Religion Journal; Now Available, Spiritual Connection on the Internet

Religion Journal; Now Available, Spiritual Connection on the Internet

By Mandy Sink

Sink’s article highlights new web based programs available from the Mission San Xavier del Bac in Arizona. The mission is now offering an alternative to taking a trip out to the desert to place a prayer request at the feet of the statue of St. Francis Xavier. One can simply e-mail the prayer request, confidentially, and it will be “printed out and tucked beneath or pinned to the blanket draped across the supine figure…” Father Gaa points out that the intention is to “connect with God anywhere” but also specifies that the programs for those who are “infirm or simply cannot afford to make the trip.”

            Sink includes the commentary of Brenda Basher, an academic in the field of religious Websites. Basher notes that where some see a loss of religion within a virtual field, others see “new possibilities”. Sink also notes that after the September 11^th attacks there was a spike in the number of people going online to send prayer requests, as well as approximately 28 million people using the internet in 2001 to look at religious and spiritual material.

Commentary:

It seems that these new services available are well intentioned, as highlighted by Father Gaa. There intended use is to extend a version of the pilgrimage to those who are physically and financially unable to do so. But in this seemingly generous proposal there is a problem. Perhaps making in making it so easy to place a prayer request at the feet of St. Francis Xavier, more and more people who previously would have made a struggled pilgrimage to the mission now simply consider themselves unfit and do so over the internet. IT seems to take the strife and struggle out of worship, something frequently associated with the Christian faith.