New habits, old wineskins

So much has happened since I last typed a sentence. Taylor Swift got engaged, Carlo Acutis and Giorgio Frassati are getting canonised this weekend, we have a new Pope and oh yes, I'm down with a cough 😷 again.

I'm no stranger to the addictive quality of scrolling social media, it feels like a dopamine rush. Yet, I'm seeing more Catholic content creators taking breaks from the various platforms. One of them is bigapplecatholic, a female American Catholic artist and creator who blessed my feed with her thoughtful art and prayer prompts. I was sad to see her leave the platform to discern the religious life at the end of last month. It felt like my 'older sister' had left the chat.

One habit I've been keeping up since Lent is listening to the daily mass readings on Hallow along with any ongoing devotion or challenge. Right now, I'm on St Michael's Lent and very fittingly, it's a reminder to me that the struggle against human temptation is very real. Social media is a wild animal. If you keep it under control, it can bear a lot of fruit - think bigapplecatholic and how she invites her readers into prayer and reflection. If you don't, it becomes a battlefield. A battle not so much of viewpoints but a battle for the mind and heart.

It's a battle that is not easy to fight. I had aimed to cut down on social media usage during Lent and it worked out fine. Alas after Easter, I slowly fell back into familiar patterns and started watching my cooking videos again.

Curiously, in the background of this battle was another habit I kept going - daily rosary. I started saying the rosary daily a year ago. I resolved to find a quiet place no matter the day to say the rosary. Sometimes it would mean saying it on public transport, in adoration, before mass or in the corner of a hotel room while on holiday. On days when I was unwell and knocked out, I would play the Hallow recitation of the rosary. At first, it was difficult. I mean, I'm a girl who needs her rosary booklet (thank you QOP) to remember the mysteries and the Litany. I would be leafing through the booklet, locating the mysteries for that day of the week and to be frank, I was unsure if I could keep it up. Somehow, I kept going. I interjected conversations with 'sorry need to go pray my rosary' and went off to pray in solitude. I said the rosary with friends in church. I tuned in to recite the rosary with my rosary during intercessory prayers. I was somehow prepared to make changes to carve out the space to say the rosary.

I've said the rosary happy, sad, angry and frustrated. Sometimes there is an ongoing war in my mind and heart as I struggle to love those around me. I've also wondered if there is an ideal state of mind to recite the rosary, especially when you're feeling hurt and confused. The simple answer is No. So how do we battle the temptations that surround us? The material world and even the wholesome content on social media is truthfully a distraction. Yes it relaxes us to watch a woman bake a brownie or to see a few puppies frolick in the park. But let's be real, we get stuck in the loop of consumption, a personal mukbang that ends only when our battery dies. It's insidious how the enemy works hard to distract us, not just in the brain rot that the algorithm feeds us but content that is actually useful (think financial advice, cooking videos or news updates). We think that this post is useful and we keep reading, swiping reels and scrolling the for you page.

There is wisdom in what bigapplecatholic is choosing to do. Breaking free from the chain of consumption. I'm not sure I can cut off social media completely but I'm working on substitution. To arrest my thoughts and temptations when they start to form and redirect them to prayer and reflection. For now, that means writing this article, reading books on my shelf or praying for someone.

Forming new habits is painful as we push against the old wineskins that served our former selves. I can attest to that pain. Ah pain, the subject of my next post.

More to come, AMDG.