"when the virtual occupies the whole place of reality"

Writing today in Il Sussidiario Albert Conti tackles the question of technology as it pertains to human relationships, especially for young people, who often lack personal relationships: FACEBOOK / The enemy of young people is loneliness, not technology , It is very insightful, especially to those of us who use these means daily. At the end of the day, as useful and good as Facebook, blogging, and text messaging can be, they are not substitutes for getting to know people, doing things with others, and dealing with the ups and downs of relationships, growing, through often painful experience and regrettable episodes, etc

Image by freeparking, used under

the Creative Commons license

Of course, the backbone of CL is School of Community. SofC has to happen in person. It is an event that happens once a week for about an hour. We gather, sing a song, pray, and talk about experiences in light of our encounter with Christ, exploring what it means, how it applies, where it is difficult, support one another in striving for Christian maturity in light of the teachings of Msgr. Giussani, learning to trust Christ and each other, becoming companions on the way.

I like the way Conti ends his piece: "Father Giussani used to repeat that education is a matter of mimesis and experience. The virtual society is the epitome of mimesis, an uncritical imitation, and, without the principle of experience, it collapses every possible scaffolding on which to build human relations of whatever kind.

"If this is what we want, we are simply desiring the end of the world."

Is it, to quote REM, "the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine"? This brings me, yet again, to the quote in my blog heading: "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject." This insight grows deeper with each passing day.