Catholic Link is happy to support the incredible work of The Divine Communion. Please read below for a letter from the team behind this exciting new initiative.
In a singular unified effort, current students, alumni, and professors from John Paul the Great Catholic University are working on a New Evangelization initiative called the Divine Communion. It is a catechetical motion graphic web series, which retells the Love Story between God and Humanity by connecting the various covenants of the Bible together. Understanding these covenants is the special key, which opens up the hidden treasures of the Bible.
Using both the Church’s tradition and modern art, our goal is to help people understand that the Bible is not a series of disconnected books. In fact, when connected by the story of the covenants, the Bible tells the greatest love story ever told. That love story is God’s relentless pursuit for our hearts; it is the story of our salvation.
Many young people are undergoing a crisis of faith in our Church today. We believe one of the factors for this is due to a lack of faithful Catholic interpretation and formation on the study of Sacred Scripture. For this reason, Divine Communion’s primary target audience are teens and young adults, they are the future of our Church. Divine Communion hopes to be a bridge that answers Pope Benedict XVI’s call of “leading men and women to GOD, the GOD who speaks in the Bible.” Our web series artistically portrays the story of the Bible as a Catholic book and logically shows how it culminates in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the new and eternal covenant established by Jesus Christ himself—this is the Divine Communion.
At a glance, the Bible as a whole may seem like a difficult read. The Old Testament is filled with stories of sacrifices, war, history, and other stories, some interesting, some boring, and some just downright strange. It is quite a daunting task to read the entire thing. Even more difficult to understand is how it all fits together. The team behind the Divine Communion web series believes that there is one single theme which connects all of Sacred Scripture into one story: the idea of “Covenant.” Throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, God established covenants with humanity.
We believe these covenants are the key tounderstanding the story of human salvation, which God the Holy Spirit has written, and the church passed on to us. When we look at the Bible through the lens of the covenants, then the whole book suddenly starts to makes sense. Time and time again, throughout the Bible we read how God constantly seeks to bring all of humanity back into a covenantal family relationship with himself. He first proposed his covenant-love to Adam and Eve, but they rejected him. Ever since then, he established covenants with other mediators, like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and King David, hoping that through them, he would eventually bring all people into a world-wide human family. In the end, all of these covenants are fulfilled in the new and eternal Covenant of Jesus Christ, who gives us the power to become children of God through his grace.
Most importantly, the goal of this New Evangelization initiative is to help souls come to the realization that the Bible leads us to the celebration of the Sacraments, most especially in receiving the Eucharist in the Holy Mass. This is because Jesus Christ himself instituted the Holy Eucharist precisely as the “new and eternal covenant”, through which he invites us all to be partakers of His very own divine life. Here He comes down from heaven in the form of bread to be one with us in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Christ desires more than simply a “personal relationship” with us … He wants a “covenantal relationship” with us. This calls for a deeper intimacy and transformation toward holiness. All Christian evangelizers proclaim who Christ is, but when Catholics evangelize we proclaim a Eucharistic Christ. As Pope St. John Paul II says, “The New Evangelization, is a essentially a Eucharistic Evangelization.”
This is why our team of artists, evangelists, theologians, and entrepreneurs have dedicated the next 12 months to creating a web series called the Divine Communion, which retells the story of the Scripture’s Covenants through the art of motion graphics.
We want to create beautiful work of art that is worthy of the greatest love story ever told. We believe that the power of bringing beauty, goodness, and truth together can help build the Kingdom of God here on Earth.
Our goal is to create six motion graphic videos, which explain the themes of each covenant God established with humanity, from Adam to Jesus. We will have our first episode released by September 2015. Once we complete all six episodes we hope to compile them together into a packet with a “Teacher & Student Bible-Study Workbook”, which we hope will be a fruitful new evangelization aid for the Church.
We envision Divine Communion being used throughout parish youth groups, confirmation-programs, and/or bible studies to educate minds and hearts on the importance and power of the Holy Mass. However to make this project a living reality, we are currently raising $8,000 in funds. These funds will be used to compensate our professional design team, voice actors, and pay for marketing expenses.
We are passionate about sharing the richness of the Bible with the young Church. This won’t be an easy task, but with your spiritual and financial support — together, we can impact culture for Christ.
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Lastly, thank you for reading our blog post, and may the blessings of our Heavenly Father’s covenant be with you always. God reward you and keep you all. Thank you.
“All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and this one book is Christ.” (CCC 134)
To learn more and/or make a donation visit our Official Website.
In the Hearts of Jesus & Mary,
“Leading men and women to God, the God who speaks in the Bible” – Pope Benedict XVI
