At the 2008 Beijing Olympics my nephew Jared Connaughton ran sprints and relays for team Canada, but his parents could not make the trip to watch him in person; instead they settled for watching the events on TV.
But August 2012 finds them flying to London to be present for Jared’s performances. “Seeing” him race in Beijing was wonderful, but being with him will be the proud moment any parent dreams of. The rest of us, of course, will be watching Jared on TV --but if we’re watching during primetime, he and his parents will be sound asleep. London is 5 hours ahead of Boston, after all-- so most Olympic TV is actually on tape, not live. If we want to be surprised by the outcome, we’ll need to avoid any news of it during the day.
This is typical of our age, an age that has almost totally blurred the once-sharp lines between presence and absence, between the real and the imaginary.
Maybe this began in 1895, when Parisians panicked during the first public movie show. Seeing a train arriving head-on toward them, the audience bolted for the exits. (See the original here http://www.schooltube.com/video/bf11a6cb123389d19b53/ ) We now know that “suspension of disbelief” is the key not only to cinema, but also to TV, videos, and streaming tubes online. They are all just images on a flat surface, pure optical illusions--yet we take them for real people, real places, real events.
Of course, even before cinema people suspended disbelief. Greek theatre featured actors wearing masks and allowed violence only off-stage, yet the whole point of Greek tragedy was to evoke “pity and terror” in audiences. Mystery plays and passion plays aimed to evoke Christian devotion. Written fictions from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens evoked an entire imagined world that touched and moved readers.
When photography arrived, people could see themselves and others without the filter of an artist’s impressions: we saw whatever the camera saw.
Then, with cinema, we saw things moving! So movies seemed to be, not an alternate reality, but reality itself, captured and reshaped and requiring no imagination by the viewer. So strong is cinema’s psychic blurring of real and imaginary that, when the Aurora gunman began firing at the midnight showing of “Dark Knight Rising,” many viewers thought it was simply a movie-related gimmick.
Next came radio and telephone, and suddenly the voices of others were in our homes. I’m too young to have witnessed my parents’generation’s awe at hearing FDR’s fireside chats as they sat in their living rooms, but I still recall their astonishment whenever they got a long distance call: “I can’t believe you’re in California! It sounds like you’re right next door!” For millions, the world was suddenly smaller, since absent loved ones were no longer so absent.
Then TV arrived, and overnight the entire world seemed to be right there, before our eyes, in our own homes. US Catholicism, despite its long fear of cinema and the “Legion of Decency” that protected Catholics from sinful images, quickly embraced TV with televised Masses and the theatrical “live” teaching of Bishop Sheen. Thus even Church came into homes.
“Reality TV” has also been a cultural phenomenon for more than 20 years now. My youngest son, who does camera work for reality shows, can attest that the appearance of real life is achieved by careful, even tedious manipulation, repetition, and editing of images. And this is not only true of so-called “reality” shows. Talk shows, however live they seem, are generally taped and edited. Local news stations routinely run tape loops that repeat the same “live” newscast hour after hour. And just the other night I heard a dramatic Red Sox victory on radio and then--with the game already ended--I still had time to turn on the TV for the “live” image of the batter hitting the game-winning home run (since the TV broadcast is on 15 second delay)!
Moreover, since 2000 digital technology and the internet have revolutionized all our communications. Cellphones, instant messaging, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Skype--all these enable us to see and hear anyone anywhere.
Studying in France in 1968 I was almost totally isolated from family and friends, except for the occasional letter. But when my son studied in Barcelona 35 years later, he was handed a cell phone at the airport so he could call home. And now, when I return to my Paris school to meet students, I find them in constant contact with everyone they know that by text, voice, and webcam. The absence I experienced, which so transformed me, is no longer possible. Distance no longer counts.
We see this every day, of course, when people absent themselves from a restaurant table to answer their cellphone, leave a meeting to take a call, or drive along oblivious to the traffic around them as they talk to someone who is not there.
This survey of our era begs the question: What difference does this make for Catholic life and faith?
One clue comes from pressing pastoral question that arose at the dawn of the TV era: “If we watch Mass on TV, do we fulfill our Sunday obligation to attend Mass?” The answer was: no. Walking into Mass fulfilled the obligation even if one merely sat or slept or daydreamed, even if one did not receive communion, even if one left early. But watching on TV--even if one used a missal, followed all the readings, said all the prayers, sat and knelt and stood--watching on TV did not count.
This reflected the long-held notion that the Body of Christ, even though sometimes called a mystical body, is actually composed of people who physically assemble in a real, physical space. “Wherever two or more of you are gathered together, I am with you.”
The Last Supper was a real physical gathering; those who witnessed the crucifixion were really there; the disciples learned of the Resurrection gathered in the upper room, and Pentecost occurred at a similar gathering. Early Christians gathered in homes for worship. The movement to convert Roman basilicas to Christian worship reflected the need for larger gathering spaces. The thousands of churches worldwide, and the great cathedrals and basilica spread over six continents, are not primarily shrines for private devotion. Above all, they are places for assembling the faithful.
Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me,” and Catholics gather to do as he said. Jesus said, “This is my body,” and “This is my blood,” and Catholics proclaim the belief that during Mass Christ becomes really present among us--and we call this our “Communion,” our coming together.
This idea of “real presence,” of course, reflects a simpler time when people were either present or absent. Catholics also believed, however, in a spiritual community that went beyond our physical community: the Communion of Saints who remain present in our hearts and prayers.
But now “presence” means something new. Someone answering a cellphone may seem more present to the caller then to those in the same room. Someone Skyping may feel more present to the person appearing on the screen than to someone two feet away.
The phrase “virtual reality” became commonplace because “real” reality now has a rival--and for millions, especially millions of the next generation, that virtual reality is often “more real” than the other reality. Virtual connections can feel more real. Virtual friends can feel more real. Virtual meeting can feel more real.
If entire future populations will inhabit two realities, if “community” comes to include virtual community, does this mean that as Church we must tell these people that “virtual community does not count”? That virtual connections do not count? That a virtual presence is not a real presence?
As Church, we must resist the temptation to dismiss this cultural phenomenon as irrelevant.
Can we find a way to expand our notion of “Communion” to include a new, third Communion, recognizing that the body of Christ maybe not only the sacramental Communion of faithful gathered to worship, and the spiritual Communion of saints--but also the virtual Communion now made possible by human ingenuity?
In short, can we find a way to make all these Communions part of the reality in which Christ’s real presence can redeem us all?
©Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012
Nice job, Thanks
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