The Gospel Has Always Traveled by Media
There is a certain kind of holy person who says, “I’m just not into media,” the way someone says, “I’m just not into drama,” while actively starring in a twelve-season series called My Opinions.
But the Gospel has never floated into history on angel breath alone.
It has always traveled by means. By messengers. By matter.
By voice, ink, paper, song, broadcast towers, and now whatever this glowing rectangle is that keeps buzzing like a needy cricket in our pocket.
So Christian ministry has never been media-free. Not once. From parchment to print to podcast, the Church’s mission keeps moving through the dominant communication tools of the age. The real question is not whether we will use media. We already do. The question is how. Whether our use is shaped by the Incarnation, by God’s preference for real presence, real bodies, real love, or by the attention economy’s preference for speed, heat, and applause.
Because media is not neutral. It forms the messenger. It forms the hearer. It trains the heart. It makes some virtues easier and some vices more convenient.
Start with the simplest evidence. Paul wrote letters. Lots of them. Not as “content,” not as a brand, but as a kind of pastoral presence that could fold up and travel. Someone carried those words into a room, unrolled them, and read them aloud to people trying to be faithful while also being spectacularly human. That is media. That is ministry at a distance.
Then the monks. Ink-stained fingers, years of copying, preserving, praying over words so they would not vanish. That is not merely information transfer. That is devotion. And it was not only ink. The Church also communicated by beauty. Chant, icon, liturgy, forms that do not just tell you what is true, but train you to receive truth. Hildegard sings theology into your bones. Palestrina makes your chest loosen. Guardini would say worship shapes us by rhythm and attention, by the steady schooling of desire.
Then the printing press, and suddenly words multiply like rabbits. Wonderful. Dangerous. Sometimes both in the same hour. Print can spread the Gospel. It can also spread spiritual vanity and ideological fever. Augustine would quietly ask what do you love when you speak, God or being right. Aquinas would add repeated actions become habits, and habits become you. Media does not only carry ideas. It carries formation.
And then the twentieth century arrives with microphones and cameras, new pulpits, new temptations.
Billy Graham stepped into radio and television with a clear-eyed sense that you go where people are listening. He made proclamation accessible and direct. The fruit is real. Countless people encountered the possibility of faith as something personal and urgent, not just inherited wallpaper.
But the medium also flirted with celebrity. The screen likes heroes. The soul needs saints. The broadcast can gather crowds. It cannot automatically build communion. It can open a door. It cannot, by itself, form a life.
Father Patrick Peyton used mass media in a gentler register to normalize family prayer. To remind the domestic church that holiness is often a living room practice, not a cathedral mood. The fruit there is wonderfully ordinary. Kneeling together, remembering you belong to each other. But even that carries a warning. Campaigns can turn prayer into a slogan you admire instead of a habit you actually live.
And Fulton Sheen (soon to be beatified!, wonderfully alive, intellectually serious, playful, used early television with a warmth that made people feel spoken to, not shouted at. He proved Catholic teaching could be luminous in the public square. But the temptation stands beside the chalkboard. Platform as church. Personality as mediator. The subtle drift from shepherd to performer.
Now we live in the digital age, where everyone can publish instantly, endlessly, constantly, and the big question is not “Can we reach people?” Of course, we can. The bigger question is what is this environment doing to our souls while we reach?
Because the attention economy is not built for contemplation. It is built for interruption. It rewards speed over depth, heat over nuance, certainty over humility. It can make us feel connected while quietly making us less capable of communion. It can make us loud about God while less able to listen to anyone, including God.
So here is the gentle but serious claim. Media ministry can be a bridge, but it must never become a substitute for real presence. It can invite, but it cannot replace. It can spark, but it cannot finish the work of conversion, because conversion happens in the slow, embodied places. Prayer, sacrifice, confession, community, service, Eucharist, and the long practice of loving difficult people.
And it is worth saying plainly. You do not need to become a spiritual influencer to be faithful. You do not need to turn your soul into a product. The Gospel does not need your performance. It needs your fidelity.
So if you are going to use media, if you are going to write, record, post, publish, do it like someone who remembers the difference between evangelization and content.
Content is designed to hold attention.
Evangelization is designed to give a Person.
One keeps people watching.
The other helps people become free.
A small rule of life for media ministry now
Let media point to embodied discipleship, parish, prayer, sacraments, service, real community.
No trickery, no manipulation, distortion, or bait dressed as holiness.
Speak to build, not to win, if it hardens hearts, reconsider it.
Keep a Sabbath from posting, silence will save you from becoming a machine.
Submit to accountability, real people who know you, not just followers who praise you.
Protect the vulnerable, never farm outrage, scandal, or pain for engagement.
Choose beauty as hospitality, not bait, let it open doors, not trap eyes.
And if you mess up, and you will, return to the simplest thing. Love the person in front of you. Love your neighbor who is not an audience. Love your family. Love your parish. Love the poor. Love the annoying. Love the lonely.
Use the tools.
But keep your humanity.
Keep your tenderness.
And remember, the Word became flesh, not a platform.
So whatever you do with your microphone or your pen or your camera or your little glowing rectangle, do it like someone who still believes God prefers to show up close.
