As the relationship between religion and science
has been a subject of study for ages, the presence of a religious person in a digital
work environment inevitably draws great attention. It is not known how much
public interest was aroused when Bishop Barron addressed a room full of Google
and YouTube employees at the Google headquarters (Googleplex), but his talk on
Youtube kept me engrossed in all its 55 minutes’ duration. With the intention
of having some reflections on the talk later in time, I have summarized it as
follows:-
Bishop Barron began by saying that Google,
as a search engine, triggers a lot of restlessness in religion. He referred to
our mind as being a restless searching one. At the moment we find something,
more questions come up. In fact, the more we know, the more we want to know.
He explained that this is also true of our
will. The will is always seeking something good. It will not rest until it
finds what he refers to as unconditional happiness, or beatitudal happiness –
the desire. To explain unconditional happiness, Bishop Barron invited his
audience to think of wealth, honour, power and pleasure. While wealth is the
desire for something better, honour serves only as a remedy for natural wants.
Power is a source of activity to attain an end but is not an end itself.
Pleasure is the side-effect of something fundamental. Therefore, none of them
is unconditional love. The desire for happiness, according to Bishop Barron, is
an infinite desire, which cannot be satisfied by anything in this world. It is
only in God that the desire can be satisfied.
Bishop Barron then referred to the Books of
Kings in the Bible. With his success in making fire come down from heaven to
consume the sacrifice, Prophet Elijah proved that his is the only true God.
Ahab, in spite of the big team of priests he had summoned, failed in his many
attempts, thus proving himself to be a false god worshipper.
Bishop Barron also talked about God’s
creation work with reference to the Book of Geneses. The creatures came forth
in an orderly way, which he compared to a stately liturgy mass procession with
the priest taking the rear. This symbolizes that everything in the world is
meant to turn to God in praise and that is the purpose of creation. All things
are to be led by a human being (symbolized by the priest), who can give praise.
It is understood that everyone is a seeker of something worthy but we should
not let anything in the world be our object of worship. Let us hook our
infinite desire on the infinite object. Only true worship will make us
satisfied and the right praise refers to worshipping God alone.
Finally, with reference to St. Augustine’s
saying, Bishop Barron explained that our heart is restless until we rest in
God. God is love and it is only when we give away love, which God has given us,
that we can find the beatitudal happiness that we have been looking for.
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