miniZibaldone

He is present here and now: here and now!  Emmanuel                           Nothing is useless; nothing is extraneous                                                                                               you become tireless  

“In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium — that is, of any extension of ourselves — result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. [. . .] The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the “content” of any medium is always another medium. [. . .] Let us return to the electric light. Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the “conten...

(PDF format) https://english.clonline.org/cm-files/2020/08/05/radianceinyoureyes-english.pdf (ePUB format) https://english.clonline.org/cm-files/2020/08/14/radianceinyoureyes-english.epub

  From the general audience Taking care of those who are sick, of those who are in need, of those who are cast aside: this is a human, and also Christian, wealth. To emerge from a pandemic. . . Contemplation, which leads us to an attitude of care, is not a question of looking at nature from the outside, as if we were not immersed in it. But we are inside nature, we are part of nature. Rather, it is done from within, recognizing us as part of creation, making us protagonists and not mere spectators of an amorphous reality that is only to be exploited. Those who contemplate in this way experience wonder not only at what they see but also because they feel they are an integral part of this beauty; and they also feel called to guard it and to protect it. And there is one thing we must not forget: those who cannot contemplate nature and creation, cannot contemplate people in their true wealth. And those who live to exploit nature end up exploiting people and treating them like slaves. T...

In Search of a Human Face A Festival of Humanity

Fear governs the world. Power by its very nature avails itself of fear. Human society was built up on fear and, therefore, it was built up on lies, for fear is the father of falsehood. [. . .]   Fear always conceals truth and truth tends to reveal itself when the experience of fear lived through, leads to the overcoming of it, to emancipation. Fear is connected not only with falsehood but also with cruelty. It is not only those who inspire fear who become cruel, but also those who feel it. The masses are not only governed through fear but the masses themselves govern by fear. Fear in the life of society is the mistrust of man; and fear is always conservative although outwardly it has at times been revolutionary in form. . . . Anxiety, insecurity of life, in the last resort give rise to fear. But what is most serious is this; fear distorts thought and hinders the knowledge of truth. . . . Fear lowers the dignity of man, the dignity of free spirit. Fear has always been regarded ...

From the homily Let us never forget: the Mass is the Memorial that heals memory, the memory of the heart. The Mass is the treasure that should be foremost both in the Church and in our lives. Through the Eucharist, the Lord also heals our negative memory , that negativity which seeps so often into our hearts. The Lord heals this negative memory, which drags to the surface things that have gone wrong and leaves us with the sorry notion that we are useless, that we only make mistakes, that we are ourselves a mistake. Jesus comes to tell us that this is not so. He wants to be close to us. Every time we receive him, he reminds us that we are precious, that we are guests he has invited to his banquet, friends with whom he wants to dine. And not only because he is generous, but because he is truly in love with us. He sees and loves the beauty and goodness that we are. The Lord knows that evil and sins do not define us; they are diseases, infections. And he comes to heal them wi...