The careening new
technologies disrupting our once rustic life somehow bring us back to the
bygone days of youth when things were a lot simpler and coarser. When life somehow was easier to understand
and live. Now with dizzying speeds we
are hard-pressed even at keeping pace with the consumer technologies available
out there.
Noticing beyond just the
physical characteristics our gadgets and their almost limitless capabilities to
connect us virtually with a world well beyond our physical reach, we begin to
realize and wonder about them juxtaposed with the simpler things we had then.
Yesterday, I woke up to the
realization that with the smartphones I possess. Yes, I have several yet not
one of them is equipped to connect me telephonically with the rest of the
world. Said differently, none has a
local SIM card or with load purchase to allow access to other cellphones.
All details aside, this
thought brought me back longingly to the time when I was still a college student
at XU-Ateneo de Cagayan, which would be in the mid-60’s. I faintly recall being approached by
somebody, am not sure if it was Jesuit priest or a layman, to continue with the
practice of broadcasting the 7am Sunday Mass at the XU chapel via the reaches
of the local premier AM station, DXCC. A
sweet and serious offer that an avowed Atenean could not refuse. It was made known to me that the one
initially assigned to do it would not be available anymore, so the need to find
another. Okay, I said, and so what is
next?
I was handed a brown folder
with a few worn pages of script inside.
It was essentially a summary of the typical Mass, from beginning to end,
from Entrance Hymn to Final Blessing.
The job was simply to provide audio when the celebrant would remain
silent going through the different phases of the Mass.
It was then my responsibility
to assess if the documentation was sufficient for my purposes, and more
importantly, to present myself to the DXCC technician, who would be responsible
for setting up the system to allow the regular broadcast.
Had to rewrite the whole
script and armed myself with good reading materials to fill out radio silence
during the services. Met with the DXCC
technician who fortunately was already familiar with me, a few minutes before
the start of my first broadcast.
So dutifully every Sunday
before 7am we both met up at the left side of the XU chapel. He laid all the wirings and the mikes to be
used for the broadcast, while I located myself on the same side close to the
altar, holding on to my folder with the script, and the few prayer books I
brought along.
This we did with almost no
fail for at least a year and maybe closer to more, going to the air at the
appointed time and place and reaching to all who tuned in to the radio during
that time. The Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass and its message of redemption propagated far and wide to the devotees
unable to be physically present.
And all that time, we never
received any feedback to apprize us of the work we were doing. Not an iota of comment or emoticon to a
Facebook page or other social media.
Complete radio silence.
And just as hazily, this work
stopped, and everybody concerned went about their separate ways. And I am just left to wonder, how crude and
limited methods were then to disseminate data and events to the people at
large. Worlds apart from the ways we now
handle such things.
That same smartphone that
most people, from all strata of society, now possess in their hands, is now
capable to do what we once did with great attention and labor, and a lot more,
simply with a few clicks, tender taps of the fingers over the screen, etc.