Modern technologies are useful tools to foster love and harmony among family members
The theme chose by Pope John Paul II for World Communication Day 2004 is Media in the Family. More than ever before, the post-modern family is challenged with information overload due to easy access to media. Mass Media and new communication technology have become integral parts of the home. The family members are exposed to them on a daily basis. Count the number of hours your own TV is on from Monday’s to Fridays and on weekends. The latest, the mobile phone, called cellphone in the Philippines or handy phone in Malaysia, is dominating our day. Have you ever thought how many times a day you use your mobile phone as compared to other modern tools.
Your TV and Cellphone Diet
What is the effect of daily exposure to television programs and hourly gazing at your mobile phone? We are not speaking here about it’s being good or bad, but of the impact they create on the mind and body. The human person is not composed only of physical being but also of the spiritual. The senses absorb whatever stimulus there is. Visual stimuli with color and movement have far greater impact than just listening or reading. No wonder, both child and adult can be glued to the TV or cellphone for hours, unnoticed and undisturbed. How much of what we watch on TV and send or receive via text messaging is really helpful for our well-being?
Watch your own media diet
Just as we are conscious of our physical diet for health reasons and to maintain body figure, so much should be done about information we take from media. We need to maintain our spiritual balance constant awareness of the information we expose ourselves to. Listening to radio, watching television, viewing movies, reading the newspapers, magazines and other printed matter, surfing the Internet, text messaging, and other use of media, feed us with materials that form our outlook in life. We assimilate them gradually and they become part of our value system. Information develops our personality as food intake develops our body.
Do you want to strengthen your Christian principles and convictions? Watch your exposure to media. They condition and influence our understanding of the meaning of life. Media diet makes sense if we want to set our priorities in accordance with Gospel values. We do not only look for religious media but for values that are in accordance with teachings of the Church.
Media and the Domestic Church
The family is a domestic Church according to Pope John Paul II. It is a place where all members cultivate Christian faith and grow in virtues. Communication is the means to make the domestic Church alive and become a living witness of God’s Kingdom. The media at the disposal of the family can be effective tools to disseminate faith experience, and from the home share it to extended families, relatives, friends and colleagues. Accessible, economical and efficient, the mobile phone can be very useful in sharing faith and hope between spouses, parents and children. It should not be used to destroy a person through rumor-mongering or other foolish texting but to build up relationships that will lead to a practice of virtues and enhance love and harmony. Media is God’s gift to humanity.
It is our challenge to build our own family as the Church of the home. Let us Learn to maximize the good use of our own communication technology and spread the domestic Church in many families of our neighborhood.