“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” – Jesus Lk 23:34
Back in 1997, a company focused on the future ran one of the oldest slogans from the past, namely to “Think Different”. Like its original, the slogan was highly successful, and people flocked to acquire the product offered by this company, appropriately stamped with a bitten fruit. As in the garden, it came with the promise that all forms of knowledge would be accessible at our fingertips.
Speaking of fingertips, there’s none more famous than Michelangelo’s painted fingertip of Adam (Man) connected to God’s own hand. The image of the “The Creation of Adam” is part of the masterpiece found on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s work remains today a great witness to human creativity and artistry, an ode to human talent being put to… work!
Imagine the builders of the great cathedrals laying another brick in the wall, often not living long enough, to seeing the work come to its final fruition. Generations of people with different skill sets working together to build something useful but also, beautiful. They learned their trades, their values, and their faith in the best schools: their homes. Today we have the experts and counsellors constantly telling us to trust the science and believe in their latest gospel found in their never ending litany of contradicting studies. “You will know them by their fruits.”Mt 7:15-16
Dan Hitchens recently remarked that the Church in its history has had to answer two critical questions to avert a crisis: early on, she first had to answer who is God (theological crisis). Second, from about 1000 to 1500s, the time between the schism with the East and Reformation, she had to explain what is the Church (ecclesial crisis). He believes that we are now in the period of a third question that is also existential and for which the Church must supply the answer to: what is man? (anthropological crisis) In the context of this latter question, one can’t help but to notice how prophetic St John Paul II was when he gave us the Theology of the Body.
We have seen how difficult it is for experts and highly educated people to tell us what is a woman. Despite years of school, more and more apps, and access to loads and loads of information, only biologists apparently can give us the definite answer: a woman is a woman… No, we don’t need more education, we don’t need population control, nor dark sarcasm in the chatrooms – we need saints! If we gave everyone a book on physics, it would not produce a society of physicists, just as simply owning a guitar wouldn’t make one a guitarist. Watching videos over and over on physics or guitar playing would still not get it done. At some point, each requires work: the physicist needs to experiment on physical matter. The guitarist needs to pick up his guitar.
I’ve always enjoyed a live band at a concert much more than a digital copy, to play sports rather than watching someone else play, or to savour eating my food rather than looking at pictures of the food. It’s not that the substitutes are wrong or bad, they simply do not bring anywhere near the same joy. Seeing my family or friends on video doesn’t come close to when we interact in person. The same is true with Christ – reading about Him, watching videos and movies about Him, using apps about Him, doesn’t come close to when I feel His Presence in the flesh.
While in the most holy sanctuary, the psalmist pleaded with God:
Hear the voice of my supplication,
as I cry to thee for help,
as I lift up my hands
towards thy most holy sanctuary.
3 Take me not off with the wicked,
with those who are workers of evil,
who speak peace with their neighbors,
while mischief is in their hearts.
4 Requite them according to their work,
and according to the evil of their deeds;
requite them according to the work of their hands;
render them their due reward.
5 Because they do not regard the works of the Lord,
or the work of his hands,
he will break them down and build them up no more.(Psalm 28:2-5)
This Lent, we are invited to think differently than our predecessors at the garden. We can start by running our fingertips through a different kind of tablet, namely the one with 10 commands, and listen to the Son of the carpenter on how we can app-ly them to our works.
St Joseph, pray for us.
Roberto Freire
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