Carmel and the Internet

In preparation for the triennial OCDS Presidents’ Conference in Leeds that begins tonight, I have been pondering the impact of the internet on our activities and the way we have been using it.  The internet is the last great human conquest of distance.  First we had the canal, then the telegraph, then the railway, then the telephone, then the internal combustion engine, then the radio and tv, then the jet engine and the rocket, then the satellite, and now this new means of magically seeing each other at great distances.  This tool is being utilised in a whole variety of ways in Carmel.  We use the internet to enable individuals to join physical meetings from their homes, we use it to hold meetings, we use it to do formation, we do podcasts and we listen to podcasts, we have the website – which is probably the most important means of making us known and bringing new people in.  It’s extraordinary when one thinks that most of this is barely twenty-five years old.  Miraculous too to ponder the impact of the Pandemic on our activities.  Painful and difficult though this scourge was at the time, it actually gave a huge impetus to our use of the internet: this to me makes a beautiful illustration of the extraordinary ways of Providence.  

Intercessions:

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Sue B, Theresa K, Fr Jon B

Siena, Elara – sick children

Matthew – six-year old boy dying of bladder cancer

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

David OCDS – housebound; Martin Gilham – unable to attend community meetings

Sophia – blind infant

Joy Smith OCDS – seriously ill

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)

Lucia – Overwhelmed by weariness

 Defence of the unborn and the elderly