Chill out, dude!

ONE basic attitude and habit to develop is to refer ourselves to the Pope whenever we want to be clarified about matters of faith and morals.

This is not some kind of special duty reserved only for certain people. This is actually a duty for all of us. It comes with our being a member of the Church. We cannot be casual about this duty.

Of course, we don’t go to him to learn about physics and politics. But when
these fields of knowledge touch on questions of faith and morals, as they sometimes and ultimately do, then we have to listen to the Pope.

This is because as successor of Peter, the Pope is our supreme teacher entrusted by Christ himself with the duty to teach and perpetuate the living and eternal word of God.

For this, in a mysterious but effective way, he is endowed with infallibility. “Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” (M 16,19) What the Pope says, in effect, is what our Lord is telling us now.

This truth of faith is most relevant especially in the world of media. This is because while immersed in the world of opinions, the media cannot help but touch also on matters of faith and morals.

In Pope Benedict’s last message for the World Communications Day, given sometime ago, there was one idea, one truth worth highlighting because in spite of its objective importance, it continues to be widely ignored.

This was when he focused on the idea of “communion”—we are supposed to be in communion with God and among ourselves, always and everywhere—and
then said:

“The call to be true to the self-communication of God in Christ is in fact a call to recognize his dynamic force within us, which then seeks to spread outwards to others, so that his love can truly become the prevalent measure of the world.”

In my understanding, he reminds us that God’s revelation to us, made full
and definitive in Christ, continues up to now through us. It’s never just a frozen historical fact which we try to preserve. It goes on now, alive, and involving us in a vital way, not just in a formal way.

More than that, it is a living and continuing self-communication of God to us that draws all our processes of communication, in whatever form and circumstance, into this source and ultimate reason for whatever communication we do in this life.

This is the basic reality, a truth of faith, which we on the whole are still ignorant about. We think our communications are just our own thing. They have nothing to do with God’s self-communication to us and our response to him.

This is unfortunate, because with this kind of mentality we become most prone to the wild tendencies of our weaknesses and the malice of the evil spirits. Instead of promoting love, truth, justice, etc., we get into all sorts of ugly situations especially when we have differences and conflicts of views.

Thus, it is common nowadays for us to get sprayed by the slime of lies, half-truths, intrigues, shallow, even inane and reckless reporting, and heavily slanted fallacies. Just read the papers, just listen to talk shows, this garbage is rampant.

There also is the foul odor of self-righteousness, arrogance, bitterness, hatred, prejudice, skepticism, bickering, fault-finding, etc. Indeed, a real mess, a poisoned atmosphere!

Refinement, civility, prudence, discretion, etc. seem prohibited to exist. We seem to be losing our capacity to discuss and argue with reason enlightened by faith and driven by charity.

Chill out, dude! Don’t take things too personally or too seriously. We have to find a way to treat each other as children of God, worthy of being loved all the way, in spite of our differences and even the mistakes we commit.

We have to realize what we really matters in this life, what really will endure to eternity. Our opinions on temporal matters will come and go. What remains is that we love each other, for love of God, a love shown and lived and died for by Christ himself.