There is an indescribable joy that I feel when I dwell on the idea of being in Heaven someday. To be part of the Beatific vision, living forever in the perfection of God’s love. One of the aspects of Heaven that I look forward to most is the restoration of a pure and innocent mind. Our Lord tells us here:
He called a child, whom He put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:2-4
Little children are in their own sweet little worlds. It’s like they have little bubbles that surround them. They have minds that are teachable, humble, and free from the knowledge of the scandalous world around them. I look at my own three children and truly wish they would stay like this forever. Children at this stage have so much joy and happiness, yet they don’t have much of what the world would call knowledge.
Something I strongly believed until very recently was the adage “Knowledge is power.” Is it though? I know this will be controversial to say, but I think the saying could use some examination and nuance. After all, Adam and Eve’s partaking in the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil didn’t seem to have great results. The ultimate irony is that I’m writing this on a device with a logo of an apple with a bite taken out of it…
Perhaps instead of “knowledge is power”- it would be more responsible to say that knowledge is sometimes power, and that sometimes not having knowledge is a better power to be happy and of a well mind. Basically what I mean is that there is an important difference between the good, true and beautiful Knowledge of God and the unhelpful, and many times harmful knowledge of the worldly that often brings impurity to the soul.
In a society that has a glut of information, and praises those who “stay well informed” it is almost taboo to suggest that there are many nitty gritty facts in this world and events that happen that we are not better off knowing about and images in our mind that shouldn’t be.
I will be thirty this year and still have vivid flashbacks of impure media that I was exposed to when I was very young. These images have imprinted deeply in my mind and pop up randomly no matter how unwelcome they are. Through years of unfiltered access to scandalous movies, music, social media and internet access, one can imagine just how much filth I have collected in my mind along with so called worldly knowledge. The more “knowledge” I collect about the current state of the world, I realized that it doesn’t bring me power or freedom but rather it plagues my mind and interrupts my pursuit of childlike faith that is required to enter into the kingdom of God.
Here is what I’m not saying: I am not saying that education is bad or that knowledge is inherently evil. In fact learning and growing in the things of God is an important part of maturity and holiness. What I am trying to articulate here, and I hope not clumsily, is that there is a difference between filling our minds with the knowledge of goodness and that of the knowledge of evil. It is my opinion that social media often fills our minds with the knowledge of evil under the guise of pursuing goodness and “staying informed”. The bottom line is that if we do not use social media intentionally we will certainly fall prey to it.
I can hear this objection being raised, “Ah, so ignorance is bliss then? You want us to just be ignorant and uninformed?” Let’s continue on and hopefully I can address this concern thoroughly.
I cannot open Facebook and scroll through my homepage without seeing horrific news stories from across the world with titles alone that scandalize my mind. I will not put any examples here to build a case for my point because that may harm your mind and I’m sure that like me, you can validate my case with your own experience.
Stumbling across tragic stories accompanied by images and sometimes videos without intentionally seeking that content out is more damaging to our minds than we think. Social media has become a Russian roulette of sorts that can really injure our souls and I believe society has largely been desensitized to this damage.
Will a picture of your sweet Nana’s garden generate on your feed or will it be a story and image so grotesque that your mind thinks about it much longer after you quickly scroll away? Will you see a video of your neighbor’s son taking his first steps or will it be a borderline pornographic image of a woman? Your guess is as good as mine, because it seems no matter how strictly I set my homepage boundaries it is of no use because the algorithm prefers to send whatever it wants to anyways. In my experience I have found that some platforms are much worse with this than others. At least with YouTube I can stay on my subscription page and not venture out onto the wild frontier of the “recommended” page. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have discovery page features and random reel generation that is much more dangerous in my opinion.
So what is actually worth our attention? What should we be filling our minds with? Thankfully, we have this to meditate on:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:4-9
I emphasized the word “will” in the above verses to highlight the promise of God multiple times here, that *if* we think and focus on these specific things, *then* the peace of God will be with us always. This is a conditional statement, which Scripture is actually loaded with.
This is a choose your own path story. If you go down path A, you can expect path A results. If you decide rather to go down path B, you can then expect path B results. God has been so gracious to quite literally spell it out for us.
So here is the premise, *IF* we fill our minds with the true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise things, *THEN* we will have the peace of God and be on our way to living the childlike faith that Christ calls us to. Which means the inverse is also true, that *IF* we dwell and fill our minds with the opposite of what we should, we will *THEN* not have the peace of God. Here is my best estimation of the opposite characteristics of the good list from Philippians 4:
True > False
Honorable > Dishonorable
Just > Unjust
Pure > Impure
Pleasing > Unpleasant
Commendable > Reprehensible
Excellent > Inferior
Worthy of Praise > Unworthy of Praise
Looking at this list, I could honestly say that a vast majority of what is out in media today is shamefully the opposite of what we are told to fill our minds with and dwell on. Social media could easily be described as being filled with what is false, dishonorable, unjust, impure, unpleasant, reprehensible, inferior, and unworthy of praise. There are certainly good things as well to be found online but more on that later.
This is a great place to pause and consider that children don’t know everything but they have faith in their caretakers who watch and protect their souls. Children have a very base level understanding of many things, and we often spare them the details to protect their innocence as we should. For example, I tell my oldest daughter who is seven to not leave my side out in public because evil people exist in the world with bad intentions. I do not, however, explain to her details and give examples of what many sick people have done to children her age. We as adults need general knowledge of the affairs and state of the world because it is prudent. However, digging into the images and details and explicit examples are almost never necessary. When it comes to “knowledge is power” the devil really often is in the details.
We can trust Our Heavenly Father when He tells us through Scripture and His Church that certain things are sinful and bad for our souls, we need not dive headlong into discovering for ourselves why this is the case. We believe our earthly fathers when they tell us not to touch a hot iron because it will hurt us and disfigure our skin, perhaps permanently, yet we don’t believe our Heavenly Father when He tells us to flee sexual immorality, and all other kinds of evil that make our souls sick. Figuratively speaking with the spiritual cases we prefer to “be informed” by sticking our hands right on the iron to find out for ourselves.
But what are we to do now? If you’re reading this you have certainly had your run in with the evil “knowledge” of the world just like I have. It’s not an easy task to erase images in our mind, and sometimes perhaps by diabolical influence, impure thoughts are thrown as fiery darts into our minds to discourage us. We cannot just snap our fingers and restore our minds to a childlike innocence we once had long ago, and after all not everything on the internet is bad, there is still good out there. Thankfully God has spoken through Scripture here for our sake:
Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
We must take our thoughts captive for Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is a realization I would like to share with you. Last night I was praying again for a pure and an innocent and childlike mind and woke up this morning with this thought that I believe was from The Holy Spirit, and that thought was How can one expect to have an honorable mind when they constantly fill it it with dishonorable things?
So what do we do? Do we throw the baby out with the bath water and avoid all technology altogether? I think not, but we must be incredibly intentional with our technology use.
The truth is that social media tells you what to think at any given moment. When you open up your phone to scroll mindlessly, you are opening up your mind as free real estate for the algorithm to show you whatever it wants to. That is unintentional and dangerous use. A better plan is to have clear intentions before technology use with predetermined destinations. It is also prudent to delete whatever platforms are a near occasion of sin for you. I no longer have Instagram, TikTok, or similar platforms because the random short form videos or images and accounts they recommended were an occasion of sin for me.
If you are reading this and are a parent, or grandparent or other main caretaker of children please remember that we do not want our apathy to be the reason that children in our care are exposed to things that cause them to stumble or cause them to have an impure mind. We live in a sinful fallen world, and our children will be exposed to the nasty realities of it at some point but we should not hasten this circumstance! Our Lord and Savior said this Himself:
If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!
Matthew 18:6-7
Guard what you watch just as much as you guard what your children do.
Guard what you listen to just as much as you should guard what your children hear.
Here are the practical measures I take to guard my mind and therefore my very soul. Currently I only have YouTube and Facebook for social media. The only reason I have a Facebook currently is because I have a job for an organization that requires me to post on there multiple times per week. I do however plan to resign from this job in a few months and then delete my account because sacrificing that income is worth the peace of mind that not having a Facebook personally gives me. Anyone who I wish to stay in contact with I simply just give them a phone call or visit with them like “the good old days”. As far as YouTube goes, I have an incredibly short and strict subscription list that I will allow myself to watch. I stay on my Subscription page and do not scroll on the Recommended home page often. The people I subscribe to are ones that fit the list of the pure and Holy characteristics that lead me closer to God. For me to subscribe to someone, I must be sure that their content brings great benefit to my life and edifies my soul. When it comes to entertainment I do not watch horror movies or sexually explicit movies. I always look up a movie beforehand on the internet to see reviews regarding its morality, I do not just turn something on and hope for the best because any form of immorality can flash on the scene before you know it and its already in your mind at that point. I am careful with what music I listen to and almost never listen to secular music since I know how easily it can lead me astray, but more on music perhaps in another post.
In conclusion, if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Our Lord says we must change and become like little children. We must have their hearts. To do this in modern times we must ferociously guard our hearts and minds from the onslaught of impurity that is hurled against our minds. I earnestly pray that this post will bring you to a place that helps you better guard against the enemy of our souls. May we always remember that Our Lord said:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness
and snares of the devil;
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host,
by the power of God,
cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen
Until next time,
–Ash
Diary of a Catholic Revert 
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