Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?"
The woman answered the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'"
But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die!
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."
The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
We all want to be good people, right? God created us to be go to heaven. How are we supposed to become good people? Where are we supposed to get our information from?
“Where should we get our information about morals from?”
Examine your day ! “Day in the life of...…you!”
Do the Media Survival Test.
Top five: tv shows watched, movies seen, video games played, songs on the radio, web sites visited
How many of you would watch this with…..friends, brother or sister, grandparent, mom or dad, Virgin Mary, Jesus? Why?
What are we saturating ourselves with?
“What does the big bad media tell you?”
You’re not good enough. You need this stuff to make you happy. Do whatever you want, whenever you want. Life is all about pleasure. Sex feels good so do it. Drinking until you’re trashed makes you feel good, so do it. Being skinny will get you a boyfriend and you don’t have any value without one, so stop eating. God doesn’t exist. Churchy people are fanatics. Churches and rules just suffocate you, so don’t go.
This is what you’re saturating your life with. Commercials, tv, video games, talking on the phone, listening to pop radio, surfing the internet, reading magazines. You saturate in this, you talk to your friends who saturate in this....don't drown in the world's media!
It may not hurt you right away on the surface, but this marrs your soul. Engaging in this sort of activity without thinking about it, will contaminate your soul and affect your relationships, your life, and those around you.
Where are we getting our morals?
What does the media want from you?
It wants your $$money$$. The people that fuel the media are out to make a buck. They don’t care about your soul.
How do they get you hooked? The slippery slope of desensitization.
Shock, shock, shock! Everything is about shock value. Elvis Presley shocked people in the 50’s. Michael Jackson and Madonna shocked people in the 80’s. The Spice Girls shocked people in the 90’s. What’s shocking now? Where are we going? What do you have to hold on to?
So what do we do about this?
How do we do it? By the choices we make, how we spend our time, how we think about the media that we take in, how we guard our eyes and ears, how we educate ourselves, who we choose to listen to, how we examine our lives, how we discern God’s plan for our lives, how much we listen to God’s voice.
Here’s the truth about living a Catholic life….It’s hard.
John 15:18-20 Jesus says....
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.
Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."
Catholicism is not for wussies. But it’s only hard if we try to do it on our own. We have to realize that we can’t do this of our own power and alone. This is why God said he would never leave us, this is why God gave us the Eucharist, this is why God died for us, and this is why he gave us this Church and the sacraments, that we might be strengthened for the journey home to him.
Examine yourself in relation to what you take in......
How much have you let the media influence your life?
Honestly, do you spend more time at church and speaking with your parents than you do watching tv, listening to the radio, surfing the internet, and talking to your friends on the phone? What messages from the media do you struggle with the most?
Have you been told or ever felt that the Church stifles your freedom? Or suppresses your freedom?
How have you been desensitized in your life?
What can you do in your life to use your time more wisely? How can you center on the things that give you better morals instead of the lies from the media?
How practical is all of this? Do you think you’ll actually do it? Why or why not?
Why is it so much harder to spend 15 minutes praying instead of watching TV?
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