WHAT WILL WE SAY?

Monday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time

Rom 1:1-7

I read a prediction made by an American news columnist which says, “Someday we will be able to talk to our audience from any place in the world almost any time we want. When that day comes, what will we say?” This news columnist had the name Edward Murrow and the year he made this prediction was 1950. Murrow’s prediction already came true in our age of radio, television, and the internet. But have really already figured out what to say?

Ironically, even before Murrow made his prediction, a man named Paul already knew what to say to the world. Summarizing the First Reading today, this is what Paul would say: “Jesus Christ is Lord who calls us all to be saints together.” Sadly, it is seldom that the power of today’s modern means of communication is being employed for this message. Instead of untiringly proclaiming that Jesus is Lord, mass media suggest other demigods. Instead of sounding the call to holiness of life, radio, television and the internet are used to promote permissiveness and licentiousness. Make a very keen survey of what we hear, see, and read through the modern means of social communication and you will readily agree that these claims are not over exaggerations.

If the Apostle Paul were still living in our world today, it would not be a big surprise for us to see him deeply involved in the mass media ministry. He would use every modern means of social communication to announce the lordship of Jesus Christ and to remind us all of our common vocation to holiness. He was able to make this announcement and reminder without the availability of the tools we have in mass media, and yet he accomplished a lot. Now that more powerful and more extensive technology in mass communication is at our disposal, should we not be able to accomplish more than he was able to do?

Moreover, when we claim that we finally figure out what to say, we say the wrong things. Too bad, wrong things are continuously being said, wrong acts are unceasingly being shown, and wrong values are incessantly being fed to us, most especially to the young, by mass media for the simple reason that we continuously, unceasingly, and incessantly patronize them.

St. Paul the Apostle knew how to use a blessing he never had – the modern means of social communication -- while we misuse the power we have at our disposal. We are now able to talk to an audience from any place in the world at any time we want, but quite often we talk nonsense. And we have been talking for a long time now.