Friday, July 26, 2013
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)
Jesus’ reminder to his listeners how the prophets and upright people would have longed to see the things they were seeing makes 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 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 has made us forget that the more we explore life’s possibilities the farther we navigate away from life’s spiritual ports. Technology, in fact has stripped us of values by telling us that the world may not be temporary after all and that God may have become redundant. The amazing speed of life’s pace which technology has engineered has made many of us intolerant. The RH Bill showcases the impact of this intolerance on our major decisions. On the issue of population control the invention of contraceptives has made the temptation to discard the moral option of self discipline so irresistible. It is not unfair to conclude that technology is the proximate cause of the loss of our sense of moral values.
The stripping off of our moral values is not an overnight achievement of technology. First it gave us the computer to do the thinking for us so that all we do is wait to be fed with results. Eventually we lost the habit of deep thinking and with it the habit to analyze. No wonder we have so easily embraced 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. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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