Since I stepped into my role as Director of Communications at the Diocese of San José, the Pope’s annual World Day of Communications messages to Catholic communicators have served as my compass. They have reshaped not only how I work, but my understanding of what it means to be a storyteller in the Church.

“At the heart of the human experience,” Pope Francis reminds us, “human beings are storytellers. From childhood, we hunger for stories just as we hunger for food.” Stories clothe us, he says: “We are also the only ones who need to be ‘clothed’ with stories to protect our lives.” As threads form a garment, narratives bind our souls and shield our hope.

That mandate pushes me to ask, whenever I write a statement, draft a bulletin announcement, or shape a Valley Catholic article, does this help someone feel stitched into God’s fabric of mercy?

Pope Francis frequently urged communicators to "come and see," and to meet people "where they are and as they are." For The Valley Catholic, this means moving beyond event reporting to capturing lived faith, whether in the quiet courage of volunteers serving the unhoused at Our Lady of Refuge, or the tireless devotion of a music minister at Saint Simon, or the candle-lit joy of the Easter Vigil at Saint Victor.

For Pope Francis this started with listening. “Listening is therefore the first indispensable ingredient of dialogue and good communication." Then and now, he urges us to listen with "the ear of the heart"—forever changing how Catholic communicators listen for the sigh beneath the sound bite, for the unspoken hope just outside the frame, for verbal and non-verbal signs of God already at work in our diocese.

Pope Francis also located each of us inside a greater narrative: "The history of Christ is not a legacy from the past; it is our story, and always timely." Every article, every statement, every social media post, every bulletin announcement becomes an opportunity to show how "no human stories are insignificant or paltry."

Relating the image of weaving to storytelling, the Holy Father noted, "With him [Jesus], we can re-weave the fabric of life, darning its rips and tears."  Here in Silicon Valley, where stories often celebrate IPOs and technological achievements, our task is to weave narratives revealing the divine thread running through everyday life from Palo Alto to Gilroy.

"How many stories serve to lull us, convincing us that to be happy we continually need to gain, possess and consume." Against the tide of hollow messaging, we must craft stories that awaken hope and invigorate faith, and  us callous or apathetic, that connect us rather than isolate us in that tapestry of grace. As he insists, “Communication should be a gift, not a conquest."

For me, treating communication as a gift means choosing threads of compassion and truth every time I write — threads dyed in the Gospel and offered freely, never bartered for clicks or prestige. When we stitch those threads into parish bulletins, podcasts, or Instagram captions, the fabric of the Church in Silicon Valley grows stronger, its colors richer, its frayed edges mended by grace. To the Holy Father, I am forever grateful for how he emphasized that every story matters, that listening comes before speaking, and that truth wrapped in tenderness can move mountains. May his legacy live on in every voice we amplify and in every story that reveals God's presence among us in the Valley of Saint Clare.