Not Dead, And Thinking ...

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It would be as odd to appeal for the abolition of the Internet as it would have been for an early sixteenth century Peter Simple to have called for the breaking up of all moveable type.  You can't uninvent things, especially the transformative things which every century or so change the way we do things: moveable type; accurate mapping; steam engines; you know.

The Devil is often the first to seize anything new, not least because novelty will always give him a way in.  It's precisely when, and because, something is new that people don't know what to make of it.  In comes Old Nick with a promise that it will meet every one of our desires.

The Internet is a bit like that: a packet-switched military communications system employing redundancy in novel ways, piggy-backed on by Academia, and, with the invention in 1991 of the World Wide Web, a transformation in the way human beings interact with each other. In the same way that a lie is half way round the world before the truth has its pants on, the Internet had transformed the way that the Devil could tempt humankind: all of the filth of all of the world now available at the click of a key.

So imagine what he must feel like when the Internet is used to link people to share prayer: not just Catholics blogging, using the Internet to find out just what is happening in Rome, important as that is; but praying the Angelus, praying Novenas, and asking each other for prayers for special intentions.

The more we occupy some space on each social media platform, the more we sanctify it; the more space we occupy, the more we deny to the Devil; the more we use it for Good, the more we intrude, such that people become aware that Good exists.

Make prayer a more explicit and positive part of how you use the Internet.
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