Not infrequently, we are told that technology, too, with special reference to such things as the laptop and the smart phone, is morally neutral. It all depends on how we use it. With my iPhone, I can type this essay, or I can find pornography. I can file my taxes, or I can gamble away my savings. I can call my friend for a long-overdue conversation, or I can scroll the hours away on the troubled, manicured seas of social media. The choice is mine. How will I use this thing which money and cunning have set in my pocket?
Whenever the Roman Canon of the Mass is celebrated, there is also a celebration of the saints, dozens of whom are invoked by the priest at the altar. Among these saints are seven women: Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Cecilia, Agnes, and Anastasia. These holy women were martyred during the third and fourth centuries and are justly celebrated by the Church during the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
When the two disciples who encountered the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others of their astounding experience, they heard the words: “Yes, it is true, Jesus has risen from the dead.” That is the very foundation of our faith. If, as one inane clergyman said many years ago, the Resurrection was merely a “conjuring trick with bones,” then we should all eat, drink, and be merry and, perhaps, become Hare Krishna devotees. Yes, it is true: Christ is risen, and all has changed.