Is This Heaven?

What rivals the Super Bowl the most are the commercials that are aired during the game. Every year, a big build-up commences to the almighty "Super Bowl Commercials" where advertisers this year paid 3.5 million dollars for a 30 second spot, a chance to feature their product in front of the nation's largest TV audience.

Personally, I thought most of the commercials this year were pretty lame. I think our favorite was the guy buying the car when his other self popped out from behind him and began singing. see below--



but of course, every year features several commercials dripping with sexual innuendo and overt immodesty, the godaddy.com ads being part of this norm. It still makes me sad to see NASCAR driver Danica Patrick and fitness coach Jillian Michaels supporting and promoting the indecency. Why do we as women claim we want respect and then resort to shamelessly showing our bodies to get attention? It doesn't make sense.

In one of the godaddy.com commercials, two young men are transported to a surreal place surrounded by scantily clad, seemingly willing women. And in front a lingerie-attired Danica Patrick, they both exclaim, "Is this heaven?"

Sorry to say, gentleman, but that is it anti-thesis of heaven. Heaven is so much more.

One of my professors at the Augustine Institute, Dr. Jonathan Reyes- a holy and incredibly gifted, wise and articulate man, was expounding on a thought by Pope Benedict XVI and explained how when we seek to get rid of God and make an autonomous life for "ourselves", our lives become a prison because they are too small.

The human being is destined to live for Something beyond itself and when we cut our life-line, our world becomes narrow, restrictive and oppressive. These are the fruits of selfishness and self-centeredness. And they often creep upon us like a cold breeze on an otherwise sunny day.

When we are stuck in prison, all we can imagine is self-gratification as "freedom." However, when we step our into the expansive space of life in God, we see that it's only in true self-giving, in authentic love and gift that we find freedom. Our desires center less in grasping than in giving.

Thank God Heaven is beyond our prison. Jesus desires us more than we can ever imagine.....

Comments

Blessed mom of 5 said…
I am so with you on this point and so many others! It is so hard to find acceptable TV time for the family. It is so much better to turn the TV off and have a read-in or go outside and get active! Please, please keep getting God's message out!

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Fr. Santan Pinto, SOLT 1948-2011