Media today

THANKS to the wonders of the Internet, we now have easy
access to many things, among them, newspapers and magazines. We don’t
have to subscribe to local and foreign papers to be able to read them.

            With this exposure, I’m certain we are also forming many
views and opinions, and we slowly discern the various underpinnings,
political, ideological, religious, and otherwise, that the media
outfits have.

            I personally find it very interesting to compare opinions,
styles, approaches, and see how they play out. There’s thrill always
in observing the flashes of genius as different writers argue and
often clash.

            Also I want to fish, even if only tentatively, the
different trends and biases the different papers can have. These
considerations always shed some light that makes things more
understandable.

            Almost automatically, several categories emerge in the
mind as I instinctively try to sort out, classify, brand and label the
different positions. Among these categories are the
conservative/liberal, right/left, open-minded/close-minded,
serious/commercialized.

            With all these developments, we need to pay more attention
to what is fundamentally important to those involved in the media.
What is clear is that everyone in the media, just like everybody else,
should realize very sharply our need for continuing formation.

            This need cannot be set aside, much less, alienated. This
is the lifeblood of our profession, as it is in any other profession.
Anyone who marginalizes the need for formation in his work is doomed
to stagnate, if not fail miserably.

            And formation should not just be some vague and generic
term. It should strike us as something urgent, and with many concrete
elements that need to be attended to.

            For example, people in media should know how to attain
greater independence and gain better objectivity, how to adapt to a
fast-changing world driven by technologies that develop quite speedily
these days, etc.

            These are some concerns that need to be looked into if we
in the media wish to really serve the people and contribute to the
common good.

            We have to be sensitive to subtle tricks, personal, social
and cultural, that can warp the integrity of our profession. These
tricks are a constant threat. We cannot be naïve.

            It would be good if we could have an inventory of biases
and other conditionings that can affect our work. Some of them are
unavoidable, but at least if we are aware of them, we can do something
about them.

            We have to be wary that unless we simply content ourselves
to cater only to the ignorant and the impressionable, we need to
improve our competence to satisfy the legitimate expectations of a
more demanding and discerning audience.

            But before we start thinking of what new style and
techniques to learn to attain this goal, we have to remember one
basic, indispensable requirement, one that needs continuing renewal
and purification, given the condition of our life and work.

            This requirement hopefully will give us a firm grounding,
a sound sense of perspective, a clear focus and sense of purpose. It’s
the understanding that our media work is not just our work but rather
is part of the divine redemptive plan for all mankind. We have to
attune our work to that context.

            This is our usual problem. Many of us still have the
primitive pagan notion that the business of communication is purely a
human affair, so completely personal, private or autonomous that God
has nothing to do with it.

            Or at best, that it is just a social phenomenon, ruled
purely by some social consensus, with God and his commandments playing
no more than a cameo role.

            Of course, with this attitude we become most vulnerable to
all sorts of pressures and temptations that certainly distort the
standard of justice and fair play, of freedom and truth, etc.

            Unaware of the divine character and redemptive mission of
our work, we can tend to go in circles, stuck in the mud of
wranglings, self-righteousness and useless speculations or worse,
prone to the tailspin of frivolity, greed and inanities.

            This does not mean that media work should be some kind of
sacred, rigid and monolithic business. It can go mundane. It can and
should respect the legitimate plurality of opinions proper of our
autonomous earthly affairs.

            But when there is this awareness of the divine character
of our work, then the search for justice, freedom and truth can be
pursued hindered less by our tendencies to be shallow in thinking,
rash in judgment, rough in manners.

            Even when there are conflicting views, there will always
be charity in the discussions. Even when we are having fun, we don’t
forget God. This is our media challenge.

Saving chastity from extinction

ONE of the most surprising if disturbing phenomena in our
times is that with all the undeniable problems related to chastity,
there’s hardly anything done about it. No concerted effort, no
campaign nor drive is being done.

            Problems, of course, include premarital and extramarital
sex, pornography and self-abuse that seem to be an epidemic left to
fester especially among the young, infidelity, homosexual activities,
forms of immodesty, etc.

            We even have celebrities now publicly confessing they are
helplessly addicted to sex, treating their perversions just like a
case of alcoholism or drug dependence. Some of them, quite wrecked by
it all, now avail of rehab which, of course, is not a bad idea. But
would that be enough?

            And let’s not forget that a few of those who for religious
reasons are consecrated to celibacy have committed highly scandalous
crimes from which the Church continues to reel. To me, these anomalies
comprise the most heinous of all sins against chastity.

            We need to do a more pro-active approach to this crisis.
Among the things that we can do is to spread more widely, especially
in families, schools and parish churches, that blessed doctrine now
dubbed as ‘theology of the body.’

            The theology of the body links the whole reality of our
body, and especially our sexuality, to the humanity of Christ, the
second person of the Blessed Trinity who became man, who took on a
human body, to show us, among others, how our body should be
understood, used and cared for.

            The theology of the body tells us the good news about our
body, the beautiful designs God, our Father and Creator, has for it at
the beginning of our creation, and the redemptive efforts that due to
the sinful and wounded condition of our humanity, God through Christ
in the Spirit has done and continues to do for it.

            We should be able to do this, especially nowadays when we
can count already on the tremendous help offered by our communication
technologies. Obviously, before we can make use of these technologies,
what is fundamentally required is the proper attitude to help,
reinforcing it with the proper spirituality, and then with due study,
patience and persistence. Without these, everything else would be in
vain.

            Aside from spreading this doctrine through talks, classes
and other collective means, what is also most important is to be able
to enter into personal relationships with the persons concerned.

            It is in these relationships, which should be marked by
true friendship and confidence, that the persons concerned can be
encouraged to do a continuing ascetical struggle, purifying their
attitudes and understanding of things, developing virtues,
strategizing ways to deal with their weaknesses, temptations and
falls.

            In this regard, we need to reassure everyone that there is
always hope no matter how bad one’s predicament in this area is. God
always forgives and also gives us the necessary graces to heal what is
sick and wounded.

            Developing true friendship, trust and confidence is a must
in this task, because most of the problem in this area stems from the
fact that those with this problem often feel too ashamed to open up
and so are left unattended and unhelped.

            That is why, we have to see to it that in the families the
relationship between fathers and sons, between mothers and daughters
should be such that this delicate topic of sexuality and chastity can
be brought up without fear or shame.

            We have to encourage everyone to make use of the spiritual
and supernatural means first—prayers, sacrifices and mortifications,
recourse to the sacraments, filial devotion to Our Lady who is our
Mother most pure and chaste.

            Then we have to help everyone acquire the skills of
ascetical struggle—knowing oneself so well as to know what his
strengths and weaknesses are, what he can take and what he cannot with
respect to dangers and temptations that we cannot avoid, how to smell
possible dangers and how to put oneself as far as possible from these
danger, what we ought to do when we fall, etc.

            And when it cannot be avoided to have, so to speak, a
frontal combat with our weaknesses and temptations, we should learn
the necessary skills. Very often, this kind of combat takes place when
we are alone, somehow telling us that our worst enemies are actually
our own selves.

            What should therefore help us is to be reminded always
that we should never be alone, even if we are physically alone. We
should firmly set our minds and hearts on God and others, especially
when we are physically alone.

Marriage sanctified sanctifies

WE need to realize and appreciate more deeply that
marriage, not only as a natural institution but also and especially as
a sacrament, is a path to sanctity not only for the husband and wife
but also for the family, and from the family, for the society and the
Church in general.

            We need to see the organic link among these key elements:
the marriage between man and woman, and the family they generate, as
well as the society of which the family is the basic cell and the
universal Church of which the family is considered the domestic
church.

            Seeing that link, we would appreciate the crucial and
strategic role that marriage plays in the life of men and women in the
world. We would appreciate the tremendous potential good that marriage
can give to all of us.

            That is why everything has to be done to make marriage
achieve its fullest dignity. And that means that we have to purify and
elevate the love that is the very germ of marriage to the supernatural
order.

            That love has to develop from simply being natural and
body-emotion-world reliant to being more and more spiritual and
supernatural, driven by grace rather than by mere natural forces.

            With the sacrament of marriage, the love between husband
and wife is already guaranteed to have all the graces needed to make
that marriage reach its fullness. What is needed is the faithful and
generous correspondence of the parties concerned to those graces.

            Let us reiterate the importance of understanding the true
nature of marriage from the point of view of our Christian faith. We
should never pooh-pooh the role of our Christian faith in
understanding marriage. Short of that faith, we can only have at best
a partial grasp that can miss essential elements of the constitution
of marriage.

            Marriage is definitely a path to sanctity. For the husband
and wife, marriage is a way to reach God. Their love can reflect the
very love God has for us, the very love Christ has for his Church. It
is a love that, as St. Paul once described, “bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor
13,7)

            The couple should remember this basic truth about the
sacrament of marriage. They can always count on God’s graces that can
make possible what may appear to be humanly impossible for man.

            Marriage will always be tested in life. This is something
that should not be a surprise to anyone. Marriage will expose the
parties concerned to all kinds of trials, challenges, difficulties. It
can have failures and enter into crises.

            But it should never be forgotten that as a sacrament, with
the backing of no less than God himself, victory is always assured,
even if in human terms things may look like failures or irremediable
cases.

            Those trials, difficulties and even failures and crises
are good occasions to deepen and enrich the spouses’ love for each
other. When God’s help is resorted to, the trials, difficulties and
failures are good opportunities to learn or to refine virtues like
fidelity, generosity, optimism, resourcefulness, generosity, etc.

            They can actually point to certain deficiencies that often
are taken for granted and that need to be attended to. The couple may
have to improve their skills in dialogue, or in finding positive and
useful elements in some problematic situations, or in being creative
to derive something good from difficult situations.

            The couple should realize that nothing is resolved if they
start questioning the intrinsic properties of unity and
indissolubility of marriage, or they start redefining marriage
according to their own terms, already detached from God’s plan for it.

            In this regard, it is of primordial importance that the
preparation for marriage be thoroughly done and a network of marital
and family support be put in place as husbands and wives traverse the
sea of life.

            What should not be forgotten is that difficulties in
married and family life are good occasions for the parties concerned
to grow in sanctity. Everyone needs to remember St. Paul’s words: “For
those who love God, everything will always work out for the good.”

            The ideal marriage is not one where everything simply
clicks, where there are no problems at all, where everything would run
smoothly. That marriage is utopian.

            The ideal marriage is rather one where it is game to all
the situations of human life and, while using all the human and
natural means to resolve things, always have recourse to God and his
providence. It’s where marriage becomes a path of sanctification. It’s
when sanctified that marriage sanctifies.