Dear Lucille,

I had a strange experience today.  One of the guards who speaks broken English spoke to me when he delivered my lunch (nothing but freeze-dried astronaut fare, I’m afraid).  His face showed deep concern. I thought perhaps he wanted to speak about a death in the family, but it turns out that he had gotten hold of a contraband videotape the night before and had watched it with a friend.  It showed clips of American soap operas, believe it or not – four and a half hours worth. The clips had shocked and disturbed him. He had one question for me: “Does that really happen in America?” I assumed he was referring to the deception, infidelity, adultery, divorce, immodesty, duplicity and other sordid matters that make up your typical soap opera.  Shamefully, I had to admit that yes, it does really happen. That left him more disturbed than ever, as he retrieved the cosmonautic containers and left me alone once again.

This little incident stayed with me.  As I was reflecting on the shining example of today’s saint, who was betrayed to the Roman authorities as a Christian by a frustrated suitor (Lucy had vowed her virginity to God and refused to marry, though she was reputed the most beautiful maiden in all of Sicily), I began to wonder what she would think of today’s television programs.  She who valued her purity so much that she was willing to die for it (the city Magistrate ended up having a sword driven through her throat after she refused to worship the pagan gods and when vigorous attempts by his soldiers to forcibly violate her – as a way of insulting and stifling, so they thought, her faith – were miraculously flouted: she remained fixed to the spot where she stood when they tried to drag her away, resisting even the strength of a team of oxen that was harnessed to her), would she not be outraged at the disrespect habitually shown by our entertainment industry to God’s great gift of sexuality?  And then I found myself asking, why don’t we feel the same kind of outrage? Why do we placidly accept it, and even let it contaminate our own expectations and behavior? Perhaps the answer is simple: the devil has successfully worn down our authentic Christian sensibility in this arena. Well, if that’s the case, it’s high time we started to build it back up.

Uh oh – gotta go; footsteps in the hallway.  Ciao, Uncle Eddy