Can social media connect us to God?

Social media can create a rich community of faith and a deeper spiritual life.

One bright December morning, I broke my usual fast Sunday from technology to scroll on Instagram. My children were dressed and the diaper bag was full, so I had a few minutes before Mass to collapse on the sofa overlooking our window and watch the snow on our lawn begin to melt due to the mild temperature of 43 degrees a Fort Wayne.

Down in Austin, Texas, Catholic writer Jennifer Fulweiler had posted a video of her on her way to Mass. My first observation was that he lived in a place where he didn't need to wear a coat in December. The second was that her pale pink shirt looked cute with her bright red hair. The caption released in the video read: “I knew that today it is traditional to wear pink for mass because of Instagram. All my liturgical awareness comes from Instagram. "

It was a YAS, Queen moment for me. As actively involved in the church's liturgical calendar as I try to be, I miss things. Now, thanks to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogs and podcasts, I have daily reinforcement from the living universal church that never breathes more than one blow.

That morning I already knew it was Gaudete's Sunday because one of my favorite memes had exploded on Facebook all weekend. A parody of the boys' film Mean Girls, the meme refers to popular high school girls who show their exclusivity by wearing pink on Wednesdays.

The meme presents a still image of the film with the characters wearing their distinctive color, but the line of the film "On Wednesday we wear pink" is replaced by "Domenica di Gaudete, we wear pink". It's the kind of pop culture / Catholicism mash-up that gives me life. Because of Jennifer Fulweiler's meme and post, my girls have been decorated in pink (not pink, since I get some of my information from more legitimate sources).

Remembering to wear the right color in honor of a church holiday is a small thing, but it indicates a broader truth: as much as we complain about the dangers of social media and technology, the Internet is not intrinsically evil and in fact it could be one of the greatest messengers of God yet.

The argument against the Internet is obvious and threadbare. What is least considered are all the ways the Internet can benefit our spiritual life.

Think back to life before social media. If, like me, in the early 90s you were a strange goth boy who loved God and the holy Roman Catholic church, you probably felt quite isolated. There weren't many people dressed in black and dressed in converse with bright red lipstick in my church. I persisted in my faith despite the community, not for this.

While loneliness is a fact of life, I can't help but think how much I could have benefited from the hundreds of Facebook groups that now offer Catholics of all kinds fellow believers. While "weird goth kid" is a fairly tight grouping, feeling lonely is not. Social media connect us in previously impossible ways.

One of my favorite social media platforms to connect with other Catholics is Twitter, because what Twitter does exceptionally well is to show the diversity of the Catholic Church. We are big, we are many and we don't always agree. On a given day, a search for "#CatholicTwitter" directs Twitter users to updated posts, prayer requests and comments from Catholic comrades.

Catholic Twitter reminds us that modern Catholic life is complicated. The tweets of those who share our struggles make us feel less alone and challenge us to explore how the Gospel should dictate our response to the world. In short, Twitter is a giant microphone for Catholic life in action where we can hear Catholic voices from across the spectrum. Popular Catholic Twitter accounts such as Fr. James Martin (@FrJamesMartinSJ), Tommy Tighe (@theghissilent), JD Flynn (@jdflynn), Sister Simone Campbell (@sr_simone), Jeannie Gaffigan (@jeanniegaffigan) and USCCB (@USCCB) testify to the broad and enveloping weapons of Catholic Twitter .

While alone, in the 90s, if I went crazy with a ghostly and pale face powder, I would have found strange Catholic companions through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the only place where I would have found the most connection would have been podcasts. Anyone with a microphone and a computer can have a podcast, projecting their view of the world on the ether hoping that someone is listening.

Due to that vulnerability and the strictly auditory nature of the platform, there is an intimacy with podcasts that distinguishes that medium. Polished podcasts like Leah Darrow's Do Something Beautiful sit comfortably next to the radio atmosphere of the Jesuitical college, an awareness podcast of the American magazine in which young Catholics talk about faith. Honestly, if you can't find a podcast that makes you feel more connected to Catholic life, you're not looking hard enough.

The search is simple. The question is whether we are willing to use the Internet in ways that bring us closer to God. The fact that many Catholics have replaced giving up sweets for Lent with giving up Facebook is a strong indicator of how we demonize technology rather than our relationship with it. But the truth is that social media and the Internet are not the work of the devil.

Instead of completely abandoning online media, we must take responsibility for how we use it. We must replace the hours spent scrolling through Facebook's vitriolic outbursts with community searches in Catholic Facebook groups, following Instagram accounts that proclaim life and proactively participating in Catholic Twitter. Instead of following gossip, we are able to listen to podcasts that make us feel like we are part of something much bigger than us, because in reality, we are part of something much bigger than us.

For the first time in human history, we have resources that bring almost the whole world to hand. For the first time in human history, an isolated Catholic teenager anywhere in the world can find a Catholic community to help her see Christ in others and in herself. For the first time in human history, we have the power to be aggressive, not displeased and fully universal in our Catholic journey. The Internet, like Catholicism, is truly universal. God also created this, and it's good if we take advantage of it and let God's message shine in it.