Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The Internet Talked Crap About My Mother and Everyone Laughed

So I saw something ugly in the world of Facebook today, thanks to BuzzFeed. This is not OK. If you are a Christian, you should not be ok with this. Heck, if you have any sense of decency at all you should not be ok with this regardless of your religion.


Um, no. I really have a pot full of No bubbling up right now. What we you thinking?? And here is the caption:

"It looks like Sassoferrato’s Virgin Mary is still having a really hard getting over her break up with Joseph after he found out she was hooking up with God in the projection room on Thursdays."


ALL KINDS OF NO.


This is the kind of thing that makes me weep vomit from my eyeballs. BuzzFeed rips these from the "Art History's Burn Book" tumblr, which pairs quotes from the movie Mean Girls with classic paintings. Which really could have been funny except for the whole blasphemy part. 

The problem is, the internet is over here talking crap about my Mama Mary and I won't stand for that. Worse, we got people up in here talking down on Jesus like they are just begging to get smacked upside their head. 

Here are just a few:


No.

Happy Grool Friday from Mean Girls Art History!

No. 

Hittin’ the crack pipe has it’s advantages. Janice Ian knew it. So does Virgin Mary apparently.

Just no.

I was speechless when I saw this. I just shook my head, stopped scrolling through the list, and went on with my day. After a while though, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I know the majority of this country has some kind of belief in Jesus. How can so many people who claim to love Him be laughing at this? You really thinking Jesus is up in heaven chillin and laughing when you (this is the part where I want to say all the bad words) CALL HIS MOTHER A WHORE?!? It literally breaks my heart just to say that. 

I understand if you are an atheist, buddhist, zoroastrian, whatever. You do not believe in Jesus and yes this whole thing is probably a joke to you. Regardless of that I still don't think it is ok to mock someone's religion but that is not really my point here. I am just so sick thinking of all the Christians who would look at this without a second thought, share it on facebook, laugh about it with their friends, go to church on sunday, and act like they are all good with God. Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer died for us. How can you make Him the butt of a joke? He suffered more that anyone ever has, because he has a perfect love for each and every one of us. He did this for you. Do you not think it breaks his heart when you mock Him? 

If I took some cheap shots at my husband like this and blasted it all over the internet for the world to see, that would not be ok. And he is not even my main squeeze. As much as he is the love of my life, I have an even greater love. Someone who calls me every day to an intimate union with him, greater than the union of a husband and a wife. Someone who desires to live and love in me. Someone who suffered and died so that I could be saved. And if I claim to love him too, I can not keep quiet when others insult him. Even if the all the internets are against me. 

Saint John Paul II said:

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.”

Humor is a way of trying to satisfy that longing, It is something that fills our hearts so much that it spills out into laughter. We all love a good joke. It reminds us that we are alive and gives us a breath of fresh air in the monotony of our lives. But, when we make sarcastic jokes or put others down for the sake of a laugh, it is a desperate way of trying to achieve that happiness that we all dream of. By looking down on someone, we place ourselves above them. The higher we can be above others, the closer we feel like we might be to that place of happiness and satisfaction. We compromise the dignity of others for a false sense of fulfillment. Laughing at Jesus is grasping at happiness without reaching out to grasp his hand. Making fun of God is a way of stepping on him as we follow along the path to happiness. The problem is, the only true path to happiness leads straight to Him. If we keep stepping on Him, we keep passing Him by, walking in circles and never reaching a place of fulfillment. 

If you love Jesus, please don't put up with this kind of trash. Don't laugh at it, don't perpetuate it. You are better than that. 

So, please pray for whoever thought this was a good idea. And pray for me that I might be more forgiving and loving. But this is not the world I want to pass on to my kids, one where people treat the treasure of our faith as a joke and faithful people everywhere stand by and say nothing. Even if it was not ill-intentioned. Even if if everyone stands against me and says that I am overreacting and being a total hypocrite. I will never ever not have my heart broken when people do things like this. 

To be clear, I am not mad at whoever created these images. I do not hate them or harbor ill will against them. I am angry with the images themselves, but not the creator(s). If anything, I feel sorry for them. I pray for them that they might be overcome with the love of God and change the way they act and feel toward him. May we all have a conversion of heart daily for the Lord. 

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