Saturday, 12th January 2008. “To talk about the creation of the Franciscan Multimedia Center that we are inaugurating, we have to go back to the decision taken at the end of the Custody’s Chapter in 1998, on the need to create a Cultural Centre of the Custody of the Holy Land that also included the possibility of offering journalists and television useful information to make the Holy Land and the message of the Holy Places known all over the world”: so began the brief presentation on the creation of the Franciscan Multimedia Center (FMC) by Brother Dobromir Jasztal, Bursar of the Custody, during the blessing of the Centre hosted in the Terra Santa College.
About a hundred guests were present at the celebration, which was also attended by the Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Antonio Franco.
The ceremony began at 4:30 p.m., with a song in Portuguese because the Custody has appointed the Brazilian community Canção Nova to run the centre, since their mission, specified by its founder, don Jonas Abib sdb, is evangelization through the media of social communication.
After the welcome address and prayer, Brother Athanasius Macora, superior of the Terra Santa College welcomed this new aspect of the Custody which occupies an entire wing of the first floor of the College. Eight rooms are fitted out for various uses: a lecture hall, two studios converging on an excellently equipped control cabin with mechanical and electrical sound and lighting systems, and a highly advanced digital centre for talking about the Holy Land from the Holy Land to the whole world.
The Word of God (Hebrews 4, 12-16), recalls the need to live according to the truth in charity. Reading the evangelical passage of Mark 16:14a,15-20 (Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature), gives the key to this celebration and the purpose of this Center. As was explained in the words of the Founder of Canção Nova, and those of Maria di Lourdes Nunes, who is in charge of their community and who has lived here for three years with the specific aim of directly supplying information and news from the Holy Land to the Catholic television and news agencies on the Latin American continent.
After the words of the Bursar on the history of the Center and thanking all the people who have followed and done the work for its organization, Brother Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, briefly reflected on the spirit and the motivations of the FMC: the efforts, overcoming the inevitable difficulties, the four long years of preparation and work, the substantial economic problems and the perseverance and determination to create a service which we know is needed and useful as well as being positively different. Because the Holy Land is not only an endless conflict, but has something unique, fine and good to tell the men of our time and all times. A Center in the heart of a Land that calls on us, in the first place Christians (all Christians, not just Catholics) who can claim not so much great and powerful media of social communication, but a very close-knit network of newspapers, televisions and minor situations that are effective in reaching the hearts of the people in widely differing places of the planet.
The media of social communication play an important role in telling the story of a different Holy Land and speaking words of hope from the Holy Land. For this reason, prayers were said in English, Portuguese and Italian, ending with the Lord’s Prayer, everyone praying in their own language.
From the lecture hall, the participants moved to the Center where all the rooms and studios were blessed, whilst songs accompanied the rite that came to an end with the singing of the Ave Maria.
The intercession of St. Francis and St. Clare (who is the patron saint of television) had been invoked by Maria di Lourdes, at the end of her speech, after having recalled that Telepace is also present in the FMC. She then thanked the Father Custos for having believed in and having had the courage to invest in such a difficult yet necessary and urgent project for the Holy Land, adding: “Everybody, with no exception, is part of this project. The challenge is great and we need help. We have the tools, the ideas, the creativity and a little imagination. But you are the witnesses of a story. You are the good news that we want to be shown from the Holy Land.”
IB
About a hundred guests were present at the celebration, which was also attended by the Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Antonio Franco.
The ceremony began at 4:30 p.m., with a song in Portuguese because the Custody has appointed the Brazilian community Canção Nova to run the centre, since their mission, specified by its founder, don Jonas Abib sdb, is evangelization through the media of social communication.
After the welcome address and prayer, Brother Athanasius Macora, superior of the Terra Santa College welcomed this new aspect of the Custody which occupies an entire wing of the first floor of the College. Eight rooms are fitted out for various uses: a lecture hall, two studios converging on an excellently equipped control cabin with mechanical and electrical sound and lighting systems, and a highly advanced digital centre for talking about the Holy Land from the Holy Land to the whole world.
The Word of God (Hebrews 4, 12-16), recalls the need to live according to the truth in charity. Reading the evangelical passage of Mark 16:14a,15-20 (Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature), gives the key to this celebration and the purpose of this Center. As was explained in the words of the Founder of Canção Nova, and those of Maria di Lourdes Nunes, who is in charge of their community and who has lived here for three years with the specific aim of directly supplying information and news from the Holy Land to the Catholic television and news agencies on the Latin American continent.
After the words of the Bursar on the history of the Center and thanking all the people who have followed and done the work for its organization, Brother Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, briefly reflected on the spirit and the motivations of the FMC: the efforts, overcoming the inevitable difficulties, the four long years of preparation and work, the substantial economic problems and the perseverance and determination to create a service which we know is needed and useful as well as being positively different. Because the Holy Land is not only an endless conflict, but has something unique, fine and good to tell the men of our time and all times. A Center in the heart of a Land that calls on us, in the first place Christians (all Christians, not just Catholics) who can claim not so much great and powerful media of social communication, but a very close-knit network of newspapers, televisions and minor situations that are effective in reaching the hearts of the people in widely differing places of the planet.
The media of social communication play an important role in telling the story of a different Holy Land and speaking words of hope from the Holy Land. For this reason, prayers were said in English, Portuguese and Italian, ending with the Lord’s Prayer, everyone praying in their own language.
From the lecture hall, the participants moved to the Center where all the rooms and studios were blessed, whilst songs accompanied the rite that came to an end with the singing of the Ave Maria.
The intercession of St. Francis and St. Clare (who is the patron saint of television) had been invoked by Maria di Lourdes, at the end of her speech, after having recalled that Telepace is also present in the FMC. She then thanked the Father Custos for having believed in and having had the courage to invest in such a difficult yet necessary and urgent project for the Holy Land, adding: “Everybody, with no exception, is part of this project. The challenge is great and we need help. We have the tools, the ideas, the creativity and a little imagination. But you are the witnesses of a story. You are the good news that we want to be shown from the Holy Land.”
IB