Digital Media and the Internet as a “sacrament” of Divine Charity: The Loaves and the Fishes

In Jeffrey’s post from yesterday, A Culture of Giving and Sharing, he has exposed what is at the heart of the Simple English Propers project. If you haven’t already, please read this article first.

After reading through his beautifully eloquent and inspired post several times I realized that what Jeffrey describes here is the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.

Consider the story from the gospel: At the Lord’s request the twelve disciples gave up their lunch, five loaves and two fishes, because they saw that the five thousand who were gathered were hungry. They knew absolutely well that the five loaves of bread and two fishes would hardly even make a discernible dent in the problem of feeding the crowd. If they had used their faculties of reason alone they would have surely rebuked Jesus and kept their lunch for themselves (I’m sure they were hungry too!)–they would have hoarded their “property” that he had surely worked hard for.

But the twelve stepped out in faith and trusted in the Lord and gave their measly lunch away instead, freely as a gift, and it was through Christ who mediated with a miracle, that the five thousand were fed, and there was more left over at the end than they had in the first place. The leftovers alone filled twelve wicker baskets and would have been enough food for the disciples to take home and feed on for weeks.

The miracle of the loaves and the fishes is the phenomenon that we are dealing with in digital media that is shared on the internet. In fact, digital media shared online, perhaps, could be seen as a sacrament (small “s”) of Divine Charity, according to the classic definition of a sacrament: “a visible sign of an invisible reality”.

In the story of the loaves and the fishes a small gift was given freely, and Divine Charity–Christ himself, who is Love–infinitely multiplied the good. Think about what the internet does with digital media: When one digital copy of a work is posted online it becomes, de facto, infinitely multiplied. This is its nature. It cannot be contained (as we are seeing now in the commercial markets). It cannot be quantified. It cannot be limited in its reach. It cannot be stopped from spreading. It cannot be effectively bought or sold, (or at least without artificial mechanisms in place that try to accomplish this).

Now think about the nature of Love: It cannot be contained. It cannot be quantified. It cannot be limited. It is infinitely reproducible. It cannot be stopped from spreading. It cannot be effectively bought or sold.

But of course digital media and the internet are not God. They are not Divine Charity. They merely possess characteristics that signify charity and love, but they do not intrinsically contain them. What digital media and the internet do, I would like to propose, is greater enable us to participate (in a specific way) in the free exchange of love that is to be found first in the inner life of the Trinity.

Let us consider for a moment the inner life of the Trinity.

As we know and believe as Catholics, the Trinity is God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We understand that the action of the Trinity, of God, is an exchange of love. This love is freely given by the Father to the Son, and in return from the Son to the Father. This sharing of love between the Father and the Son we call the Holy Spirit. The inner life of the Trinity is a free and mutual exchange of love.

Now let us think about how we participate in this exchange of Divine Love. Indeed, it is the goal of our existence–to participate in the love of God for eternity. But how do we participate in this exchange of love while we are here on earth, in the historical period of “Image” as we await its fulfillment in the coming age of “Reality”? It is the liturgy.

It is in the liturgy where we participate, par excellance, in the Divine exchange of Love between the Father and the Son; where we are swept up into the inner life of the Trinity in the Holy Spirit. The entire action of the liturgy, which is the action of Christ, is modeled on this exchange of love. The entire liturgy is structured in an antiphonal manner. The music of the liturgy itself is based upon this antiphonality.

In the action of the liturgy Christ calls us to repentance and we respond by publicly confessing our sins, to which Christ responds by offering us forgiveness, to which we respond with a hymn of praise. Then we hear the Word of God speaking to us, to which we respond with the Responsorial Psalm, and then the Christ speaks to us in the Gospel and in the homily of the priest in persona Christi, to which we respond with our prayers and with an offering of ourselves, of our money, of our very being which we place before the altar. And then, in the most excellent way, Christ accepts the gifts that we brought forth–our very lives, and the gifts of bread and wine–and offers his very own body and blood as a gift to the Father, in order to give God perfect praise and in which we are swept up, in which we actively participate in the reality of heaven. And after God is given perfect praise in the sacrifice of the altar, God gives back yet again and we receive his body and blood in the Eucharist which strengthens us to do our work on earth.

It is in the Mass where we fully participate in the inner life of the Trinity! And after worshiping and loving God, and after receiving his love, and giving it back again, and receiving it again, all that we are able to do as we are sent forth in peace is to share what we have received, the very love of God, freely with the world.

As Catholics we know that everything that we have is not really ours; all that we have possession of is a gift from God. Our talents, our time, our money, our intellect, our capacity to create, our participation in the creative process, the creative works that we conceive and produce, everything that we are and have, indeed our very lives–none of this is our “property”; it is all a gift from God.

What makes us human is our ability to give of the gifts that we’ve been given. What gives our lives ultimate fulfillment is to share in the Love of God eternally.

I would like to propose, however, that when we hoard the gifts that God has given us, when we restrict them, when we claim “ownership” of them, when we claim “rights” to something that is not truly ours, but is God’s, we restrict the work of the Holy Spirit–we clog the exchange of love that God desires to have with humanity. We cease to participate in an activity that makes us more fully human, and more fully alive.

Copyright law may have been necessary to a degree in an information economy that relied on printed paper, and on the exchange of scarce goods, but this artificial restriction required that individuals sacrifice a part of their freedom as humans–their freedom to freely share and to freely receive the gifts from each other that they have received from God.

But this medium of the old information economy has been supplanted by a new information economy that, perhaps miraculously, reflects sacramentally the free exchange of love that is found in the inner life of the Trinity: digital media and the internet.

We have an opportunity now, at this point in history, to remove the restrictions that have been artificially placed upon the creative works of society in varying degrees only since the advent of the printing press. We have the opportunity now to utilize the tools of digital media and the internet to advance and promote a culture of giving and sharing that finds its origin in the gift of God to humanity and that is animated by the exchange of love that is found in the inner life of the Trinity. We have now the opportunity to allow for our creative works to be shared as they were intended to be shared: out of love, out of gratitude, for the good of humanity.

But guess what? (And here’s the real catch) When these gifts are given freely to humanity, should we expect those who are the receiving end to hoard these gifts for their personal gain? Perhaps we could, since this is a consequence of our fallenness, and is much the way that the world is used to operating. But, perhaps we could expect something different if the recipients understand the nature of gift. If they understand that everything they have is a gift, and the goal of their life is to participate in the free exchange of love between the Father and the Son, then their only response is to give back in gratitude for the gifts that they have been given.

What does this all mean? And why is this written on a blog that is about sacred music?

Well, the Chant Café and the Church Music Association of America are responding to this opportunity that has been presented to the world. We have undertaken the Simple English Propers project as a test case to show that creative work can be freely shared with the world, as it was intended to be, and that the creator(s) of the work will receive from those on the receiving end a reciprocal generosity, that finds its origin and model in the Trinity and in the Eucharistic liturgy.

So the Simple Propers Project has been conceived as a free gift to the Church and to the world. It is conceived as a project of high craftsmanship and artistry that addresses a very real and urgent need in the Church.

We have estimated a monetary value for the creation and production of the work that is on par with, if not even surpassing, the amount of money that a composer and editor of liturgical music might hope to receive as the result of a similar work that is published in the conventional way.

We have asked those who see value in this work to make a financial contribution to the composer/editor of the work, not as a form of compensation, or of paying a due, but as a gift that reciprocates the gift that they have received, and that communicates their gratitude for and the value of the work that was produced.

This is the model that we have chosen, and I am the composer/editor of the project. At the time of this writing the Simple English Propers campaign is 65% complete after 11 days. This is breathtakingly remarkable and I have the deepest gratitude to the 52 benefactors who have made a contribution, whether larger or small, to this effort. It seems that we will reach the goal in a matter of days, and I will feel deeply satisfied that the enormous amounts of time and effort that I am putting into the creation of this work are being appreciated and valued through the gifts given in response to it by the community.

I need to say that as the recipient of the funds that are being raised for this project, I have the intention of reciprocating further a portion of the funds to the many other contributors to the project, and to those to who have brought invaluable contributions to it in one way or another. This most certainly will include the CMAA, St. Meinrad Archabbey, the St. Louis Institute of Sacred Music, the Gregorio developers, and, in some way, the many colleagues who have contributed in some specific way to this project. I will also set aside a portion of the funds in order to pay forward toward the next creative venture that will utilize this model.

All in all, the Simple Propers Project would not be possible with two paradigm shifting modern realities: Digital media and the internet. Like the miracle of the loaves and the fishes they allow for a greater participation in the exchange of Divine Love which finds its origin in the inner life of the Trinity. May we all actively participate in this exchange of love, first, in the liturgy, where we participate in it in the most excellent way possible on this earth. And may we all continue to reciprocate that gift of love which we first receive in Christ by giving glory to God with our lives and by sharing and spreading it to all the ends of the earth.