WHILE we may have our own particular
niche in life that is fit to our
personal condition and circumstances, we
have to realize that we are
not meant to be imprisoned there, but
should rather have an attitude
of openness to the flowing developments
of the times.
That is why we have to feel the
necessity to continually explore the
things, adapt ourselves to the changing
circumstances and make the
necessary innovations along the way.
Of course, we should remember that there
are things that should be
held as permanent, absolute, unchanging.
These are the essential
things that define their nature as
designed by God the Creator.
To guide us in this, we of course can
use our sciences and
technologies, but we should give
priority to what the Church teaches,
since the Church has been entrusted by
Christ himself to define what
is truly proper to our human nature.
Because of this, the Church is
dubbed as the ‘expert in humanity.’
But other than these permanent things,
there are also many other
things that can and should change as we
cruise through life. These
things are earth-and-time bound. They
are expected to vary according
to time and place, and other factors,
like culture, age, gender, etc.
It cannot be denied that each
generation, for example, has its
peculiar characteristics. We have to be
as sensitive as possible to
these distinctions. We should not stick
to our own usual ways of
understanding and doing things.
It’s in these latter things that we
should try to monitor as closely
as possible and make the necessary
adaptation and innovation. Thus, we
should also do some kind of exploration
so that we would know what are
happening in the world as we go along.
We are told that there is actually
nothing new under the sun, since
God is in control of everything and
things are determined by their
nature. Even in our case, with our power
to go against our nature,
things are still in God’s control.
As the book of Ecclesiastes would put
it, “What has been will be
again, what has been done will be done
again. There is nothing new
under the sun.” (1,9)
Just the same, we also know that things
vary and change from time to
time, producing what may appear as new
things. It is in these
variations and changes that we should
try our best to cope, to adapt
and to make some innovations as a
consequence.
Nowadays, we are quite privileged since
we can now avail of the new
technologies that are a big help in this
task of exploration and
monitoring. With Google and the social
media, we can easily get in
touch with people in far-away places and
know the happenings there.
We should have the proper attitude
regarding this need, and start
developing the proper skills. We have to
be guarded though from the
strong possibility of getting entangled
in distractions and even
temptations that can appear
irresistible.
It is reported that many people are
hooked to the social media because
of “constant psychological boosts” they
get from it, and these boosts
are not necessarily motivated from the
proper spirit of love. They
appear more animated by egoism, vanity,
narcissism and the like.
So it can happen that instead of having
a good view and monitoring of
developments around the world, one is
only reinforcing what he wants
to see and know. He becomes more
subjective than objective. He will
surely miss the target.
With this problem at the get-go of the
task, the succeeding stages of
adaptation and innovation would be
gravely compromised. The only
countermeasure for this is for one to be
truly a man of God. That’s
when he can become more objective, more
discerning, more able to say
no to distractions. Otherwise, he would
just be at the mercy of his
passions, biases and preferences.
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