What Would Ignatius Think About Social Media?

With all our technology we truly have the capacity to live our lives in almost constant contact with others virtually anywhere. So really, I don’t ever have to say goodbye. We can live on via e-mail forever. I wonder what St. Ignatius would say about trying to do so.

I think he would say that we need to first acknowledge the gift that we have in our friendship. Here and now. I don’t know what the future holds for either of us, so let me take a moment, here and now, to thank you for the gift you have been to me. Name it. Celebrate it. Wallow in it for just a bit.

Then I think he would say, regarding staying in contact, we ought to use technology in as much as it helps us to respond to God’s love, and rid ourselves of it so far as it hinders us in responding to God’s love. If by staying in contact with me, you are not being fully present to those in your daily life now, you will be missing out on the presence of God in them, and they will miss out on experiencing it in you—and I know it is so fully present in you. You need to be fully present there in this next phase of your life. That is where God needs you. That is what I want for you.

We don’t have to live on via e-mail or texting or Facebook. We live on in our Oneness with Christ. And in that, we will never lose contact.

Photo via Pixnio.