God Talk

Recently I noticed something about how the way Popes John Paul and Benedict talk about the Christian vocation shapes the way young people like me talk about it, versus the way other people see it.

I have often observed (and often complained about) how when you are interviewed by a reporter for a story, you get to pick what you say, but not only does the reporter get to pick which questions to ask in the first place, also - since the article typically does not consist of the transcript of the whole interview - the reporter (and editor) gets to (or has to, depending on how you look at it) decide what of your replies is relevant enough to be reported, and of that, what is the most important part.

A while ago, some of the students at Maryland who are are in the process of discerning whether they have a vocation to the priesthood were interviewed by the school student newspaper (The Diamondback, for those of you who don't know).  It was a very positive article.  However, one thing I noticed when I saw the final article was that in the interview, the word "love" was used, I would estimate, twenty or more times in thirty or forty minutes.  I am not sure if it appeared even once in the article.  Interesting?