Dear ZENIT Family,
Do
you know the average time a person spends on the social networks every
day and what this has to do with the Gospel and Lent? In early February,
the “We Are Social” Report published the data on digital consumption
for the previous year. The data shows that 6.2 out of every 10 human
beings engage in digital activity, and that 6.9 out of every 10 people
in the world use a mobile phone. The daily average of digital
consumption is 6 hours and 40 minutes.
Perhaps,
more than data, it’s also our experience: we spend time listening to
news, music or series on our tablet or mobile phone. However, that’s not
the point. Much of what we see or hear stays in our memory, stays in
our mind or imagination, even when our tablet or cellphone is off or far
from us.
The
Gospel that the Church proposes to us for this Second Sunday of Lent is
the Transfiguration. Jesus goes up a mount with His disciples and a
theophany occurs there -- a manifestation of God’s divinity --, which we
call “Transfiguration.” The theophany includes not only something that
is seen but also something that is heard: it’s the voice of the Father
Who says: “This is my Beloved Son, listen to Him.”
Not
only did the disciples see, but they also heard that theophany. What
made that possible? First of all, that God wished to communicate with
them. However, that openness to communication with God was preceded by
that ascetic dimension, that going up with Jesus to the mount. The
mount is also an image of the effort we make accompanied by God and
which passes from a simple walking uphill to a loving while going up or a
going up loving. It's what we give God because He enables us to have
something to offer Him. It’s born of love and becomes love. It’s what
the Church calls ascesis.
However,
the Gospel doesn’t say only that, it also talks of a prize for that
ascesis: the prize is not the theophany of the Transfiguration but the
capacity to perceive it. What makes the Apostles capable of seeing and
hearing is their love made ascesis.
That
teaches us something: first of all, that God wants to communicate with
us. We too are apostles and so that voice of the Father asking us to
listen to His Son is extended to us. The question is, do we listen to
Him? It’s quite probable that, if our mind is inundated by images and
sounds of the social networks, we make it difficult for the Lord’s voice
to reach us. We have mentioned the social networks, but beyond them,
there are many noises and memories that interfere in the communication
God wants to have with us.
More
than inviting to a digital fasting, I think the virtuous is to exhort
to a digital ascesis, namely, to a disciplined use of the digital. And a
criterion of self-discipline is to be honest with ourselves regarding
the time we dedicate to the cellphone and that which we
dedicate to God and to our neighbour, starting with those closest
to us. It’s not about putting in competition realities that cannot even
be compared. It’s about testing ourselves to see if we make use of the
right means to listen to God, which is another way of calling to “love
God.” It's wonderful to think that by listening one loves. And it’s even
more wonderful to realize that if God speaks to us it’s because He
loves us and because He has something important to say to us.