Facts & Meaning

At Mass last night the Homily started with a very interesting concept. Our priest began by explaining that as we move into the year 2010 we are fully in an age where facts and information inundate us from all angles. We have cell phones now that give us email, texts, twitter feeds, and that we can even read and update our blogs on. We can now literally take a picture with our handheld phone, research online about the item we just photographed, post it on our blog, and disseminate that information to thousands of people in the matter of minutes. [In the case of my blog, I could disseminate it to about 10 people :P] Twitter and Texting limit us to 140 or 160 characters. Newspapers are dying... while these "instant" devices which are small and "quick" are almost commonplace. There is no denying that information and facts concerning almost everything are literally at any of our "fingertips" at almost any time.

The problem is that we no longer want the FULL story. Newspapers are dying and yet Twitter and Facebook have us eating information 140 characters at a time. We no longer care about the fully story or the MEANING, we just want the punch line. Our question for information, solely for information's sake is killing our pursuit of meaning and the truth.

Information is not a bad thing. In fact, it knowledge is essential to discovering the truth about many things. Ultimately, Christ - the pure truth requires knowledge of HIM so that we can be with him. We must accept and believe the Truth and therefore can only do so after acquiring that knowledge. What is dangerous about information and its pursuit is that it seems many have abandoned meaning for the quest information.

We see this all the time in Christianity. We want to access information but we don't want the back story. We kneel in Mass because we are supposed to. We want the Mass in English so that WE  can understand it better. Everything needs to be chopped up into little bits. We don't have time for the Mystery, we just want the bottom line. We can't kneel at Mass because it would take too long, so we stand. We can't have only the priest distribute Communion because people process in a line and so we institute Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion to speed things up. We are in a constant pursuit of gratification through information. Jesus argued against the Pharisees because of there adherence solely to the Law. They lacked the meaning behind the law. He also fought against the money changers who took advantage of the temple, again for the lack of their understanding to the meaning. These two factions were on opposite ends of the spectrum - pure law vs. no law; and yet Jesus fought against them both.

Meaning is important because meaning gives itself to the truth. We can only find the truth when we understand the meaning of the information which we acquire and how it relates to the truth. When we stop searching for meaning, we stop searching for truth. Everything we do in the Catholic faith has meaning behind it; if you don't know why you are doing it you should learn. Yes, there is virtue in obedience, but that obedience must eventually lend itself to knowledge. We must reclaim the meaning to our faith. "True Presence" must mean something. The rubrics of the mass and the GIRM must become our base, not our of sheer obedience but because of that which they uphold - the TRUTH. If we really trully believe in Jesus and his "once for all" crucifixion for the salvation of our souls we must commit ourselves to that belief through the way in which we worship. We must find meaning in our worship and we must reclaim the meaning to our faith. There are many ways to to this: reading the GIRM, going to Adoration, studying the rubrics, and even going through an RCIA program - not because we have to but because we want to.