Week 215

Positive post Sunday, April 4, 2021- Week 215. 

He has risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!  A very Happy Easter Sunday to my family and Christians throughout the world.  After more than a year of attending Mass virtually, we are blessed to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Mass in person today on Easter Sunday.

As many of you know, I started writing Positive Post Sundays, you guessed it, 215 weeks ago at the beginning of Lent in 2017.  My intent was to share positive, thoughtful, uplifting and educational messaging primarily focused on Faith, Family and Fitness just during Lent to counter the proliferation of negative and politically charged messaging on social media.  Thanks to the support and encouragement from many of my Facebook friends and family, my Lenten journey 4 years ago has turned into a passion for writing, a drive to spread kindness and a desire to share my Faith beyond the Lenten season.

Along with my Positive Post Sundays, another tradition I started during Lent a few years ago is reading a short and impactful daily reading from Loyola Press, a Jesuit Ministry.  Every Lent, I get a daily email titled Living Lent Daily.  Coincidentally (or perhaps divine intervention!), the reading last year on the Monday before Easter from Joe Paprocki was about how social media has made it much easier to harm others.  A scan of social media over this past year has certainly validated Paprocki’s concern which motivates me even more to continue my quest to inspire and “help” not “harm” others by writing about positive and educational topics. 

Here’s the reading: I can’t help but think that social media has made it so much easier for us to throw stones. Perhaps because we are communicating in cyberspace, we think that our comments are simply “cyber-stones” that won’t really hurt. Unfortunately, harsh words shared through social media have no less effect on others than the traditional “stones” we throw. The only difference is that we can now hide behind our devices. 

The Eighth Commandment calls us to show respect for the reputation of others, to practice restraint in our comments lest we rush to judgment about others, and to avoid calumny or the harming of another’s reputation. I pray that we might let go of all of the stones we are tempted to throw—especially in our social media interactions—so that we might contribute to a culture that shows respect for others and humility for ourselves.

—Joe Paprocki, author of Under the Influence of Jesus
and Living the Sacraments

How do you show respect for the reputation of others in your social media interactions?

How have you used social media in a positive way to improve lives, and deepen the faith of others?

How have you set down your harmful stones, repented and replaced them with kindness and compassion for others?