Being a witness in the social media age

Everyone likes to spread good news. It’s a natural, even laudable instinct. On a purely personal level, telling others about piece of good news, like a success at work, a new relationship or good exam results, allows us to relive the happy moment and increase our feelings of happiness. On a grander scale, spreading the Good News is something that Christ Himself has called Catholics to do: He has instructed us to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Now, in the digital age, we have unprecedented access to “all the world”, and enthusiastic evangelists have taken to the Internet. Some have launched headlong into apologetics and philosophical discussions, while others have taken the route of sharing their personal testimony.

A tradition of witness

Both methods have a long history within the Christian tradition: the philosophers and apologists have great saints such as Thomas Aquinas and Justin Martyr for their spiritual ancestors. Witnesses who focus on personal experience are following in the footsteps of all those who spread the faith by giving public accounts of God’s action in their own lives, from St. Augustine’s Confessions and St. Patrick’s Confessio in the early days of the Church, right down to great spiritual memoirs of recent times such as Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain and St. Thérèse’s The Story of A Soul.

The personal route often seems to be the more popular one, and that’s  hardly surprising – it requires a lot less research and reading to tell your personal story than it does to wade into debates about first causes and transubstantiation. What’s more, social media have made sharing your personal testimony easier than ever before. Anyone with a smartphone can become a living spiritual memoir; every encounter with Divine Grace, every mystical experience or moment of consolation can become a Snapchat story, a blog post or a YouTube video.

A tool to be wary of

The problem with social media as a means of evangelisation is that such platforms have a natural tendency toward acceleration and increase: we are always under pressure to share more of our lives, more quickly and more frequently. Paradoxically, however, social media sites are also reductive – you can never fully capture the mystery of Holy Mass in an Instagram photo, or convey the sheer joy of a spiritual encounter with Jesus in a 280-character post on Twitter. There is an inevitable tendency towards superficiality, towards soundbites, snaps and quick takes, all of which are basically incompatible with the profound, ineffable reality of Christ.

This is not to say that there aren’t many wonderful people using the Internet to spread the Catholic faith, on fire with the Holy Spirit and inspiring many others to live in the same way. The point is that social media is not a tool that we can accept uncritically, as it can and frequently does prove to be harmful. Let us not forget that websites such as Facebook, Snapchat, and the rest are run by corporations – they are money-making enterprises, first and foremost. Our spiritual lives, the interior landscape of our souls, are the most precious thing we possess, and also the most delicate. If we constantly expose our fragile treasures to commercial platforms aimed at lulling users into constant, mindless media consumption, can we really expect not to suffer any detrimental effects?

Mindful sharing

Naturally, we should use every means available to us to spread the Gospel, including online media. But we must do so mindfully, with a constant awareness of the pitfalls involved, such as the possible oversimplification of the messages we share, and the potential for addiction and burnout. We should also remember that the Catholic tradition of evangelisation and testimony has always gone hand in hand with a tradition of reacting to the Sacred with reverent silence. For every missionary saint who went around the world healing the sick, comforting the downtrodden and preaching the Gospel, there is a contemplative saint who lived a life of prayer and silence. For every active Martha, there is, and must be, a Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord.

In practice, mindful sharing requires balancing our evangelisation efforts with time spent in prayer, recharging our batteries in the presence of the Lord and renewing our close friendship with Him. This is the first and most important step in all endeavours. Then, when using social media, we ought to reflect before posting as to whether sharing a particular experience is God’s will for us. Sometimes, when we receive a grace, we feel the urge to proclaim it to the whole world, so that everyone may know God’s goodness, and that is a good and holy thing. However, there are other times, when a prayer is answered or an unexpected sign is given, and rather than wanting to tell people about it, we feel a need to keep this moment to ourselves, to treasure it up and ponder it in our hearts. This is not to be dismissed as a selfish instinct: it is like the man from the parable, who finds treasure hidden in a field. He does not rush to tell the world, but rather “in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field” (Mt 13:44).

Taking the time to discern

It is important to recognise that these instincts are equally valid: the urge to show your blessings to the world is neither more holy nor less than the urge to treasure them in the privacy of your heart. What matters is that, rather than allowing an app or website to dictate what you share and when, you take the time to listen to your instinct, and to allow the Holy Spirit to work in you, so that you make wise choices in both big decisions and small.