving their trail of broken homes, broken hearts and broken lives.
Father James Alberione was inspired to tackle this immense problem at the turn of the twentieth century. His response to God's call was to found the PAULINE FAMILY. We pray that you, too, may feel the call of God to join his many--faceted work.
The Pauline Family
AT THE BEGINNING of the twentieth century, God called upon a sixteen-year-old youth to embark on an undertaking which would put all the means of human progress at the service of the Gospel.
JAMES ALBERIONE, for that was the young man's name, was born in San Lorenzo di Fossano, a small agricultural village in the province of Cuneo in northern Italy, on Fiday, April 4, 1884. He entered the Seminary to study for the priesthood and on the night of December 31, 1900, during a four-hour vigil before the Blessed Sacrament, he became keenly aware of the needs of the Church and of a society losing its Christian values. Responding to divine inspiration, he determined, as he put it, "to do something for the Lord and for the men and women of hte new (20th) century.
THERE FOLLOWED years of careful preparation during which he developed a great love for the Church, the insight that Christ is the enter of all history, personal and collective and a belief that technical progress is not just a cultural fact, but an invaluable instrument for bringing the message of Christ to the men and women of one's own age and of every age. What today we call "the mass-media" he saw as gifts of God and "new pulpits" to announce the Gospel.
THE INTERIOR, the spiritual life of James Alberione can be summed up in two commands the Lord gave: "Come to me, all of you" (Matt. 11:28) and "Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:15). On the one hand there was the contemplative element roting his life totally in the mystery of Christ, Way, Truth and Life, and on the other a great apostolic impulse activated by the love of Christ who wants all people to be save. Fr. Alberione took as his model the apostle, Paul, Christ's foo-soldier who had a deep, intimate love of the Lord and who devoted his life to making Christ known to everyone with every means.
Proclaiming Christ Today
Father Alberione experienced his gift of the Spirit to be shared with men and women chosen by the Lord. It was a new call from God, one that demanded people totally available for the Kingdom through a life of special consecration.
He saw himself as the leader of an army of men and women who, with him, would meet the great needs of his time. Such needs were the proclamation of the Gospel, human advancement and the evangelization of culture to be undertaken with all the means each age makes available. he also felt that the Liturgy needed to be revitalized and pastoral action updated, that there should be a Christian underpinning of all earthly realities, that vocations to all the apostolates should be promoted and that the family should be sanctified.
In answer to all these areas of concern, the Spirit would in due course raise up men and women who, with father Alberione, would form new and diverse institutions, all of which would have the same spirit: great apostolic impetus, fellowship and cooperation.
This enterprise--eventually to become worldwide = began on August 20, 1914. Two young men were the first signs of the future Society of St. Paul and three young ladies became the nucleus of what would be future female foundations, while a group of lay people working side by side with these were the first forerunners of the Pauline Institutes of consecrated secular life.
A Big Tree With Ten Branches
It was from those humbles beginnings that hte "Pauline Family" took shape, embodying the gift of the Spirit to Father Alberion: to live in Jesus Christ, Master, Shepherd, Way, Truth and Life.
Paulines were equally called to be "St. Paul alive today." To respond to the new demands of the apostolate, the Pauline Family developed stage by stage:
* 1914 Society of St. Paul
* 1915 Daughters of St. Paul
* 1917 Association of Pauline Cooperators
* 1924 Sister Disciples of the Divine Maser
* 1938 Sisters of Jesus,the Good Shepherd
* 1957 Queen of the Apostles Sisters for vocations
* 1960 Institutes of consecrated secular life:
* St Gabriel the Archangel
* Mary of the Annunciation
* Jesus the Priest
1973 The Holy Family (approved with the others, but not actually begun till later)
A Bond of Unity
Father Alberion used to speak of the bond hat links the various Foundations: "They are bounded by close ties since all of them were born from the Tabernacle. There is one spirit: to make Christ living us and to serve the Church. Some represent all of them, interceding f the others before the Tabernacle. Some spread Christ's teaching from "on high" (so to speak) while others com into direct contact with people" For our Founder the frontier is...the world and we are sent to all peoples.
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