A verdadeira face do mundo

Today, thanks to advances in technology, visual images are everywhere. The same technology that allows me to communicate with you, that lets us hear the Pope's Easter address, that brings us so much valuable and enriching information, also floods our environment with dangerous and corrupting material. From seductive women leaping from magazine covers at the supermarket check-out stand to huge flourescent billboards urging us to obey our thirst and "feed the rush", you can't leave the house without coming under the deluge. Fancy clothes, flashy cars, glittering storefronts, all call to us with diabolic urgency. They entice us away from God and into the world each time we step out the door. And we return to our homes each day with another headful of tempting mental pictures to persistently gnaw away at our morality.

Television adds to the chaos. It brings images of violence and promiscuous sexuality interspersed with advertisements for alluring material goods right into our homes. It promises a virtual paradise on earth to those who join the 'world'. It is easy to become disenchanted with our own family life, with the challenges and burdens of raising children and keeping food on the table when everyone else seems to be having so much extravagant fun all the time.
But a closer look reveals the dark side to this rampant hedonism.

It's a frightening list: Murder, suicide, drug addiction, broken homes, runaway children sold into prostitution, babies abandoned in trash cans, babies born with aids or drug addiction, domestic violence, abuse, drive-by shootings, gangs, rape, carjackings, theft, corruption in industry and government, war, hunger, starvation, and suffering. These are the regular features of the news of the day. This is the real face of the world we are enticed to join.

Matthew R Brooks