Development and decadence

THESE two events seem to be pairing off more often than not these days. We can see the obvious and almost quantum leap in technological advances all over and the many amenities and advantages they bring, and yet we also see sizable areas afflicted and sinking in poverty.

That’s not all. Technological progress may bring some economic boom, but this latter growth many times is not evenly distributed. Aside from poverty, there is inequality and social injustice, the gap between the rich and poor widening, and worse, there is ignorance and confusion as well, in kinds and levels unknown before.

These is such thing now as an ignorance and confusion that pride themselves as an expression of enlightenment, liberation, and an affirmation of human rights and all that. In fact, it would appear that the line between truth and falsehood, good and evil, fair and unfair, etc., is all but erased.

That’s why we now have such thing as contraception, sterilization, abortion as part of women’s rights, and infidelity and the modern forms of promiscuity, now euphemistically termed as polyamory, as expressions of human freedom.

And this abnormality is affecting practically all levels of society. It’s not only the poor that are disadvantaged. The rich are too. Not only the uneducated, but also those with stratospheric academic credentials.

The world seems to be thrown into an ocean of theories, opinions, ideologies that are not anymore anchored on some absolute standards but rather on relativistic and highly changeable human preferences and consensus.

It’s now more a numbers game or who have the guns and the gold that would determine how we ought to develop. It’s now more a matter of who enjoys some clout over the others because he is smarter, more talented, more persuasive, etc.

It’s this ignorance and confusion that allows decadence to go with development, alerting us to be more careful about how to pursue our human progress, both individually and collectively.

We need to be more wary of this drift in world development, since our tendency is to give not only more attention but rather absolute reliance on the merely external and popular aspects, leaving behind the spiritual and supernatural dimensions of our life.

The trend seems to be that the determination of what is right and wrong, good and evil, true and false is not anymore a matter of consulting the very author and creator of the world. We just make them out ourselves.

Let’s try to remember what Christ said very clearly. “What does it a profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?” (Mt 16,26) Let’s never forget that the more important and the absolutely indispensable aspect of human progress and development is the salvation and perfection of our soul.

It’s in our spiritual soul, it’s in the way we think and aspire, it’s in what we really love and hold most dear, where the true state of our life is determined. It’s there where love, justice, genuine concern for one another, and their opposites, spring and flourish, and where their effects remain forever, either in heaven or hell.

The material, physical and external things only play a secondary and subsidiary role. They are mere means, occasions and manifestations of what we have inside. They come and go. They are not expected to last. We cannot bring them to heaven, nor to hell.

Our spiritual soul is what gives life to us. It’s the principle of life. The material cannot have life unless infused with a spiritual soul. And we need to remember that the life of our spiritual soul, which is a created soul, comes from God and needs to remain in God.

Otherwise, our soul will have a life simply of its own, one that is not meant for it, since it will just nourish itself with transient principles, not the eternal one in whose image and likeness we have been created.

For sure, these transient sources can offer many elements of good that can mesmerize us, and we may get contented with them. But they don’t last. They don’t actually satisfy the deepest yearning of our soul. But to realize this, we need faith, which is abundantly given to us but which we need to receive and act on.

In short, to have a genuine, integral human development and progress, all of us, leaders and followers, need to be more sensitive to our true spiritual needs—our need for God and everything he tells us through his doctrine and sacraments now entrusted to the Church. Otherwise, decadence will corrupt our development.