Since we are halfway through Lent, it’s a good moment to consider how it’s been going.
The purpose of our self-denial is conversion, as we learn to let go of control and to depend more upon God. The essence of Lent consists of a forty-day fast, originally entailing fasting throughout the day and abstaining from meat, animal products, oil, and wine. The hunger this daily fast engenders should lead to increased spiritual hunger. It’s so easy for God to be pushed aside in favor of our material needs and distractions.
The Church Fathers could not comprehend the fullness of sounds, images, videos, and texts we consume each day. Alongside the fasting they enjoined from food, we need a new form of it, one, likewise, focused on making space for God and learning to depend more on him.
For the rest of Lent, therefore, and as an annual tradition, I recommend a technology fast. Just as we cut down on food in a meaningful way, we should do the same by letting go of digital content in some significant way—opting out of social media, turning off the phone, turning off Wi-Fi, abstaining from the news, Netflix, or video games. It’s a pressing enough concern for the spiritual life that it even merits standing alongside the other pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and abstaining from technology.
Technology crept into our lives little by little, and we accepted it for its convenience without prior knowledge of its effects. Smartphones and social media have been around just long enough now that the results are beginning to trickle in: increased depression, disconnection, and brains that, as Nicholas Carr explained years ago, have become increasingly shallow.
But what about the effects on prayer? Does technology turn our minds from God, drawing them downward and hindering our ability to attend to God’s silent presence? If so, it may have become a new tempter that gives us stones to eat as our daily bread, drawing us to bow down to its constant presence, and even leading us to throw ourselves off spiritual precipices without a second thought (see Matthew 4:1-11).
During Lent, we follow Jesus into the desert, a place of silence and solitude, but also of testing, where we must face these challenges. The desert naturally leads to fasting, with its sparse resources, and also to prayer, insofar as we must depend on God there. Letting go of fulfilling our own needs should foster attention to others’ needs, freeing up resources and time for almsgiving.
Furthermore, it’s hard to conceive of entering the modern spiritual desert with a smartphone or laptop, as they mitigate against its basic spirit—an empty space where we can see God and, through him, see into our own souls. Without some space from our devices, how can we focus our attention on God and hear his voice, which, as Cardinal Sarah explains, can be heard only through the language of silence.
His book, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, serves as a needed guide for the modern desert. Although the noise of our culture comes mainly from technology, he doesn’t focus on it in the book. This is telling, as we won’t drop our gadgets just because some wise man told us that we should. There must be some more compelling reason: the search for God that stands behind all true Lenten practices.
If man seeks God and wants to find him, if he desires a life of the most intimate union with him, silence is the most direct path and the surest means of attaining it. Silence is of capital importance because it enables the Church to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, imitating his thirty silent years in Nazareth, his forty days and forty nights of fasting and intimate dialogue with the Father in the solitude and silence of the desert. Like Jesus, confronted with the demands of his Father’s will, the Church must seek silence in order to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ (The Power of Silence, 219).
This search for silence has become a new quest for spiritual freedom. A technological curtain surrounds us, drawing our attention away from the beauty of nature, relationships, and God’s transcendent presence. Because of this, we must make a concerted effort to break through and rediscover these essential goods that surround us. Even under the best of circumstances, attending to God’s silent voice within us presents the essential challenge that motivates Lent.
Now, all the more, do we have to return to reality, learning to see and hear more clearly in the barren desert. As Cardinal Sarah explains,
God’s being has always been present in us in an absolute silence. And a human being’s own silence allows him to enter into a relationship with the Word that is at the bottom of his heart. Thus, in the desert, we do not speak. We listen in silence; man enters into a silence that is God. (26)
In the last three weeks of Lent, let’s retreat to the desert, leaving our devices behind at least for a few hours a day. The disciplined use of technology should become a regular ascetical practice for those striving to hear God’s voice and find his presence within us. Lenten discipline must respond to the changed conditions of the modern world, adding a fourth pillar that will enable us to follow Jesus into the desert to do battle against the enemy and all that prevents us from following him unreservedly.
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This is an absolutely tone deaf article. The author doesn’t at all take into consideration there are many of us who depend on our “devices”, wi-fi, social media, etc. TO DO OUR JOBS.
It’s not just tone deaf, it’s poorly defined and too narrowly focused. The focus is on the two decade old interactive novelties that we know have negative effects with excessive focus and immersion, but there are other forms of “technology” and distraction that are deleterious-recorded music, radio, television. There’s also other idols such as sports. For that matter books, cars.
As far as fasting from Netflix, I’m sure it should ever be in any home. Remember “Cuties”?
“Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.”
In the interests of fairness, Staudt is not saying that we abstain from all technology at all times for the duration of lent. He is encouraging people to cut down on technology time, and that is not only reasonable, it is necessary. We have become too dependent on technology, and it’s too easy to allow cellphones and social media to consume much of our free time. Used properly, technology is a valuable tool that we can use to make life easier. Used carelessly, it is spiritually dangerous. If nothing else, it’s a topic that should give us pause.
Right-on, dear Athanasius!
The highest priority for every Catholic (& other Christians) is to hear Jesus’ Voice, that is His “small still Voice”, that is “always with us”.
HEARING Jesus Christ, our Eternal King, leads to loving & obeying & following Him – according to John 10:27-30, THAT is an essential factor in our eternal salvation.
Personally: hearing Jesus’ instructions for my life has been crucially important in my ongoing sanctification; and in the efficacy of my Catholic witness.
As the writer observes: info tech, media, tv, radio, movies really do block this. So – TURN THEM OFF, as well as fasting, praying and giving!
Many Popes have taught us the importance of making more space for personal Christ-encounter.
As dear Dr. R. Jared Staudt invites us: let’s make Lent a time of prioritising that uniquely personal encounter . . .
Here’s a little song about listening to Jesus – it’s for children (like this 83 years-old child!).
Bing Videos
“Here’s a little, joy-filled song about listening to Jesus – it’s for children (like this little, joy-filled, 83 years-old Catholic child!).”
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=children%27s+songs+about+hearing+god%27s+small+voice&&mid=C0BF19FD2807DED75519C0BF19FD2807DED75519&FORM=VAMGZC
My job requires me to be on call 24/7 and as part of my duties, it is necessary for me to monitor several social media platforms. So no, unless the author is willing to pick up all of my monthly bills so that I can “abstain from technology” and still thrive, it is absolutely not reasonable. It is a tone deaf article that neglects to take reality into consideration.
Dear ‘Hard Worker’, your genuine pain is felt!
However: am sure you’d realize it’s only a tiny minority of Catholics whose job necessitates them to be ‘on call 24/7’, whilst they monitor ‘several social media platforms’. Your special case is not the norm.
That, together with your self-identification as ‘hard worker’, rings alarm bells with this ancient councellor.
Dear HW, do please consider – for your health’s sake – taking a well-earned, totally relaxing holiday; or, better still, participating in a long, meditative, guided retreat with the Cistercians or other monks in your diocese.
Taking a break can be a mind-saver, soul-saver, even a life-saver.
This is of most importance when we feel it is utterly impossible!
As for the vast majority of us Catholic parishoners: we’re well able to fast from electronic information/entertainment, so as to gain that increased mental quietude needed to more clearly hear the small still voice of Jesus. As prescribed by our dear Doctor Jared in this very important CWR article.
Take Care HW; always in the love of King Jesus Christ.
As another person who has to work 7 days a week to keep the ‘wolf of want’ away from the door, I understand your frustration with the inkling of shutting off your electronics for regular spells. I believe the idea of downtime is valid though, as it becomes available. For children, it should be mandatory. Our economy is good at burning out people in the interest of ‘serving the shareholders,’ and enhancing our 401s.
We can all start with leaving our phones in our vehicles when we attend mass, for 98.67 % of us. It was a relief to see that postman win at the Supreme Court level that he didn’t have to work on Sundays to deliver their non emergency packages, mostly for Amazon.
Jared seemed to ask we discontinue the equivalent of breathing during Lent [an awakening to our dependency on high tech critters]. Although, then I read “leaving our devices behind at least for a few hours a day”.
That’s more like it. His focus is on the concept of desert. Since most don’t live in a sandy desert we create our own. Then why the desert? Wherelse can we be alone with God alone? With God alone meaning the shrouding in darkness of the senses to other than God.
Besides, Staudt’s ‘space from devices’ is an opportunity to punish the intellectually mute creatures that have come to dominate us.
OTOH, I am on the understanding that many young people have been brought to faith by what they’ve found on the internet.
Dear Cleo, thats true, but finding faith in Christ is only the start.
To know and love and follow Him will need much internet-free time.
As in this song by a bunch of unpaid volunteer mussos –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3EGQvyl5M&list=PLP2FW_LA2li5LugasWGVQI6b92sdB66E7&index=12
I’ve taken some excess reeds after Palm Sunday and given them to fast food or other workers. One young lady didn’t know what they were for, but was glad to get them once I quickly explained through the window.
So encouraged, dear ‘Knowall’ by your witnessing . . .
Matthew 10:32
“Therefore everyone who witnesses for Me to others, I will also witness for them before My Father in heaven.” {see also Luke 9:26}
An important distinction:
King Jesus does not command that we WIN; He commands that we WITNESS.
Witnessing to Christ in this world will always bring a cross.
Hence, Luke 9:23 & 14:27:
“You cannot be My disciple if you don’t carry your cross & come after Me.”
Can sound grim, until we rejoice to see the reward described by James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4; & Rev. 2:10 –
The Crown of Eternal Life that King Jesus promises those who love Him!
Let’s pray for our Catholic Church – all clergy & layity – to be renewed in the charism of witnessing to every creature (see Colossians 1:23).
Jesus set the path before us. All we’ve to do is walk in it . . .