Spiritual Hyperlinks

One day God went to check Heaven’s pearly gates. He heard them squeaking badly and wanted to see if St. Peter had already oiled them. When He reached the gates He was not only surprised to see Peter –as usual– sleeping on the job, but also the gates left ajar. Every now and then they gave out a gentle harmonious squeak when a stray celestial breeze blew by.

“Peter, wake up!” God said trying to control Himself. “Didn’t I ask you to watch over the gates and oil them?”

“Uh? [HO-HUM] Ah…ehhr…,” St. Peter tried his best to hide a wide yawn escaping from his mouth. “Yeshh…, I mean, yes, Lord. I’m sorry. I know you’ll be saying something about the ‘flesh and the spirit’ or sumthin’ like that.”

“Never mind, Peter! But why haven’t you oiled them yet?
”
“[YAAHWN!] I’m sorry, Lord! I was up all night.”

“All night? Doing what?”

“Surfin’ the net…,” he rubbed both eyes trying to focus on the conversation.

“The net? But didn’t I tell you that it only wastes a lot of your heavenly time?”

“I know, Lord. But you should really check out this craze of social networks down there!” Peter said excitedly.

“You mean social not-working?”

“Oh, come on, Lord, just give it a try,” Peter insisted.

“Okay, okay, okay,” God said and took a seat. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“It’s so easy, all you have to do is click on the links, Lord,” Peter felt proud to be teaching God a thing or two.

God took the mouse and started surfing. “Let’s see, I’m interested in checking out this priest who’s been writing silly articles,” God’s face lighted up with interest. “What did you say his name was again, Peter?”

“Oh, you mean Father so-and-so?” Peter scratched his head.

“Yeah, that one!” God’s concentrated intensely on the page as it started to load.

“Yup, that’s him alright,” Peter said rather blandly.

“You don’t look so excited,” the Lord noticed Peter’s expression.

“Oh, no, no…, except that… Oh, it’s nothing, go ahead, check him right out!”

God clicked on the profile. The browser took a while processing the request, and then suddenly the screen goes blank and the following error popped out: ERROR 404: Unresolved link. Please contact your internet provider.

“Now what’s that supposed to mean,” God was puzzled.

“Oh, nothing really, it’s just that most of the links in his page are broken,” Peter said.

“I thought you said you were working on him the other day,” God frowned at Peter.

“Yes, Lord, but you just have to give me…,”

“Wait, let’s see check out this link that says prayer life…,” God surfed back to the page and clicked on the link. The screen went blank and there was a longer delay this time. “This is taking an eternity,” God remarked. Then the same error popped out.

“He must have something at least,” the Lord said a little concerned.

“Why don’t you try that one that says Related links,” Peter suggested.

“What’s that supposed to be?” the Lord said.

“I don’t know,” Peter shrugged his shoulders.

The Lord clicked on the link and the screen goes blank and the message appears: PROHIBITED PAGE - MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR COMPUTER; TROJAN APPLICATIONS; MATURE CONTENT; ILLEGAL SOFTWARE, etc.

“I’m done with this priest, why don’t you erase his account!” the Lord said.

“Lord, be patient. Give me some time and I’ll figure a way to get his links connected,” Peter begged.

* * *

May the Lord who clicks on the links of our life not find them broken or unfortunately revealing that our hearts and minds are far from Him. The page of our life is the only one we will have. It is something our Lord always reads and it is up to each one to enrich and update that daily page so that we may be able to offer God a new love each time.

God clicks on some aspects of our life not because He’s out to investigate what’s wrong with us. Rather, He does this in order to see how He can help open us to new and fruitful horizons in our piety, sacrifice, good deeds, and above all, how you and I can abide more with His will.

Let us foster a firm resolve to review and improve our spiritual hyperlinks so that they truly link us back to God’s heart. These links are: our prayer, sacrifice, the sacraments, virtues and our sincere love for the souls around us whom we can link back to God’s love.

*Note to reader: HTTP Error 404 is an error message which means that the web page you are looking for cannot be found. The 404 error is also known as "File not found", "Not Found" and "Gone".