SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHOIR

Link: A Generation Unfit for God: Why Millions Can No Longer Pray​

 

This is a good, brief article about how the stimulation provided by present-day phone apps and algorithmically-suggested content rewire the human brain in a way that makes it more difficult to pray individually and liturgically. The dependence on constant stimulation impedes the ability to be silent, quiet, meditative and contemplative.

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I believe it started with TV, but phones are exacerbating the problem. As a result, people bring their expectations and desire for sensory and emotionally stimulating content to prayer, liturgy, and liturgical music.

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Excerpt:

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Scripture demands dwelling over verses, allowing revelation to unfold slowly through repeated reading, the way water seeps into dry soil. Prayer isn’t multitasking with closed eyes. It demands an inner quiet that only comes when outward clamor has ceased. Worship isn’t passive attendance. It calls for the full presence of body, mind, and spirit. That unity is cultivated through patience and discipline. Yet patience and discipline are the very virtues our digital age diminishes, dilutes, and dissolves.

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Years of dopamine-driven digital habits have done significant harm. Bodies fidget, trained by constant stimulation to recoil from stillness. Minds split into restless pieces, skipping across screens like stones over water. Spirits short-circuit before they can settle into sacred rhythms, the flicker of transcendence extinguished by the glow of a notification.

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What has been created is not merely a distracted people but a generation neurologically unprepared for the sacred. And this is not some abstract concern. For Catholics, it strikes at the very heart of our faith. If attention has been sold off to the highest bidder, then prayer itself becomes impossible. A Church filled with restless bodies and chaotic minds cannot produce saints. And if nothing changes, neither will the next generation. Future Catholics will inherit not just a weakened faith, but a nervous system incapable of sustaining it.