The accelerating and unrelenting parade of gadgets and technology with which the world is obsessed are most assuredly the biggest distraction mankind has ever seen. As the excerpt presented in Science and Hopelessness on The Thinking Housewife illustrates, it must be so in order to prevent the average Joe from realizing his desperate hopelessness and emptiness. “The soul of man is crying for hope or purpose or meaning; and the inventor says ‘Here is a telephone,’ or ‘Look, television!’— exactly as one tries to distract a baby crying for its mother by offering it sugar sticks and making funny faces at it.” Most no longer even realize their constant state of perplexed diversion.
Sam Guzman’s post Lent, Suffering, and the Death that Brings Life on The Catholic Gentleman illustrates the beauty and efficacy of carrying one’s cross. One of the greatest gifts Catholics hold is the ability to share in Our Lord’s suffering. “This Lent, let us not fear or flee the cross, but carry it with love and with hope, as the means not of death but of eternal life.” What a stark difference from the distracted pointlessness of modernity!
Lastly, Señorita Rita’s musings in Constant Prayer will inspire a zealous effort to heed St. Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians: “Pray without ceasing.”