Tag: commercials

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On the self-consuming caused by Greed, as seen in a humorous video

071913The humorous video below well illustrates some of the following lines from the Book of Ecclesiastes:

The fool folds his arms and consumes his own flesh. Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and a chasing after the wind….Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is vanity. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep. (Eccles 4:5-6, 5:9-11).

Yes, it is too easily a sad truth that the more we get, the more we want. And even though we begin to discover that our greed robs us of our peace, and brings many discomforts and inconveniences, still we run after it! Too rare are those who learn to be satisfied with less in order to enjoy it. And too many are those who crave more and more, but in their pursuit, enjoy what they have less and less.

Consider how some, in their pursuit of the “American Dream” crave the big house in the suburbs: Ah the “great-room” with cathedral ceilings, the tray ceiling in the master bedroom with its “on-suite” master bath, jacuzzi tub, double sinks, granite counter-tops, the his-and-her walk-in closets….well you get the point.

But having all this comes at a price. The suburbs bring nightmarish commutes. Hefty mortgage payments erode income. And even those who can afford the payments, often did not factor in the cost of maintenance, insurance, security, the cost of commuting, and the cost of heating and cooling the 2500-4000 square foot “dream home.”

Bills mount, debt increases, fears and sleeplessness sets in. Arguments about money and upgrades multiply. Perhaps a part time job must be taken, or a young mother must work to afford the “dream.” Commuting parents working extra hours barely know their children who are raised by strangers, daycare workers, school officials, and the media. Concerns multiply, sleep decreases, anger and strife flare.

And though the “dream” is clearly a nightmare, greed demands still more. The thought of selling, and buying a smaller home and being satisfied, seems quite impossible for too many.

The thus, as the biblical text above says, “the fool folds his arms” that is, he doubles down and stubbornly refuses any true assessment of the vanity of riches, and the inconvenience and headache they bring.

This video below humorously illustrates this biblical insight. A man walking the street sees a valuable 10 Pound note stuck beneath the tire of a car. And after several attempts to free the money, he realizes that he will have to wait for the parked car to be moved. So, as the biblical text above says, “He folds his arms” and is determined to wait.

Hmm… Is it really worth the wait? All that time, inconvenience, and uncertainty? Greed says yes! He spies a more comfortable spot in the window of a nearby coffee shop and enters, seats himself at the window, and starts spending his money in the cafe, wasting his time, and anxiously waiting for his moment to get more. In his wait are many anxious moments when he worries that someone else may get the money instead of him.

Yes, his desire for more not only has him anxious, it also has him in contention with others who might get what he wants. Suddenly everyone seems like an enemy or a competitor.

And here is a pretty good picture of too many of us today, anxiously waiting in traffic, in shopping lines, wasting time, all to get more. We look nervously to others and worry they might have more than we do, or get what we want. Tempers flare and suspicion too.

The humorous end I will not give away, but us simply say it fulfills the biblical text above with says, As goods increase, so do those who consume them.

A final note. The cafe he enters is called the “Punch and Judy Cafe.” No time to develop all the history here, but simply to note that Punch and Judy shows were an old form of entertainment using puppets (See photo, above right). The shows were a kind of dark comedy that gave a kind of sideways look at the less attractive aspects of culture and people. The main character “Punch” often violently lashes out at the other characters as if to say, “Life and the darker side of things and people tend to hit you where it hurts.” In the “Punch and Judy” Cafe of life, our darker side, in this case greed, often deliver a real gut-punch, a sucker-punch, a punch where it hurts.

Enjoy this video, but take seriously its message. If the embed code doesn’t work for you here is the URL: http://gloria.tv/?media=474475

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On the Preventative Medicine of The Church’s Wisdom and Experience (As seen on T.V.)

071213As a teenager I remember resenting how adults would try and prevent me from doing what I pleased. They would often warn me not to “learn the hard way” that something was wrong. I would often be told that I should learn from them and their experiences not to make the same mistakes they did. The rebel in me thought that it might be fun and pleasurable to “make a few mistakes of my own.” Of course I pridefully thought that I would escape the consequences.

In the end of course they were right, and one the most valuable gifts I have received from others to have learned from their experience. As a pastor too I must say that my staff has preserved me from innumerable errors through their expertise and long experience with the parish.

The word “experience” comes from the Latin experientia, meaning the act of trying or testing. More deeply it comes from two Latin words, ex (out of) + periri (which is akin to periculum, meaning peril or danger). Hence “experience” refers to those have endured trials, perils, testing, and dangers, and speak out of these to us so we don’t have to endure such things. It is a very great gift!

The Church too offers us the great gift of long experience. Indeed, one of the great advantages of making our home in the Catholic Church is that we are at the feet of a wise and experienced teacher who has “seen it all.” The Scriptures, the Catechism, the lives of the Saints, all the Church’s teaching, is a wealth of knowledge and collected experience for us. Through this vast treasury The Church, as a good mother and teacher, helps us to learn from the experiences of others.

At this point I would like for G.K. Chesterton to do the talking:

The other day a well-known writer, otherwise quite well-informed, said that the Catholic Church is always the enemy of new ideas. It probably did not occur to him that his own remark was not exactly in the nature of a new idea. …Nevertheless, the man who made that remark about Catholics meant something….What he meant was that, in the modern world, the Catholic Church is in fact the enemy of many influential fashions; most of which … claim to be new. [But] nine out of ten of what we call new ideas, are simply old mistakes.

The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves….There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and nearly all errors.

The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them. On this map of the mind the errors are marked…[but] the greater part of it consists of playgrounds and happy hunting-fields, where the mind may have as much liberty as it likes. But [the Church] does definitely take the responsibility of marking certain roads as leading nowhere or leading to destruction…
By this means, it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past, but which might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future.

The Church does make herself responsible for warning her people against these; she does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes… Now all false issues have a way of looking quite fresh, especially to a fresh generation. ..[But] we must have something that will hold the four corners of the world still, while we make our social experiments or build our Utopias. (From Twelve Modern Apostles and Their Creeds (1926). Reprinted in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. 3 Ignatius Press 1990)

Yes, what a gift. Many may take of the role of a pouting  teenager and be resentful at any warning from the Church. But in the end, It’s a mighty fine gift to be able to learn from others and benefit from their experience.

Here’s a funny commercial that shows the value of learning from others experiences.

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Losing life to gain Eternal life: A Short Paradigm of Life as seen in an animated video.

070513The video below is a kind of paradigm (or pattern) of life in its various stages and challenges. It begins with the summons of early childhood and the teenage years: that the we ought to take life by the horns, and that the world is our oyster. The video ends with the solemn reminder of the Lord that we must ultimately loose our life to gain and save it.

Consider the stages of this video. Our little hero has heard the great call of life, symbolized by the challenge to fly a kite! Now any of you who have ever flown a kite will testify that it is not as easy as it looks. “Romancing the wind” requires subtlety and careful finesse, and there are many unpredictable factors that come into play. Flying a kite is not a bad paradigm for life! Thrilling but complicated.

In the distance our little hero sees that others fly kites, high and noble and he aspires to their example. Yes, here is the beautiful idealism of early childhood, where a young boy seeks to imitate his father and everything seems possible.

But quickly our little hero learns that there is more to life than admiration and wanting to do something. He must put in his time and learn the careful moves of kite flying (life).

The animators show him as learning in stages, first on the level ground of elementary learning where he makes mistakes but learns, and repairs the damage. Then on a small hill (let us call it high school) where he has learned some of the moves of romancing the wind (life) but still is not quite ready. And then he graduates (steps up) to a higher hill, let us call it college or vocational school, and maturity. And finally he catches a breeze!

And now at last he has mastered life. His kite soars and he is in the groove, he is soaring high, he has romanced the wind and is at the top of his game!

But as life in this world often goes, he gets carried away. Instead of having authority over his life, events begin to overtake him, and he caught in the eventual snare that this world has for us all.

In effect he is caught in a whirlwind and this world begins to carry him away on its own terms. Things are out of control and ruin is looming! The world which our little hero had sought to master has mastered him and is leading him to ruin!

Sound familiar? So easily does this beautiful world lure us into its snare. So easily does it seek to possess us and carry us off, just like our little hero in the video.

St Augustine said, Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. (Conf 10.27)

And thanks be too God our little hero sees disaster come and he lets go! Somewhere in his depths he realizes that there is something more important than this world and the glory it offers. And so he lets go trusting in that “something greater” that will come. In letting go he fulfills the text of Jesus who said:

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Matt 16:25-26)

Yes, and here is the final stage of life we must all discover, “letting go.” A man’s life does not consist in possessions (Lk 12:15) And thus, we must learn to let go of life’s demands and learn to wait for God and the true Kingdom that is ours.

Our little hero learns that, having mastered life, he must now learn to let go, lest it carrying him away to certain death. It is a hard lesson and he sits sulking on the hill, but still alive and aware that he must now reach for something even higher that the highest breeze of this world. He must reach for heaven. And to to that, he must let go of this life’s glories and demands.

He must lose this life and his grip on it, to gain the next.

Enjoy this video, a little paradigm of life, yours and mine.

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Every Life is a Story, A Story Known Fully by God – A Meditation on a Moving Video

062813When my Father lay dying, I remember that one of the losses I began to grieve was that he was the keeper of many family stories. He was the one who could look at an old family photograph and tell you who they all were and something about each of them. As I saw him lying there, no longer able to talk much, I thought of all the memories stored up in his mind, all the stories, all the people he once knew and had spoken so vividly of.

And not only the family stories, but he was also a great historian and a great wellspring of the classics. He had read all the “Great Books” all of Shakespeare, all of Sacred Scripture, so many other worthy writings, and had memorized many lengthy quotes.

Such an encyclopedic mind, vivid thoughts, vivid memories, the keeper of the family story. And though I knew he’d take it with him in his soul, there was a grief to me that his magnificent mind was now closing to me. I regret I did not more carefully retain all he told me.

Thankfully he had written a family history that stays with us, and all his many photos and family films, that we worked to preserve, stay with us. We his sons, are moving much of this to digital, but it took Dad’s living presence to really bring these things home.

The video below put me in this reflective mind. It is of an old man who lays dying. And in various flashbacks we see his life, told almost as if from God’s perspective. We see his story, his good moments and tragedies. And then he passes.

I remember a Bible verse my father had jotted down on the frontispiece of a book he was reading at the time of his own father’s death:

But as for man, his days are like the grass, or as the flower that flourishes in the field. The wind blows, and he is gone, and his place never sees him again. (Psalm 103:16)

Reading that, as a very young teenager, I realized, for the first time that the Bible was very beautiful and I was startled to think that the house in which I was sitting would one day “never see me again.” All the stories, all the memories, gone with the proverbial winds.

The photo at the upper right is the last picture I ever took of my father. He standing in front of the family home. This was taken as he was leaving it for the last time. He moved into a retirement community for a brief while, but he was not long for this world. And, there he is, standing in front of the place that “never sees him again.”

Yes, there is something very precious about our memories, our stories. They are meant to be shared, handed down. But something irreplaceable, dies with each person. A very personal glimpse of history, a very personal story, something that can never be fully shared with anyone, no one but the Lord.

Only the Lord really knows our story, knows it better than we ourselves:

O LORD, you search me and you know me.
You yourself know my resting and my rising;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You mark when I walk or lie down;
you know all my ways through and through.

Before ever a word is on my tongue,
you know it, O LORD, through and through….

For it was you who formed my inmost being,
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you who wonderfully made me;

My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being fashioned in secret
and molded in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me yet unformed;
and all my days were recorded in your book,
before one of them came into being…

at the end I am still at your side… (Ps 139:varia)

Yes, the Lord knows. He knows all about us.

An old spiritual says, Nobody knows the trouble I seen, Nobody but Jesus. For in the end, he is the keeper of every story, my father’s, my own, yours. And whatever is lost in death will be restored a hundredfold, with understanding besides, in the great parousia. Not a story, not a word will be lost, but we shall recover it all, and tell the old, old stories once again.

Enjoy this poignant and moving video of a man’s life, almost as if told from the standpoint of God, the God who knows. Though the man seems to die alone, someone is remembering his story. Maybe it’s God doing the remembering:

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Charm is Deceptive – As Humorously Seen in A Commercial

062113The famous and oft quoted Proverbs 31 says, Charm is deceptive, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

This is no disrespect of women, especially those of widely regarded physical beauty. But it is something that men especially need to be mindful of, for men are very visual, and thereby focused on physical beauty. Yet physical beauty, however a man accounts it, is no guarantee that the woman in question shares his faith, values, or outlook. Neither does it reflect anything for or against her virtue, honesty or integrity.

This is a remarkably hard truth for men to apply. It is NOT a hard concept to understand in the abstract. And most men will nod or say amen to what was said above. But when abstraction becomes reality and “she” walks in the door, “lookin so fine” it is too easy to watch how every shred of common sense vanishes in an instant. Thinking shuts down, and decisions are often made with little sober reflection. And suddenly the man goes into his “Baby if you’ve got the curves, I’ve got the angles” mode.

Again, let the disclaimer be clear that “attractive” women (however one accounts that) are no more or less likely to be virtuous. The point isn’t to be suspicious of women regarded as attractive, but rather that men need to be on guard in reference to their tendency to equate looks alone with inner realities, or, alternately to disregard more serious and deeper considerations altogether when good looks enter the scene.

Proverbs 31 quoted above reminds men that charm can be deceptive and that beauty, considered simply as physical beauty is vain (i.e. an empty or neutral quality) when considering a woman. Physical beauty is also “fleeting” as men  account it in our culture, since, in these times especially beauty is tied to youthful features which necessarily mature as years progress.

Thus, Proverbs 31 sets forth a whole host of qualities that a man ought to esteem in a woman, beyond looks. The qualities are too numerous to set forth in this post but you can read them here: The Woman of Proverbs. But surely among those qualities are that she is of noble character, industrious, generous to the poor, caring of her family, faithful and kind.

Yes, comes the advice, look to these, not just to “looks.” There is more to life than charm and looks. Men need to be sober about this, but often are not. There is actually a person attached to those looks who needs to be discovered, respected and also assessed for who she really is.

In the video below, two men are driving along a road and come upon a beautiful woman standing provocatively next to a disabled car. You know they are going to stop! And stop they do! But suddenly one of the men thinks beyond the looks, and sees something wrong. Yes, there is more to the picture than a beautiful woman. Something beyond mere beauty must be considered!

Enjoy this humorous illustration of Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceptive and beauty is not only vain, but in this case it is downright fleeting!

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On the Ultimate Unity of All things in God, As Seen in a Science Video.

061413The video below, which was featured on NewAdvent.org yesterday shows a remarkable relationship and unity between two things we seldom think of together: sound and geometry. And yet, there it is.

From my own studies I have long seen a kind of relationship between music and math. For example, the current 12-Tone scale was developed in the 15th Century using the Pythagorean theorem. Clearly music and geometry come together since the length of a string or a pipe determines the pitch of the sound made. Thus, geometry and sound DO relate.

More artistically I have always relished the mathematical precision of Baroque music, especially of the Bach fugue, which amounts to a kind of mathematical progression on a musical theme.

But all my linking of math and music was something I thought of as largely a manner of thinking, an intellectual connection if you will. But the video below shows that there more than intellectual abstraction going on. The connection between sound and geometry is also physical. As each tone is produced, the geometry is produced and visible to the eye. As the tone changes, so does the picture created.

Frankly: Wowza! It is a wonder and awe moment!

And why shouldn’t there be a clear relationship? At the end of the day, all things are one, and connected because the one God who is simple and and one, produced them all. We see his fingerprints in everything he has made. In the video, God’s fingerprints are beautifully displayed.

Most people don’t connect sound and geometry. But since they both come from God, they are connected, and it merely falls to us to discover the relationship.

For years now scientists have sought to find a unifying and simple theory that explains everything. Some decades ago it was called the “Grand-unified Theory.” More recently the media coined the term “God-particle.” Whatever you want to call is, the hunt is one for the one thing that explains everything.

Theologians have known the answer for thousands of years, and expressed it in our own terms. The grand unified theory, the one thing that explains everything is Love. God is love, and He who IS love explains everything. Why is there something as opposed to nothing? Love. Why is the universe so big and so diverse, why such extravagance? Love. Why is there justice, why is there beauty, why is there order, why is there desire? Love!

Love is not merely something God does, it is not a mere attribute. God IS love. And as love, he has done all things. Love explains everything. God is Love and Love loves, that’s what love does, it loves. Why are sound and geometry ultimately one? Because the same Love made them both and resonates in them both. The same Love sustains them.

Do not misinterpret this. Distinctions are important, at least for us humans. We need to distinguish and must distinguish. It is the basis of thought for us, who are contingent and limited beings. But at the end of the day, what we distinguish as more in common that it has in distinction. Why? Because God who is Love made and sustains everything. We ought never forget, as we distinguish, (for we must), that there is a deeper and mystical union to all things.

Perhaps I can end with a “Desert Father” story which I do not recall as to its origin, but I recite it from memory:

One day, a disciple came to the Abbot and asked, “What am I to do about the distance I experience with God?” The Abbot replied, “Understand that it isn’t there.” “Does that mean that God and I are one?” said the monk? Father Abbot said, “No one….not two.” “How can that be?” said the perplexed monk. The Abbot looked at him and said, “The ocean and its wave, the singer and his song, the candle flame and its light…..not one, not two.”

And the point is that all our little categories and distinctions fall short as we draw near to God. Even the simply defined 2 versus 1. As humans, in our experience we must distinguish. For as limited beings we can only see pieces at a time. But our distinctions are ultimately a sort of analogy. Things also have a unity we cannot deny. Why? God is love, and Love made and infuses all things.

A chair, a monkey, a water molecule, sound, light, and geometry, ultimately have more in common than they have apart. Distinctions for us are a kind of necessary evil. But we ought remember, at the end of the day, that Christ hold all creation together in himself. And that at the end, there will be, in the words of St. Augustine: Unus Christus, amans seipsum. (One Christ, loving himself).

This is not pantheism. For God transcends all he has made. He is bigger than all this. But he unites all this. The Grand unified theory is simply this: God is love. Love is the answer to the ultimate why and how of all things.

Now the video. Behold the fingerprints of God’s love.

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Lady Wisdom as Seen in a Beautiful Video

053113In the video below I was reminded, though imperfectly, of  the great Wisdom tradition of the Old Testament. In that tradition, Wisdom (Sophia) is portrayed as a beautiful woman whose presence indwells all of creation imbuing it with God’s magnificent vision and sustaining Word. And thus we read:

Before all other things wisdom was created; and prudent understanding, from eternity.The root of wisdom—to whom has it been revealed. Her subtleties—who knows them? There is but one, wise and truly awesome,seated upon his throne—the Lord. It is he who created her, saw her and measured her,Poured her forth upon all his works, upon every living thing according to his bounty, lavished her upon those who love him. (Sirach 1:4-10)

And thus, God’s wisdom infuses and sustains all things.

What would happen if God were ever to remove his sustaining wisdom. What would happen if his abiding presence should ever cease to be present? Truly, all things would cease instantly to exist at all, vanishing. For if the cause be removed, so also the effect.

The video below shows a more mitigated scenario. What happens to a world where the main spring, or main gear of God’s wisdom cease her functioning or somehow no longer has her influence?

The video answers the question artistically. For when wisdom, portrayed as a beautiful woman, is no longer  in her exulted place, perhaps because she is under-appreciated, all turns grey, dreary and drab. And everything stops moving, as if to say things no longer work.

Only if the beautiful “lady wisdom” is restored to her central place and exalted will all things be restored to proper order and functioning. And thus, in the video, when she returns to her place, things begin to function again, and magnificent color is restored.

And here’s a paradigm for our age, which has so cast aside much of the ancient wisdom of God. So much color has gone from our world, and though endless pleasures abound, boredom, and a kind of sadness overtakes us. When everything is pleasurable, nothing is pleasurable and when everything is available nothing seems special. The eye is never satisfied with what it sees,  the ear with what it  ears, boredom  overtakes us.

And such dysfunctionality sets in. Our basic structures, no longer work. The family, and other basic institutions such as schools, government, and even many religious structures become dysfunctional.

Only if wisdom is once again in her place will proper function be restored and will radiant color be restored.

Enjoy this beautiful video that so captures Lady Wisdom.

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Why the New Evangelization is Necessary, as Humorously seen in a Cartoon

052413The video below is a humorous reminder that, in times like these, when technology changes so rapidly, a few of us can easily get left behind.

There is also something in the video of an admonition to the Church lest we be too much like the old man in the video. And this is so for several reasons:

1. It would seem that the little man has been too long sheltered away in his apartment while the world has passed him by. And we in the Church may also have too long hunkered down in our churches and been afraid to engage the outside world.

For the last 50 years we have been very inwardly focused, debating about liturgy, debating who has power and authority in the Church, how to structure this or that internal program better etc. And while none of these are unimportant things, while we were focused inwardly, we lost the culture which has headed into warp drive away from us.

Job 1, (“Go and make disciples”) was set aside and almost wholly eclipsed by other important but lesser matters. And thus we see an old man in his apartment seemingly very out of touch with what has happened on the outside.

2. The text of the letter he writes is also telling for the Church. The gist of the letter, written in German is, Dear Friend, It is about time I write you again, not simply because I owe you some long lines, or my guilty conscience has gotten to me…. Indeed, as we have well remarked, in too many ways the Church has been too silent, at least collectively speaking. So many Catholics tell me they never hear of so many things from their pulpits that need addressing: Abortion, divorce, homosexuality, same sex “unions,” fornication, modesty, that missing Mass is a mortal sin, death, judgement, heaven and hell, euthanasia, witness, courage, and so forth.

Yes many Catholics would attest that Church leaders might well begin by saying, “It is about time that I write you, that I speak to you….”

And if that be the case of Catholics in the pew, how much more so unbelievers in the street. A Church too silent, to inward in her preoccupation, needs to begin the conversation with many again, and begin from scratch: “It is long past time that I speak with you…!”

3. And he is still typing using an old and outdated method of communication, the manual typewriter. For the Church, this too is a danger. While it is true that we proclaim an ancient and unchanging wisdom, the challenge for us it that our proclamation of it be non nova, sed novae (not a new thing, but newly or freshly)) proclaimed.

Not only have we been slow to pick up on the “new media” but we also struggle to proclaim our magnificent faith in compelling ways. We are doing much better, but have a long way to go. Many parishes and priests still have little Internet presence. Too many homilies are filled with abstractions and generalities and do not often enough apply the faith to modern issues and problems. Too many catechisms  look like comic books from the 1970s.

And while some may ponder how to stay abreast of all the latest technology, it is too important merely to ignore as of utmost importance. Parishes and dioceses must invest resources and enlist skilled staff to ensure that all forms of modern communication are being used and are professional.

Please be certain dear reader that I do NOT mean the Church’s job is to be merely “relevant” and reflect today. That is not our job. Our job is to represent the teachings of our founder and head, Jesus Christ. But we cannot be content to use the equivalent of a manual typewriter.

We have to be wise as serpents in the use of new technology, and innocent as doves when it comes to embracing the false relevance insisted on by the worldly minded. The message cannot change, but the means must move along and be professional and savvy.

4. At last our little man journeys into the world and finds out what has been going on. A crisis and the inability to do business as usual drives our little man into the world. And thus finally the Church too, is now, like a sleeping giant coming alive and going back into the world. We cannot do business as usual and various crises in and out of the Church has driven us forth. The Church’s presence in the new media is growing and getting more professional. EWTN, Catholic Answers, NewAdvent.org, and huge numbers of Catholic sites are now on line and engaging the culture.

5. But then comes the twist – For the little man in the video, while having made progress, still misses the boat and we discover that his use of the technology, and understanding of it, is flawed, to say the least.

And thus we too in the Church must not simply think that having all the latest equipment etc is enough. We have to know how best and most effectively to use it. Otherwise we make silly mistakes similar to the man in the cartoon.

Enjoy this cartoon and strive to learn its lesson. Pray too for the Church that we learn to get it right and have the courage to journey outside the comfort of our four walls to preach the truth we have received effectively.