Friday, July 26, 2019
16th Week in Ordinary Time Saints Joachim and Ann 1st Reading: Sir 44:1, 10–15 Gospel: Mt 13:16–17
Jesus said to his disciples, “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears, because they hear. “For I tell you that many prophets and upright people would have longed to see the things you see, but they did not, and to hear the things you hear, but they did not hear it.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
“For I tell you that many prophets and upright people would have longed to see the things you see, but they did not, and to hear the things you hear, but they did not hear it.” This statement is still valid today. We are enjoying so much that technology is offering which our ancestors could only imagine during their time. Today’s short Gospel reading should make us appreciate the gift of the present. “Present” is also another term for “Gift” – a poetic reminder that the present is a gift in the literal sense of the word. Some of our ancestors lying in the grave may be squirming in envy, for while their life then was limited in so many aspects and progress was at a very slow pace, ours is “unlimited” in so many ways. What the mind can imagine, technology brings to reality for a bargain.
But here’s the downside. Technology can make us forgetful of the fact that excessive preoccupation with maximizing life’s possibilities can draw us farther away from life’s spiritual harbors. Technology, in fact, can send the wrong signal that the world is indispensable and should be eternal while God is redundant and can be set aside. When our system absorbs this subtle message, the first that gets shattered is our set of values. This is not an overnight achievement of technology. The process began when it invented the computer to do the thinking for us. Eventually we lost the habit of deep reflection and with it the habit to analyze. No wonder we have so easily submitted to easy solutions to our social problems. One irresistible example we can cite is the contraceptive option to the population control question despite the great damage it inflicts upon the next generation.
Are we better off then compared to our ancestors? The loss of values is too obvious a clue to ignore in answering the question. Any gargantuan invention amounts to nothing if stripped of value. But we are not totally helpless. We are alive, and life is always synonymous with possibilities. How blessed we would be if we can infuse the right values to the gains of technology. Surely our ancestors will be squirming in their graves with envy. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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