Every day of the year, I think of my impending death and of the deaths of my friends and family. ^{(A ray of sunshine, I know)}

Yet these two days I haven’t thought of that at all… ^{(I have prayed for the souls of my deceased family and friends, of course!)}

No, these two days I’ve been filled with hope and awe.

I love being Catholic, and I am just struck by the wisdom of celebrating these two days right after one another.

Anyone can be a Saint

This year I became emotional at the reality that All Saints Day isn’t meant just to celebrate all your favorite saints whose feast days we also celebrate another day of the year, but rather to recognize ALL those men and women who have achieved the glory of salvation.

Those saints who have no one to promote their cause of canonization. Those saints with no one to repeat their names after their death. Those saints with no holy cards, no medals, no statues.

Those saints who pursued holiness, not to be recognized by any person here on Earth but simply because they loved God and wanted to do His will.

My mind imagines that nun who served her monastery with such love and care and died unknown.

Or that mother who loved her children and grandchildren, taught them the faith, and prayed for them all.

Or that doctor who treated his patients with dignity and respect; praying over them and showing them the love of God.

Or the thousands of men and women who accepted being burned, stabbed, drowned, shot, beheaded, or fed to lions rather than betraying Christ.

I think of these and all the unknown saints that we won’t know about until the end of time.

Reflecting on this, I have come to understand that:

Sainthood is not determined by popularity, influence, or fame…it’s determined by the perseverance of remaining faithful to God and your calling.

Your holiness won’t be determined by whether you sit in the front pew or the back pew.

It won’t be determined by how many podcast episodes you record, how many followers you have, or how many religious objects you own in your home.

It will be determined by your love.

What draws us to the saints?

Whenever I see the statues of the saints, I NEVER see them looking at themselves. They are always either looking up at God or looking lovingly at their neighbor, whom they serve.

In the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 22:34-40), Christ gives us the two most important commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor.

I think this is the key to what makes the saints so attractive to us is because they are men and women who truly embodied the Gospel and Joy of God.

Sure, we love the cool photos of St. John Paul II

^{Just look at him holding a koala!}

And the fact that St. Carlo Acutis was a gamer. But that’s not the reason we’re drawn to them.

We love the saints because they became a reflection of Christ on Earth.

They were humans who actively worked to bring Heaven to Earth by bringing more souls closer to God through the testimony of their lives.

They loved until it hurt. It is that love that intrigues us so much.

Mourning with Hope

What I love about the feast of All Souls’ Day coming right after All Saints’ Day is that the Church recognizes that death is a reality that we all will face.

The glory of salvation is what we all aspire to, but the inevitability of death is what we all will suffer.

The Church sees that we are human and that we all will face a loss during the course of our earthly lives. The Church doesn’t tell us to “get over” our loss because this earthly life doesn’t matter in the end… rather, it allows us to recognize the departed souls of our loved ones, mourn them, and to pray for them.

Mourning is a normal part of being human and something that even Christ Himself experienced during His earthly life. He wept at the death of His friend Lazarus.

“Jesus Wept.”

Yet, despite all of this. We are not meant to mourn without hope, because we, as a Church, believe that death is not the end, but the beginning of eternal life.

In that same passage of John (Jn 11: 23-27), we can see that all people of faith will rise again in the Final Judgement because Jesus has obtained salvation for all of us!

Church Triumphant, Church Militant, & Church Suffering

I think that these feasts being celebrated together is the Church’s way of saying that all of us need one another.

I think Fr. Mike Schmitz highlights this perfectly in this podcast episode:

He explains that there are 3 states of the Church: Church Triumphant, Church Militant, & Church Suffering.

The Church Triumphant are the saints already in heaven who are interceding for us and, in a way, “cheering” for us as we make our way to join them in heaven.

The Church Militant is all of us on Earth, fighting to bring souls to Christ.

The Church Suffering is all the Souls in Purgatory, who are being purified before they enter Heaven, and who pray for us, and for whom we have a responsibility to pray for as well. 

Seeing this full picture of the Communion of the Church, one can see how we all truly need one another and how we’re all on the same path to Heaven.

Remember: You are not alone; you have a multitude of people wanting your salvation, both among the living and the dead. 💀

It is never too late

If you feel like all this talk about you being a saint is all wishful thinking because you are too much of a sinner, then let me offer you hope.

There once was a man who was sentenced to death for theft and murder. He knew he deserved to die and cried in agony in his prison cell.

When the time of his execution came, he had two other companions who were to be executed along with him. One of them cursed at the other, who was a famous preacher and claimed to be the Son of God.

_{(You see where this is going.)}

As this man hung from a cross next to Jesus, gasping for breath, his body both numb and in excruciating pain, he used the last of his strength to not only accept his punishment, but ask Jesus to remember him when He went to Heaven.

This man, who not only felt the weight of gravity pulling him down, but also the guilt of his sin, humbly repented of his sins and begged for mercy.

To him, Christ said:

It is never too late to be a saint.

For as long as there is breath in your lungs, mercy is waiting for you; all you have to do is accept it.

Be a saint.

Pray for the dead.

-Cristina 💜

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Actually, multiple worms.

No, I didn’t know I was eating them.

I’ve been married for less than a year

So I’m still working out all the ins and outs of how this whole “wife” role is meant to go.

Some days I thrive.

Other days…I just play the soundtrack from The Greatest Showman, and I keep going on.

Today was one of those Greatest Showman days.

To make this article more interactive, I’ll be adding lessons that I learned today, so you don’t make my same mistakes.

Lesson 1: Do Laundry BEFORE packing, not after

This whole week I knew that my husband was gonna go on a business trip.

I knew that he would need clean clothes to pack. Despite that, I didn’t load up our washing machine.

There’s a box full of our winter clothes in our bedroom, a basket full of clean clothes mixed with the winter clothes, and a closet full of summer clothes that I’ve been meaning to sort through as the temperature continues to drop.

But every night that I entered our room, I was exhausted by the workday, the post-work workday, and the other household chores. When I saw the piles of clothes, I would tell myself every night:

“I can do it tomorrow.”

(BONUS) Lesson 1.1: If the laundry basket looks a little full…then it probably is.

Despite seeing our dirty laundry basket fill up, I didn’t wash any clothes.

I think it was seeing the double amount of clothes that tricked my brain into thinking there was no need.

The day of the trip came, and when my husband was looking for clothes to pack, there was a mixture of winter and summer clothes, but not full outfits.

I realized that a lot of the clothes he was looking for were, in fact, in the dirty laundry.

I felt horrible!!!

This was something that I knew needed to be done, but why did I forget?

Thankfully, my husband DID have enough clothes to last him his full trip, and he made it out the door with a full suitcase.

Afterwards, I pulled our dirty laundry basket to the washroom and loaded the washing machine.

Today would’ve been so much easier if I did this yesterday. 😐

Lesson 2: The French Press DOESN’T go in the Dishwasher

I have a love-hate relationship with doing the dishes.

They can be fun to do if you have a good playlist/podcast episode on or if you simply have time to think through something. BUT they can suck if your sink is full to the brim and you just want to go to bed.

ENTER: The Dishwasher.

The dishwasher has been my best friend for a good couple of years now. You just load it up with all your dirty dishes, you forget about them, and in about an hour or so they’re clean! 🧼

I find it especially helpful at the end of the day when my brain won’t work, and I can’t keep both eyes open because of the exhaustion.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I loaded up the dishwasher like before, but for some reason, I decided to load up our French Press on there.

My husband and I LOVE making our coffee with a French Press. And usually when we did, I’d handwash it because it’s made of glass. I’d only loaded it up a few times, and always carefully.

Yesterday, however, I was eager to finish this task and forget about it, that I quickly rinsed and put the French Press in the dishwasher.

This morning, I made my coffee as usual. But to my dismay, our beautiful, wonderful, and life-saving French Press was broken.

The glass was chipped from where you poured it 🥺.

What a terrible mistake!!!! One that I, again, could’ve avoided if I had only washed it like I KNEW I needed to.

*sigh

It’s okay…but I’ll have to replace it, unfortunately.

Rest in peace, beautiful French Press.

Lesson 3: Check for Expiration Dates

I still haven’t nailed down how to make a meal plan or when the expiration dates of certain grocery items are.

Because of this, I’ve made the mistake of not cooking things soon enough that they go bad. 🥺

I am highly conscious of food waste and do my best to limit it, but some days I’ll dig to the back of my fridge and see a zucchini that I had bought two weeks before and slap my face because I forgot all about it!

I always feel so bad (not only because of the waste, but because it feels like I’m throwing away part of my hard-earned income 😭), but I am determined to get better and remember what I have and use it so we don’t have to toss it.

This is where the worms come in…

Today, I decided to make breakfast for my husband and me so that he wouldn’t leave the house without having eaten.

We had half a loaf of bread he had baked back on Monday that I thought it’d be a shame to toss.

So I made a breakfast centred around the bread. I checked for mold, but the bread looked good! 👍🏼

With all the confidence in the world, I made the bacon, whisked the eggs, and buttered the bread.

When I served it, I was rather pleased with myself.

I finally did one thing right.

Or so I thought…

While we were eating our breakfast, I noticed there was something... strange sticking out of my bread slice.

I pulled it out and looked at it.

IT WAS A WORM!!!!

I immediately spit out the bread in my mouth.

Turns out the bread had a couple of these. Thankfully, they weren’t alive…hopefully.

(BONUS) Lesson 3.1: Homemade bread lasts only about 2 days.

Lesson 4: It’s important to have hobbies

After all these things, I knew I needed an escape.

The good Lord knows that I needed to do something outside of writing and reading. I do love both of these things. After all, they are my LIFE, and what I want to do every day. But in a way, it isn’t my hobby; it’s my career. I needed something outside of this.

I needed to MAKE something tangible. Something that I could see and hold. Something that I knew I was making progress in.

So I took myself to Hobby Lobby and decided it was time to crochet again.

It has been fun learning to do this again and train my hands to work with yarn again. Crocheting was a hobby I enjoyed in high school and college but had to give up because of busyness.

Thankfully, I have more time, and it’s been fun learning to make grandma squares.

^{Even if not all of them turn out good… it’s still fun}

My goal is to make a blanket with all these squares to keep me warm as I write this winter.

It feels good to have a project that you look forward to completing. It’s also a great distraction to keep you grounded and reset your brain.

(All that screen time does add up, and I’m just glad to look at something without blue light!)

Lesson 5: YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT!

I’ve been beating myself up so hard for not being able to keep up with everything in my life.

Sure, I do work because it’s my responsibility. And I say my prayers every day.

But the laundry, the dishes, the recycling, my weekly Substack writing, my personal writing projects, time with my husband, calls with my family, and time with friends… It’s all so much to handle sometimes.

So it’s okay to not handle it all at once.

You are GOOD

^{^My husband giving me a much-needed reminder.}

I just have to accept that I can’t have it all figured out all the time. That’s just life.

But in the same way, life will give you your little surprises and joys.

For example: If I don’t have my Substack post written, life will find a way to make sure I have something to share with the world. 😆

Keeping it Real

I usually like to keep my personal life private, but I thought that it’s also nice to keep it real and share the fun mishaps of one’s life every now and then.

When I first started this newsletter, I wanted to make it a relatable space where others could see themselves in and be a place of comfort and joy.

So, whether you are married or unmarried, a student or a professional, a parent or not yet… I hope that you could find this at least remotely relatable.

Adulthood is not easy!

So, let’s take it one step at a time.

Wishing y’all a good weekend!

Now, I need to go buy shampoo, replace our beloved French Press (RIP 🪦), and return a couple overdue library books. (We forgot they were due this week 🫠 )

-Cristina 💜

Thanks!

Disclaimer: In writing this essay, I am not disclosing any political beliefs and wish to maintain my voter privacy. This is NOT an essay on politics, nor does it offer political commentary; rather, it offers a commentary on the age of social media in our entertainment society. My essay is written from the perspective of a young person experiencing the world first-hand and observing parallels in our culture that are also found in fiction. Finally, my prayers go out to all the victims of the mentioned shooting and their families.

*A note has been added to reflect new breaking news that has come out since the original publication of this essay.

Last week, I was scrolling through social media (like any typical Gen Z) when I came across this headline:

Our President had just approved having a firing squad as a method of execution?

I stared at the headline in disbelief. I had believed that firing squads were a thing of the past.

Then I saw this following headline:

Not only will that man (who did commit a heinous crime, let’s not dismiss that) be executed by a firing squad… but we’ll be able to tune in to it through our phones and laptops? But just the thought of it being live-streamed unsettled me.

Obviously, this wasn’t real, right?

I quickly scrolled up, unable to process the news I had just seen. I needed to escape.

Immediately after, what I saw was the following headline:

Dear Reader, I know this topic is a heavy one, but I ask you to stay with me and formulate your own thoughts as you read this essay. Thank you for being here.

Why Suzanne Collins Wrote “The Hunger Games”

According to an interview, Suzanne Collins said that she came up with the story of Katniss after an experience she had of surfing through TV channels. She lay in bed as she was flipping through different shows of reality television, from people competing for money to people competing in The Bachelor. In between these shows, she saw news coverage from the Iraq War, with images of death and destruction.

Collins states:

“These two things began to sort of fuse together in a very unsettling way.”

I just think that it was incredibly ironic that I had a similar experience but with headlines about the new Hunger Games movie coming out this year.

There is a level of unease that does come from the ability to scroll past devastating or unsettling events and jump straight into an entertainment mindset to distract us from the real-life problems in life.

This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course.

Collins’ original idea for The Hunger Games was inspired by ancient Roman gladiator battles.

The Roman government would put up these spectacles for its citizens to distract them from the problems happening in the government (such as increasing taxes) as a way to pacify them and keep the people from revolting.

This has famously become known as “bread and circuses,” and we can see a variation of this in The Hunger Games.

Nonsense & Desensitization

Apart from the never-ending escape on our phones, we are also being oversaturated with a lot of information that affects our ability to think through polarizing topics effectively.

Ray Bradbury wrote about this scenario in his novel Fahrenheit 451:

“Cram [the people] full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.”

I think this is exactly what social media has done to us.

Influencer and Meme culture has made us numb; they feed us nonsense and constant facts and information all day. This makes us work our brains overtime to comprehend, and leaves us feeling more tired.

Not only that, but social media has desensitized us.

From the influencers who are entitled and constantly feed us ads every couple of seconds (some of them not disclosing that they are ads). To ourselves, the consumers who don’t bat an eye when we’re being presented with more and more tragedy, violence, or nudity.

I do believe that, much like the blurring of the images Suzanne Collins witnessed on her TV, we are experiencing a blurring of headlines, some of which deserve our attention and nonsense that doesn’t.

We are being forced to react to both in the same breath.

“Us vs. Them”

One major point that we cannot leave out is the polarization that has occurred in our culture because of social media.

According to the popular Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, social media has almost wiped out the “middle ground”.

Everyone has to take extreme sides on every single topic; no one is neutral about something, and if they are, they are the common enemy to everyone.

The documentary also states how social media creates a sort of bubble in which the algorithm only feeds you content that agrees with your worldview and strengthens your opinion, rather than offering you the opposite side’s point of view.

Unfortunately, social media thrives off negativity, since it’s usually the content that keeps users on the platform and gets the most shares.

All of that ends up creating a very defining “Us vs. Them” mentality that can influence our daily lives and our interactions with our friends and family.

This just reminds me of that scene from the movie adaptation of Catching Fire. Where President Snow and Plutarch Heavensbee are discussing how to turn the Districts against Katniss, using the “Us vs. Them” mentality:

We are discreetly being fed propaganda to become divided amongst ourselves, which in turn distracts us from the bigger issues at hand, oftentimes happening in politics.

Squid Game —> Beast Games

Now, we cannot fully talk about all of entertainment without talking about Mr. Beast.

When talking about influencers, Mr. Beast is THE influencer with half a billion YouTube subscribers. Meaning that 1 in 16 people WORLDWIDE watch his videos and subscribe to his channel!

With these numbers, you cannot deny that he holds a lot of influence and power over our culture in one way or another.

So one can wonder as to why he named his highly successful Amazon reality show Beast Games after the gory Netflix show Squid Game?

In Squid Game, normal people compete in deadly challenges (funded by billionaires) with the promise of one lucky contestant winning a large amount of money in exchange for gambling their lives. In Beast Games, **contestants compete in absurd and exaggerated challenges for the chance to win five million dollars. Pretty similar, except without the death part.

This is bound to have a subconscious effect on viewers, where we normalize the violence of the Netflix show through the entertainment and “real-life” stakes in the Amazon show.

Going back to the desensitization of our culture, there are countless videos of people online saying that they’re willing to do anything to be in one of these Mr. Beast videos for a chance at that hefty cash.

Personally, this feels like we’re being primed for a real-life version of “The Hunger Games,” but obviously we’re not at the level of seeing children fight to the death yet.

Hopefully we NEVER get there.

Are we doomed?

No. Not even close.

There is hope, and we STILL have the freedom to reject all of this and make conscious decisions about where we direct our attention and energy.

We must continue to be outraged at evil news in our faces but also celebrate the good in our lives. The biggest enemies we are all being faced with today are numbness and indifference.

I know it is a self-defense mechanism, and we do this to not become overwhelmed or depressed all the time (I know I’ve struggled with this as well). But I want to give you hope that that is not the only way to live. It’s a matter of reclaiming where we decide to invest our attention.

The difference between any dystopia and a world of freedom is the people’s fear of speaking their minds or their liberty in using language.

I want to empower you to have honest, thoughtful, and respectful conversations with people in your lives.

We’ve lost the art of dialogue in which we can disagree and come to a better understanding of the world through our disagreements and our ability to place ourselves in the other person’s point of view. (Which has become rarer and rarer through the use of social media that thrives on conflict and insults.)

How can I stop this?

The best act of “rebellion” against all of this is reclaiming your attention span and being conscious of where you spend it.

We are now living in an attention economy where what you pay attention to matters almost as much as where you spend your money. With the boom of information overload, what you decide to watch matters.

Maybe you can try investing your attention in long-form content where you can dive deep into one specific topic and see the whole picture, rather than divide your attention into 20 mini-topics where you are only being fed a fraction of the narrative (and you often can’t even retain that information).

Or you can also decide to take your attention offline and read a book, which would set you apart from the half of Americans who don’t read books for fun.

Finally

We can’t lose sight of the basic universal truths, such as that human rights matter and that includes the right to life. We are not entitled as a society to be entertained by the death of others, and I personally do not want to be led to believe that a publicized death should be something normal or accepted.

Finally, we must remember that freedom dies when good people refuse to speak up.

Thank you for reading! This post was a little different than what I usually write, but if you enjoyed it, consider Subscribing and sharing!

Thanks,

-Cristina💜

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The problem with being a creative is that when you are constantly being expected to create new works regularly, you can’t guarantee that you will have the same creative results every single time. There is no such thing as quality control in every piece of art you make, especially when you are expected to do it consistently and rapidly.

Of course, you do sketch studies and make writing revisions and multiple drafts. But when the world expects consistent output without respect for the creative process and the need to refill the creative well (and take the artist’s way), it can be difficult.

The issue with modern-day expectations is that the audience not only expects quality, but they also expect quantity (this is only made worse with gen-AI pushing people to work faster and faster). Art is not something that can be mass-produced.

Most people don’t see how, one week you’re on a roll, writing paragraphs and paragraphs of colorful and detailed text, and then the next week you’re burnt out.

You can’t always create daily masterpieces; most masterpieces weren’t even created in a single day, hence the phrase Rome wasn’t built in a day.

We often forget how famous artworks took A LONG TIME to create. For example, “La Sagrada Familia” in Spain, which, after 144 years, is finally complete, is considered one of the most ambitious modern artistic projects.

The problem with being human is that you won’t always live up to expectations because you need to refill your creative well and take care of yourself (not because of faulty programming or hallucinations), but because our souls need rest and replenishing.

Artists are such self-critical individuals that the same creative process will take longer, not only because of others’ expectations but also our own…which makes quality control so much more complex.

For example, Leonardo DaVinci, began his Mona Lisa in 1503 but didn’t finish it until he died in 1519, because he refused to stop working on it and retouching some details.

^{Now, that painting is one of the greatest masterpieces of all time!}

The algorithm only makes this even worse.

When artists do get over themselves and decide to share their work online with others, the Inquisitor Algorithm measures it up to an unreachable standard:

“Oh, a new work? Let’s see, does it measure up to your last “hit” masterpiece? No? DROP IT IN THE ABYSS OF THE NOISE POOL!”

Suddenly, the work they spent so much time on is doomed to remain unseen.

This only makes me wonder how much heartfelt art is out there in the world that has been ignored or silenced…

_{CURSE YOU QUALITY CONTROL, INQUISITOR!}

Regardless of this,

Humans are perfectly and beautifully created. God, being the ORIGINAL Artist and Creator, knew in His infinite wisdom that we are finite beings.

I just love how He gave us the “green light” to rest and take care of ourselves as Creatives when He also “rested on the seventh day” (Genesis 2:2–3)

I also love the book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible, and how it mentions there’s a time for everything you do.

We’ve been conditioned as a generation to multitask and remain as productive as possible, but that’s just not the way we were intended to live.

Everything deserves its proper time and care. I do acknowledge that deadlines and productivity do matter, but that shouldn’t be the metric or standard everyone gets judged by.

Mothers raising children would be considered unproductive by those same standards of output, but they are doing some of society’s MOST important work by dedicating their lives to their children, and that is a process that can’t be measured until DECADES later when that child becomes an adult.

My point is that beautiful and wonderful things take time.

We are consistently called to be faithful to our calling.

To send you off, here is the passage of Ecclesiastes that I was referring to earlier:

With Love,

-Cristina 💜

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One afternoon after work, my husband was scrolling through Instagram when he suddenly stopped and told me to look at his screen.

It was a video of a girl dancing to music, with text on the screen that read, “I can’t believe Christian music can sound this good.”

There wasn’t anything atypical about that video. “What about it?” I asked him.

He proceeded to show me where that specific song originated from. It only took two clicks to find out that the song was AI-generated and attributed to an AI-generated “singer.” All the posts featuring “her” were of the character sharing her music and journey in making Christian music.

It was bonkers.

Seeing the AI character pretend to be a human, specifically a human artist, felt dystopian and unsettling.

The worst part was going to her comment section, which was full of people saying how her music was really good and how they were grateful that she was serving God by using her talents.

I was in shock.

This, however, wasn’t the only account I found that did this. A friend sent me another Instagram page of a BIG AI page posing as a Christian music group.

I could tell right away that all their videos were AI-generated and not real people leading worship. So, I decided to investigate this Instagram page to dig deeper into its activity and purpose.

Going down the Rabbit Hole

Their Instagram

The account has more than 260,000 followers (last time I checked) and is marked on their profile as an “Artist • AI-generated profile”. _{That’s a contradiction, but we’ll get to that later.}

What confused me the most was how that fake profile ALWAYS went viral, despite them only being on Instagram since February. All of their videos ranged from 10K views to 3 million views!

When I was writing this article, they had just released a video 6 hours before and already had 23,000 views!

I was so shaken by the reach this fake account had.

I noticed that the page not only had the AI content tag on their individual posts and profile, but it also included a disclaimer on every caption:

They claimed that their songs were written by a “team” who wrote the songs based on Scripture and “human experience,” but that ALL their vocals and productions were made in Suno.

(I personally think that if you don’t enjoy making music, then don’t do it. Don’t steal music from small artists and pass it off as your own. Just find another hobby. Now, back to our story!)

When I passed @maythelordstudio’s statement through Pangram, an AI checker, the whole text came back as 100% AI-generated.

I personally don’t think they have a team of writers at all; I think it’s someone prompting the songs on Suno and releasing them as original.

I decided to look further and check their Spotify.

Their Spotify

Spotify didn’t show much good news either.

The AI group had over 360,000 monthly listeners and two songs with over 1 million streams!

While checking their Spotify profile, I did not see A SINGLE disclaimer that the music was AI-generated at all!

All previous “transparency” was thrown out the window, and even their “About” page was also completely AI-generated.

Their followers

What made me most sad about this whole thing was the people who followed these accounts and streamed their music. A lot of their comments made it seem that they didn’t know they weren’t real people.

Most of the songs released by the AI played on people’s vulnerable emotions such as grief, letting go of fears, and being faithful in difficult moments.

_{This specific “worship moment” shows the AI character crying while she’s singing and is meant to manipulate the viewer into engaging with the content.}

It pained me to see the people who, despite every AI flag, still believed this was a real person.

Even though my husband said that not all of these people were real and some of them might be bots (which might be true), I still felt saddened by the real people who did believe that what they were seeing was real worship moments.

However, I think what disturbed me the most were the people who knew it was AI and simply didn’t care.

My heart sank as I read comments like this, and I just wanted to shout from the other side of the screen, “No, you DO need to care! They are lying to you! You deserve better than that!”

Preaching the Faith by Any Means Necessary?

The recurring message between these accounts and people who defended their use of AI is that we should accept the use of AI because we can preach the Gospel much faster and on a bigger scale.

This is another example from AI “artist” Christ Brazelton, who defends his use of AI in his “paintings”:

_{The same “preach by any means necessary” mentality.}

This made me really upset when I first read it because he not only uses Scripture to justify passing off others’ work as his own, but then proceeds to call people who refuse to use AI as “selfish and greedy”.

The opposite is actually true.

True artists who create Christian art want to use their innate talents and God-given gifts to serve Him. We do this by dedicating our lives to perfecting our craft and getting over our self-doubt, fear, and vain glory because we believe that writing/music/painting is a vocation!

If you were to use this same argument of “preaching the Gospel by any means necessary,” what would stop any individual from using slave labor to create religious objects such as Bibles, or to build churches? The answer is that we DON’T do that because it is inherently wrong.

While AI usage is definitely not on the same level of slavery (I am not saying it is), we need to reconsider whether the use of it is genuinely serving people or whether it is using people for clicks and profits.

True Worship Requires Sacrifice

As Christian’s we are called to be bearers of truth, and we can’t do it with something that is inherently a lie.

Using AI to generate videos of worship moments that didn’t occur to promote the song you didn’t sing and produce is manipulative and misleading.

Or using AI to generate a “painting” that you didn’t spend hours sketching and painting isn’t being faith-filled.

If “May the Lord Studio” was really run by a team of faith-driven writers, why would they hide behind a false AI persona?

Meditating on this, I asked my husband why this “worship music” felt so wrong. He simply told me, “True worship requires sacrifice.”

That blew my mind because it was true.

Throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, instances of worship were usually accompanied by offerings and sacrifices. (For example, the sacrifices of Noah and Abraham.)

In this same way, an artist gives up a pure offering of their craftsmanship to God as an act of worship.

According to St. John Paul II, “The human craftsman mirrors the image of God as Creator,” and it is “through his ‘artistic creativity’ [that] man appears more than ever ‘in the image of God.” (Letter to Artists, 1999)

By using AI to generate art and music, you are letting AI worship FOR you, instead of you offering sacrifice and worship to God. Not only that, but you also give up the opportunity to be a bearer of the image of God and surrender your ability to mirror Him, something AI will NEVER be able to do.

If you’re using AI, then what is the use of studying Scripture and being inspired by it, if AI has already read the entire Bible and probably knows it better than you?

Only God can truly inspire and lead us because we are His beloved children and He has a plan for our lives. He has set artists apart to take part in this special mission by calling them to use their talents and pour their soul into their art.

I’ll say it again:

As an artist, you cannot lead people to God (who is the source of all Truth, Beauty, and Goodness) with a lie.

My dear reader, I NEED you to care that it’s AI.

I NEED you to care whenever you see religious art or music that is AI-generated. You deserve to know that what you see has been created by a real and divinely inspired human being.

These AI accounts thrive off your indifference.

They see your faith, Christianity/Catholicism, as a marketing and branding strategy and not as an actual ministry. They make a profit off every click, view, purchase, and stream from every unsuspecting or indifferent person.

I NEED you to care that worship and art are being distorted and turned into manipulation.

I NEED you to believe that you deserve better than that. You deserve to be seen as a human, as someone worth ministering to, and not a product. You are NOT a means to the end of higher profit.

You are worthy of being loved through REAL human art and receiving the Gospel through a TRUE faith-driven artist.

With Love,

-Cristina 💜

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This post could not have been completed without the help of my loving husband, Bryan, who started me on this topic and offered wonderful insight throughout its development. A special thanks goes to him. 💜🍯

An Anthropic whistleblower has come out to state that there’s a 10% chance that AI will kill us all:

AI staff ‘genuinely frightened’ for humanity’s future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC

And honestly, that’s not very comforting news to receive or to give at any given day.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like every AI headline is worse than the previous one. As if I thought that AI companies destroying books (while we’re in the middle of a literacy crisis) was bad enough…I come to find out that a federal court recently ruled that “the First Amendment protects possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse images!” We are officially living in a very sick world.

I am consistently making an effort to become more educated on this topic because I not only want to be competent when speaking and writing about it, but I want to know what future I am up against. I have learned a lot about AI through books, YouTube videos, and reading a lot of articles, yet they fill me with a lot of uncertainty about the future.

My husband and I recently watched “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist” (Which, in and of itself, deserves its own post, but that’s not today’s focus), and this only pushed me over the top.

The director of the documentary and I shared in the same dilemma: If the world will be dominated by AI, why should I bother to go on?

Why should I bother to go on?

Recently, I’ve been struggling to sleep at night.

As I toss and turn and lie awake in bed, I ponder why I should bother to go on.

Why should I bother to keep my job, grow my family, or pursue my art?

Why do I bother to keep writing and sharing my words online? Why bother writing a book that will only be stolen, pirated, and used to train AI? Why not just keep the writing to myself or give up completely?

Part of my hope is that I want my words to mean something. I want there to be proof that even if the worst does come to pass, there was a human who fought till the end to keep her individual human voice and style. Even when all hope seems to be extinguished, I hold onto the hope that perhaps there’s another human on the other side of the screen or page who could be moved by my words.

While this is a beautiful sentiment, this alone is still not enough for me to keep grasping on to hope.

My tipping point came while I was watching this interview with an AI expert. I was overcome with overwhelming uncertainty and I just couldn’t take it any more. I felt so small in this grand race for an AI future that we don’t know which way it will end.

So, I decided to close my computer and pray the rosary while I washed my dishes.

Christians are a people of hope.

At that moment I didn’t know what else to do but to offer all my anxieties to God.

Within the Bible, the phrase that God says the most is: “Do not be afraid.” THAT is what I cling to.

Instead of speaking to a machine, I would rather speak to the one who “hears the cry of the poor.” (Psalm 34) I don’t want to worship a machine that was created by human beings; I would rather pray to the God that created us and actually has our best interest at heart.

The one good thing about this AI uncertainty is that it has revived my prayer life like no other current issue.

Pope Leo XIV himself states that prayer is essential when discerning the usage of AI and that our decisions should be led prayerfully.

The Catholic Church and the Christian people have been marked to be a “people of hope”. This is because we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, but the story did not end there. He also defied ALL laws of nature and rose from the dead on the third day to save humanity from our own sins.

THAT is why we have hope and why even when humanity sinks to a new low, we keep going.

Because I believe this, I can promise you that I won’t give up in this battle for our future. I will keep demanding AI companies to be transparent in their intentions and actually create a future that’s better for ALL humanity, not just their investors.

I promise that I won’t give up on y’all, that I won’t give up on humanity, and that I won’t give up on my writing vocation.

I am grateful that God is my leading force and prayer is my comfort.

So, I leave you with this Scripture verse that I’ve been clinging to for spiritual relief:

Blessings,

-Cristina 💜

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Two weeks ago, I was doubting myself more than ever.

I had been writing on Substack and posting on my Instagram writing page for over 2 years, and still haven’t seen any substantial change in my reach.

I know “practice makes perfect”, and with each article I write and each post/video I edit and post, I am slowly getting better. But I still felt like a failure for not seeing a big change.

My summer goal had been to gain 100 subscribers on my email list; I was 20 subscribers away, and it seemed like I couldn’t even manage that small goal I set for myself.

I would then see how other people who said they had just started their Instagram/ Substack/ Mailing List / etc. a week ago and it already had thousands of people following or subscribing.

It was demoralizing. How come 2 years of work didn’t yield the same results?

I knew I had something to say, but was afraid that if I spoke, my only audience would be the vast void of the “dead internet”.

I wanted to reach real people with my words and writing, but felt like everything I had to say didn’t matter because I was too small a writer.

I didn’t have the following to back me up.

I do have loyal friends who read my writing and reach out to me saying how my most recent article moved them one way or another.

I am really grateful for them and for being there with me since Day 1. (Y’all know who you are.)

However, I had an immense feeling of impostor syndrome. I kept thinking that the only reason they would support my writing and read my articles was that they were friends or family, or because they felt sorry for me; not because they believed I was a particularly good writer.

All these negative feelings left me feeling really down and even led me to break down and cry to let it all out. It was a very low moment for me.

I meditated on whether it was worth keeping my social media, my newsletter, and pursuing my writing overall. Or if it would just be better if I deleted everything and tried to live a “normal” life, without the worries of my creative well running dry.

To cheer myself up, I decided to go to Starbucks and get something from their Fall menu (like any 20-something-year-old would do). I got a Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew and the first sip tasted like home.

It took me back to my college days, when I was full of hopes and dreams for my writing career. I remembered how desperately I wanted to be a writer back then.

The nostalgia was overwhelming, and I decided to make a video about it, wishing I could go back in time to the first time I tried that drink.

I recorded it and decided to post it on my Instagram for fun. (I had no hopes for it, and it felt almost like a little “farewell Instagram” sort of post.)

I went to bed that night ready to give up.

Then I went viral…

How I got to 1 Million

The next morning I woke up still feeling pretty down about my feelings from the day before.

I went about my morning as usual and decided to check my phone and Instagram to see if my video had had any views.

I opened the app to HUNDREDS of notifications. My video had over 250K views…

My mouth was agape. My videos usually only got 2,000 views, so to get 10 times that was mind-boggling.

People were tagging their friends; they were posting it on their story; they were commenting about their experience in college. It was really something spectacular for me to see.

This was the video in question:

What I saw in all of these “interactions” was people on the other side of the screen who missed their college days. We were all collectively experiencing adulthood and missed the days when life seemed so big and full of opportunity.

It felt nice to be a place where they got to share that feeling they missed and get them to have a few laughs.

I won’t lie, there was a huge dopamine hit from seeing the numbers go up and seeing my account gain traction after weeks of no new followers.

I was just happy to get more exposure and have a platform to share about my writing journey.

It took 2 days to get 1 million views and thousands of comments, including one from Starbucks.

I wondered where I would go from here.

What happened after

Nothing.

Nothing really happened, I’ll be honest.

• No overnight fame

• No quitting my 9-5 to become a full-time “content creator”

• No sudden riches

What I will say is that this mini “success” was the sign God gave me to keep going. When I was ready to give it all up, He reminded me that my journey was not over.

There’s a saying that goes like, “I didn’t come this far only to come this far.”

Meaning that you didn’t go through all the sacrifices and self-growth only to never make it to your final destination.

I know God gave me the gift, and you could say the “obsession” with writing was for a reason. It is a vocation and a responsibility to do good with the gift I’ve been given.

This experience taught me that “overnight” success is never overnight, and even once you do have one triumph that your journey is far from over.

My video taught me that my storytelling can move others. It taught me that my words and my contribution to the world do make a difference. I just have a lot to grow still.

I learned that I still have a long way to go in terms of sharpening my personal writing style and the stories I want to write.

I am grateful that I am still small enough to keep learning, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and explore my art so that it can be the very best it could be.

So, if you have also been working hard and don’t see results, know that your consistency and your 1% every day will compound and make a difference in the future!

It’s a matter of being faithful to your calling and your dreams.

We got this! Keep creating and don’t give up.

-Cristina 💜

It had scribbles from different project ideas I had, prompt exercises, and finally the outlines to these Substack articles.

Fondly, I looked over the notes throughout the years and stumbled upon this one that left me speechless and amazed…in a confused way.

It made me reminiscent of the way I used to write more fiction ✨back in the day™️✨.

It also reminded me of the reason I began writing: to write fun stories that maybe made no sense, but that would stick with readers.

So, I wanted to share this with y’all today to bring you into my mind of 3 years ago, and to kickstart my journey of sharing my fiction here on Substack (something that I’ve feared for the longest time).

Without further ado, here is my notebook Snippet #1!

Notebook Snippet #1

We begin our search for the factory.

There are newer sources, older sources, and irrelevant sources.

We go over a bunch of companies before we get to a book of “Unnerving History of Factories”.

“What are the book’s credentials?”

“The doll.”

“Maybe that’s just a coincidence?”

“Before aliens, killer dolls didn’t pop out of TV screens.”

“You never saw horror movies, did you?”

“You best be joking.”

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

I’ve seen quotes and posts thrown around where they say that August is the end of summer and the beginning of something new. It’s like we’re all collectively holding our breath and preparing for a huge shift in our lives.

The only issue is that we cannot fully grasp what the change is.

The unfamiliarity of change

Fall is famously romanticized as the season when nature shifts from the laid-back fun of summer to the more academic and serious matters.

School has started again; college students are moving into their dorms; the leaves have begun to change color.

Change is in full swing.

You feel it in the air, the edge of the beginning of something new… something unfamiliar.

A lot of people love beginnings.

They love being able to start new projects, buying new notebooks and start journaling in them. Buying new gym clothes and gear to exercise, or buying a new cookbook with the intent of learning every recipe. Moving out of town and into a new city for college. Or starting a new job!

People like starting something new, but what they fail to mention is that change is really uncomfortable.

You don’t know what lies ahead. Once the dust settles and the silence creeps in, the unfamiliar/repetitive sounds, or lack thereof, create a buzz in your ear that almost hurts.

The new sights that at first excited you now make your eyes sore.

You look at the whole journey that awaits you, and think, is this it?

Or maybe the change hasn’t come yet, but you’re thinking it twice. Is it too late to take back that job submission? Or grad school application?

Even when you’ve had months to plan, the proximity of the shift begins to make it real.

“There’s no way I’m really doing this.” You tell yourself. Afraid of the ways that the change will stretch you, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

The Growing Pains

The truth is that change and growth are really uncomfortable.

It’s that same discomfort you felt when your legs hurt as a child, only to find the day or week later that you were an inch taller.

The growing pains freaking hurt!

But the fact that you are experiencing them in the first place might mean that your life, just like your body in childhood, was READY for growth.

The truth is that growth, however scary it might be, may also be the key to the fulfillment and happiness you seek.

Remember what made you seek this change in the first place. Perhaps you’ll look back at your life and be grateful that you didn’t stay in that other place you were dissatisfied with.

Even though it might be uncomfortable now, you cannot fathom the things you will accomplish.

So,

Stare at Change in the eye

Keep eye contact with it.

Stare it down as a cat stares at a mouse that it will capture. Don’t let it get the best of you; rather, give it your best!

-Cristina 💐

For a while now, I’ve been writing articles for CatholicLink.org, and I wanted to share the one that was published TODAY!

It’s about the Saint of the Day, Saint Monica.

She’s a special saint in my heart, and I feel that her persistence can inspire you in your life too!

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Thank you so much!

I hope this serves you well. 💜

-Cristina 💐

To read ALL my contributions to CatholicLink.org, click this link!

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The emotions that cannot stand to be ignored. They grab you by the arms and shake you whole while screaming, “I demand to be seen! I demand it!”

Other times they stick in the air as a sustained high-pitched sound, one that you don’t know the source of.

And before you know it, the tears leak from your eyes, and that pain in your stomach hurts more than usual while you walk through the aisles of Hobby Lobby.

That sensation of homesickness overwhelms you when you wait for your pasta water to boil, or the feeling of unfamiliarity falls on you when you try to go to sleep at night. This isn’t my bed; it usually faces north…this one is facing East.

We often like to say that those emotions slowly creep up on us and manifest themselves at the most random times, but I think it’s actually the opposite. They have always been there; we have just chosen to ignore them all the time, until it becomes impossible to ignore them.

Your overworked brain demands a break from the constant entertainment overload.

Your favorite drink or snack no longer tastes good; rather, they seem kind of bland. Your favorite shirt seems to have lost a bit of color in the last wash.

Those warning signs keep coming up, yet we decide to keep turning a blind eye until our emotions materialize and turn us into a broken version of ourselves.

They show us who we authentically are, and oftentimes, we find looking at our true selves to be something uncomfortable.

I fear that being human comes with a lot of bargaining and emotions that are tuned out in day-to-day life.

I feel that influencer culture has downsized the “in-between emotions,” the ones that linger and whisper in your ear, “I don’t like this.”

It seems that the only emotions that deserve to be seen are the extreme ones: the extreme happiness that comes from a dream vacation, the extreme sadness shown by someone posting themselves crying, or the extreme outrage that bubbles inside from news headlines (often about AI).

Sure, those emotions matter, but the true knowledge of our inner being comes from listening to the sustained emotions that demand to be addressed.

We say we’ll get to it later: “I can’t deal with a crisis right now”. Yet the crisis has already begun.

The quiet emotions are really uncomfortable to face, yet they’re also the ones that reveal our true selves.

• “Why do I feel anxious to go out with this group of friends?”

• “Why do I avoid this person?”

• “Why can’t I get myself to tell the truth to the question, How are you?”

The quiet emotions may have the answers.

Whenever I get a free day to myself, I vow that I will fill it all with writing time. Yet that rarely is the case. I begin writing either an article, a chapter, or a Substack post, only to find myself stopping, getting up from my desk, and “taking care of something else.”

I work around the house or focus on growing my social media audience — because after all, if I want someone to read my posts and to buy my future book, I need an audience… right?

Yet as I scroll through Instagram, I find myself pushing down the idea that perhaps I don’t write because I believe I’m not good enough… perhaps I will never be part of that 3% of people who finish a book they start.

I capture these feelings and shove them to the back of my mind. Hiding them from the world.

Yet, I still believe I’m not good enough.

It’s the quiet emotions too that make you believe lies…but they’re also the ones that challenge you to change the most.

Maybe the reason I leave my writing is because I feel guilty about entering the “artistic process”. It feels like writing is not “productive” in and of itself, and I have to earn my writing time. It’s the quiet guilt that bars me from actually succeeding.

It’s also a (much weaker) quiet emotion that refutes that lie and tells me, “It’s not true; you will succeed.”

Wrestling with these emotions is not comfortable, but necessary.

I have discovered more about myself by letting myself write down the most insignificant thoughts and feelings than by going to therapy.

I feel like writing, prayer, and just giving yourself time to just think and feel your feelings is the most revelatory thing you can do.

I am not an advice guru, and this might not apply to you at all, but taking the time to listen to those demanding quiet emotions, converse with them, refute them, challenge them, accept them, and acknowledge them has helped me a ton.

It’s in the quiet where we find where our soul screams loudest.

-Cristina 💐

It felt a little strange being away from home, but I guess that’s just part of growing up.

I look back at my year as a 23-year-old and reflect on how it went.

The truth is, I liked being 23.

23 was the year that has tested me the most.

Planning a wedding, quitting my job, being unemployed, getting a new job, getting married, saying goodbye to everyone back home, moving away from the place you were born and raised, moving to a new state, figuring out the first five months of marriage, figuring out a new city… 23 was pretty eventful.

I feel like this year was the one that broke me open and then put me back together.

It was the year where I figured out that your 20s are filled with a lot of heavy expectations, some of them rational, but a lot of them irrational…

There’s the pressure of starting a business or a family. The pressure of becoming a millionaire before you’re 30. The pressure of traveling and seeing the whole world. The pressure of moving to a new city and successfully starting your life there.

Just the pressure of having any type of success at all in this decade.

23 graciously taught me that this pressure is false and only exists within the illusion of my phone. It taught me that real life is full of quiet moments, quiet mistakes like burning dinner, but also quiet triumphs like building a piece of furniture.

I will always look back at 23 with a lot of tenderness and memory.

I feel as if 23-year-old me is suspended in time and will always remain immortalized, whether it be in my wedding pictures or in my heart.

23 tossed and turned me, but in the end helped me land on my feet.

Moving into a new city took a lot of faith.

I never toured the apartment we ended up moving into; instead, I took my husband’s word that it was spacious and would serve our needs for the first years of marriage.

Moving to Ohio in the middle of winter was not beautiful. The naked trees and surprisingly wet and green grass were unlike what I was used to in the Chihuahuan desert of Texas.

I knew almost immediately that it would be a struggle to be away from friends and family, and that it would force me out of my shell and into a newer and bigger one.

Despite all its challenges, I’m grateful for who I became this year.

Even though aging is frightening, it’s also a gift I embrace with lots of gratitude.

I’m grateful for every heartbeat and every breath that fills my lungs.

I’m grateful for every sore muscle I wake up to.

I’m grateful for every loose strand of hair that falls from my head (even if I fear my hair is thinning out).

I’m grateful for 23.

-Cristina 💐

But the hardest part of being an artist is that no matter how hard you try to reach towards the divine, you’re still human.

No matter how hard I try to take care of myself as an artist, I still feel overwhelmed. I still end up feeling “less than” or “not good enough”.

I also feel like whenever I’m not creating art, I am “underperforming” or “not doing enough.”

There’s this big pressure in this new world of AI to push out art as much as you can consistently. Not only that, but everything that you create should automatically be masterpieces to be relevant or competitive. But what sucks is that that is not how creativity works.

You can be as consistent as you want, but creativity still comes in waves. It is not linear.

One day you’ll write a full chapter; another day nothing but a couple of sentences. One day you’re ready to publish on your newsletter three days a week; another time you post only once every three weeks. Time goes by; you get sick, overwhelmed, tired, exhausted, and AI only gets better and better. It feels like other people are beating you to the ideas you had, and you will be seen as the “copycat,” not the original creative.

Even on your good days, you find that your writing is getting worse and worse.

(Of course I’m writing from personal experience…but you get the picture.)

“Did I pick the right career?” I ask myself sometimes.

I’ve dreamed about being a writer for years, and I even got my degree in creative writing to pursue that dream. Yet why am I so scared and tired to the point that wanting to write brings tears to my eyes?

I end up wondering, “Did I pick the right dream?”

Lately my brain has just been feeling so fogged. I can’t even think of championing human thought when I cannot get myself to think. My overwhelming exhaustion and emotions get in the way of that.

I feel ashamed that I make promises I can’t keep to myself, my readers, or to the people I talk to about my writing.

I feel like there’s a constant battle inside me. One battle between the thought of “falling behind” and the thought of “art takes time”.

The two wolves waging war inside me, waiting for me to feed them. I always find myself feeding both out of pity and fear.

I’ve been falling behind on my writing for a couple of weeks now.

At first, I thought it was because I moved away from home to another state 1,500 miles away. But it’s something much deeper. I’ve just been feeling overwhelmed and burnt out.

Comparison crept into my life. I looked at how other authors and creatives were able to make content out of their ever-changing lives. I let my resentment get the best of me.

I believed that my best writing always came from anger, and sometimes it does. But your mind and body can only take so much negativity until it begins to absorb it and manifest it in more troubling symptoms.

It’s finally caught up to me: the sleepless nights, the wandering into rooms and being overcome with forgetfulness, uncried tears that all begin to come out in unexpected moments of the day, the discomfort with silence…

I confess that I replaced God’s comfort with the comfort of fulfillment and doing a good job. I haven’t allowed myself to rest either in Him or in general because of the fear of being a failure.

I felt pressure to stay “on brand” and keep my promises in this newsletter. But I realized that I’m not a company; I’m just a person.

Just like the four seasons of winter, spring, summer, and fall, creatives also go through seasons of change. Some are warm and sunny, while others are cold and dry. There are hardships in each, but also overwhelming beauty.

I’m sorry I haven’t kept up with my promises. I have found myself beginning to write articles only to never finish them. So many emotions go through my brain that I get distracted. Now I feel like it’s only right to share them with you because maybe you’re going through all of this too.

I just pray that both you and I can find some rest. I pray that we may find rest in the Lord.

I’m letting Him lead me instead of leading myself. I pray I can find the courage to keep moving forward despite how foggy the journey ahead of me looks.

I hope that whatever you’re going through, you can find the beauty of it all, because remember: “This too shall pass.”

Thank you for following my journey and for your patience in all of it.

Sending you a hug,

-Cristina 💜💐

P.S. I am feeling better now compared to the moment I first wrote this piece. I had to take time to recover creatively, and I am better now! 😊

*All images were taken from Pinterest

A summary of my writings will be at the bottom of this post.

When I first saw that Pope Leo was publishing an encyclical addressing AI, my first thought was that he was calling all Catholics to stand up in (metaphorical) arms against AI.

I believed that the pope was going to confirm all my anti-ai views and condemn everyone who uses ChatGPT as a heretic (ok…maybe not that, but at least claim that using AI was not right).

However, what I found in the pages was something that was much more profound than anything that I originally conceived.

Tower of Babel or City of God?

Pope Leo opens his encyclical with a comparison of two biblical images: the Tower of Babel and the Building of a City of God.

The Tower of Babel appears in the bible in Genesis 11:1-9. Those verses tell the story of how men decided to build such a large tower “with its top in the heavens” (Gen 11:4). The men wanted only one united people, the elimination of diversity, and complete homogenization. However, what they lacked was communion. The whole project was filled with pride and rejected God’s plan for a diverse but united world. The result of this project was division, not unity, like its original goal. Everyone became confused and, thus left the project unfinished.

The second image that the pope uses is that of the reconstruction of Jerusalem, the city of God, from the book of Nehemiah (Neh. 1–2).

The narrative shows how the city is reborn, not through the initiative of one man, but through the shared responsibility of all: men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households, and young people all play a part. It is an undertaking with God at the center, which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones. Thus, ancient Jerusalem rediscovers a common language — not one of uniformity, but one of communion, namely the harmony that arises when all persons assume their own role and recognize that their strength comes from the Lord. (Paragraph 8)

With these two stories, Pop Leo poses the question and puts pressure on the reader and all of humanity: “What type of world do you want to build?”

Pope Leo notes that throughout the history of humanity, there have been technologies that have been introduced with the claims of creating progress. However, he talks about how with each new technology, we have had the choice to use it for good or use it for evil, and a distorted version of progress.

This is not the first time a technology has been introduced to us with the claims that it will cure the sick, educate the children, or help humans reach unimagined potential. This is just history repeating itself.

However, never before has there been an introduction of a tool that humans do not have complete control over…

AI is Dictating our Thoughts

In the past, technologies were tools that were simply waiting to be used. A car that sat in a parking lot, waiting to be activated by a key and be driven around, or a calculator waiting to have numbers input into it to solve an equation.

But the tools that are being introduced are much more dangerous. They no longer wait to be used, but they demand your attention, your emotions, and your intelligence.

The fact that ALL companies now push you to use their new AI tools, replacing them with the original ones and leaving you with no choice for the past option (Ahem, Google’s AI Overview anyone?) is something that feels a little manipulative.

The AI machines that are now in the forefront pose as new, updated tools, but instead, they become dictators that decide what you see online.

They profile you and decide what news you see, what you read or don’t read, what you should eat, and how much you should spend. Because of these machines, your life begins to be curated and slowly turns into The Truman Show.

The pope condemns this in his encyclical and warns against this new “tool” being used to manipulate people by gaining control of their imaginations and decision-making skills.

“Truth is a gift to be shared, not a possession to be monopolized.”

“Truth is a gift to be shared, not a possession to be monopolized.” (Paragraph 25 of Magnifica Humanitas)

“We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.” -Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI)

Just see the difference between these two sentences…

It is this exact mentality that Pope Leo condemns with the use of AI.

Artificial Intelligence should be used as a resource to expand human intelligence by helping people in the search for truth, not a subscription-based replacement for critical thinking.

This is where the pope addressed the disparity and injustice that the business of AI creates. How information, transparency, and education cease to be human rights and become gate-kept.

Artificial Intelligence, an Unfair High Ground

Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate, and protect our common home, but it can also divide, exclude, and generate new forms of injustice. (Paragraph 9)

The pope mentions how AI CAN be used for good. It CAN be used to aid in the cure for cancer. It CAN be used to help people with learning disabilities excel in education. It CAN aid people in day-to-day activities by automating repetitive tasks, so that people can focus on REAL, CREATIVE, IMPACTFUL work.

However, it is my personal opinion that the machine is yet to prove that its benefits outweigh the consequences.

AI has already proved to be a huge factor for division and inhumane activity mentioned by Pope Leo.

For example, the case of deepfakes generated from children’s photos in a school’s social media and being utilized as blackmail.

Or the misinformation generated by ill-intended people with the use of AI, with the intention of confusing vulnerable people.

Where do we want to go?

Yet, despite all these points, Pope Leo doesn’t fully condemn humanity to the hands of the machine. Instead, he gives a message of hope early on saying that we still have a choice of where we want this technology to lead.

As believers, we cannot stand idle when we see the darkness that comes about from this new technology. We must stand up and take ownership and leadership of the wheel of history.

The pope stresses how ALL peoples, not just Catholics, cannot “be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history — research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities — in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened.” (Paragraph 241)

We must act where we find ourselves, whether it be in education, churches, research companies, and even our homes! We must fight to have a more just and humane way of using AI.

We must fight for companies to develop a healthy way for it to exist in the world where people are given an option to either opt-in or opt-out, instead of being left with no choice but to use it.

TL;DR

• AI is a technology that can be used for good or evil

• AI is infringing its purpose as a tool by dictating our thoughts

• Truth cannot be gatekept and must be shared with others

• Technologies have potential for connection and healing

• As of now…in MY opinion, not the Pope’s… AI’s consequences are outweighing the benefits

• There IS HOPE for the future! BUT we must become active participants, not passive witnesses.

I have only scratched the surface of what Magnifica Humanitas addresses in its pages.

In the next part, I will dive into what Pope Leo says about the right to work and how AI is pushing boundaries when it comes to labor.

Until next time!

-Cristina 💜

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Thank you for supporting human writing! By reading this, you are proof that human art is still relevant. If you found this post moving, consider sharing it with someone who you think would enjoy it. 😊💜

God Bless!

*All quotations pulled from Magnifica Humanitas (2026)

looking like ripples in a pond

extending

growing

becoming big arms,

reaching out

to hug me

and whisper

in my ear,

“it’s okay,

the clouds also cry,

sometimes.”

Image credit: Pinterest

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This work is the intellectual property of Cristina Dominguez and cannot be reproduced without credit nor permission.

The summer event kicked off in Mexico yesterday with the Mexican opening ceremony and the first game of the tournament, Mexico vs South Africa (2-0). ¡Vamos Mexico! 🇲🇽

With over 1.5 BILLION people estimated to have tuned in to watch these events (source: Google, I don’t know if it has been confirmed yet), there’s no doubt it’s the World’s biggest cultural event right now.

Growing up, the World Cup was a whole function in my Mexican family. We would be glued to the television like couch potatoes all summer just to watch match after match, placing (fake) bets on which countries would advance through the ranks and which would not.

We would slice up a watermelon and eat it as the players ran across the field for 90 minutes — their country’s hopes and dreams on the line.

We would bounce up and down on our couch from the adrenaline rush from seeing Messi kick the football toward the goal, holding our breaths, wondering whether the goalie would block the ball or not.

For the most part, the World Cup is nostalgic for me, as it represents the events of my childhood and how I learned about the different countries of the world growing up.

And I think this might be the same for many people.

Each World Cup has its memories

There is a certain amount of nostalgia and reminiscing that comes with every World Cup. Apart from cultural moments and (semi-)unforgettable matches, the World Cup is meant to create and sustain memories of the current events in your life.

With the event hosted every 4 years, there’s plenty of room for a lot to happen in between.

For many people, each World Cup is a marker of who was there in their life (children, parents, partners) and who wasn’t.

The last World Cup (Qatar 2022) was the last one I watched with my family before I moved to another state on the other side of the country. It was the one that my University’s writing center streamed on their projector, while I was an employee there, just so that we could watch the games. It was also the one before my husband and I ever dated.

This World Cup is marked with new beginnings and opportunities, not just for myself but for many other people as well. It is one where an entire continent (North America) is hosting instead of just one country!

The whole event is meant to bring unity

The purpose of the World Cup isn’t political in nature; it’s simply a worldwide sporting event. Yet it is one of the most unifying events that pushes away conflict and division by uniting countries under a single goal: Winning the Champion title.

Even if the opposing team scores a goal against your team, there isn’t a feeling of rage or animosity. Sure, there’s disappointment, but also an admiration for the sportsmanship and skills of the players.

This is one of the events where you see people from completely different places and backgrounds travel to support their team and gain an appreciation and love of their host country.

For example, the Korean fans who came to support their team in Mexico:

^Image credit: The Chosun Daily

Or the Europeans who enjoy going to Walmart just to see the American products available there:

It genuinely is more than just a game

It’s a cultural experience. It’s the time of the year when you get to see someone in the street wearing a soccer jersey and cheer their team with them.

Even if you don’t watch it, you feel the ambiance of celebration surrounding the World Cup.

(Andrea Bocelli and Rumi from Huntrix singing together?)

There is a sense of positivity that comes from it. It gives me hope that as a world we can come together and see one another not as enemies but as fellow humans that we can share an emotional experience with.

As humans, we seek a sense of unity and hope, this is why the world tunes in every 4 years to cheer for their country’s team.

Thank you for reading! This post was much more for fun than my typical one.

Comment down below (or reply to this email) to let me know which team you are rooting for!

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Also, keep an eye out for tomorrow! I will be publishing an original poem titled “Tears in my coffee” on my Substack at 8 AM EST.

Thank you again,

-Cristina

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To the Maid of Orleans

who spoke with

heavenly voices of

queens and angels.

You were a peasant

turned warrior

turned lunatic

turned saint.

Were you scared

when you left home

expected to win a war

in your adolescence?

Were you scared

when you first

saw the battlefield

and forgot the sound

of childhood?

Were you scared

when you were burned

for saving France?

For seeing heaven,

before death?

Were you scared of the flames?

Or did the voices comfort

you, like your mother once did?

Thank you for reading. I wrote this poem back in college for a poetry class. I don’t remember what the prompt was, but this poem has stayed with me over the years, and I am so happy to share it with you finally.

-Cristina 💐💜

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Who are the saints?

In Catholic tradition, the path toward sainthood and complete union with God in heaven is a challenging and extremely personal one. It can seem impossible sometimes to find joy or the perseverance in sticking to the path.

That is why the saints exist. The saints are not idols to be worshipped but rather role models to look up to. They are men and women who followed God and glorified Him through their unique lives. Through the lives of the saints, Catholics can find relatable people who have already experienced the hardships of life and persevered through them. Through their example, Catholics can learn how to respond to the calling to follow God and make the world a better place through our lives.

The saints are also given the title of “Patron Saint” based on something they experienced in their life, or something that was related to their vocation.

For example, St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and nature due to the song he wrote titled “The Canticle of the Sun”.

St. Cecelia is the patron saint of musicians because of the heavenly music that she heard and sang during her wedding.

And St. Valentine is the patron saint of love and marriage because of his ministry of marrying Catholic couples in secret during times of persecution.

In the same manner, I want to be able to pick a saint to be an example for me to look up to as I continue to write this publication!

Introducing the Patron Saint of Reasonable Nonsense!

I am excited to share with you that after much prayer, I have chosen St. Joan of Arc as the patron saint of Reasonable Nonsense!

It is exciting for me to have a saint accompanying me in my creative journey and inspiring me to keep going in my writing.

So, now you might be wondering who Joan of Arc is?

Who was St. Joan of Arc?

St. Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France, soldiers, prisoners, and people ridiculed for their piety. She was canonized (formally accepted into the Catholic Church as a saint) in 1920.

She is most famous as the heroine of France for fighting in the Hundred Years’ War and helping reinstate the King of France.

More important than this is her story of origin before she led battles in this war.

Joan (or Jeanne, her French name) was born in a small village in France and never learned to read and write. She began hearing “voices” when she was 14 years old. The voices told her that it was her mission to save France and help bring an end to the war.

At first, the voices surprised her, but she later discovered that they were the heavenly voices of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret of Antioch.

Emboldened by faith, she went to a local French military commander, but he only laughed at her and called her insane for hearing voices. But she was persistent, and he eventually escorted her to meet the King of France, who was in hiding.

When she met him, she told him of the plan to reinstate him on the throne of France, of which he had been displaced by the British. He believed her because of her deep faith in God and sent her to lead a siege in Orleans.

The siege was successful, and because of this, she became known as “The Maid of Orleans”.

She gave all the glory to God, and people celebrated her throughout France, recognizing that the voices she heard were heavenly ones.

Her story, however, suffered an unfortunate turn of events.

Her later battles were not as successful, and she was wounded in battle, captured, and sold to England.

Under the English courts, she was tried as a witch for hearing “heavenly voices.” She was questioned thoroughly, and even though she had no guidance, she was able to answer their questions with boldness and sincerity.

Unfortunately, her captors exploited her lack of education by trapping her with advanced theological terms, and she was condemned and denounced. She was handed over to be punished as a heretic if she refused to retract her statements, but she stood her ground.

She was finally burned at the stake while she was still a teenager. Her final act of faith was to request a crucifix to be held high so that she might see it above the flames that took her life. 1

Why I Chose Her

I chose Joan of Arc as the patron saint of my publication because I have always found her story very compelling, although she and I have very little in common.

I have never thought of myself as a bold person, while Joan has become the definition of bravery among Catholic circles. Yet despite this, I relate to her conviction of wanting to do something great for God.

Even though I might not be called to lead a battle on the front lines of war, I feel that God has called me to write and be part of the battle of the intellect.

Also, a deeper part of why I chose her is because when she was alive (and even after her death), she was thought to be crazy and “unreasonable” for listening to her “heavenly voices”. Yet, even when she was ridiculed, she accomplished all the voices asked of her and was successful…pretty reasonable to me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I just feel that she encapsulates the message behind Reasonable Nonsense very well: “Nonsense that just makes sense”.

I, too, feel that “my internal voices” move me to cover the topics that I write about in this publication. Those voices compel me to write about things that weigh heavily in my heart and share them for the benefit of others.

I am also excited to be dedicating a section of this publication to honor St. Joan and to share with you the various things inspired by “the voices”.

Finally, Joan of Arc died when she was young (around 16 or 17). The original purpose behind this publication was to touch the lives of young adults through writing, and I think that having a young saint is perfect to keep this spirit going.

Next week, I will be sharing a poem I wrote for St. Joan of Arc back when I was still an undergraduate Creative Writing student!

I was proud to write this poem in that uncertain time in my life and am excited to share it with you!

Thank you for reading!

-Cristina 💐💜

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P.S.: If you notice, I have a new name, no, you did not imagine that or misread. I got married a while back and barely got around to changing my name on here! I am still the same Cristina 💜.

Sources

1. Source for St. Joan of Arc’s story: https://faith.nd.edu/saint/st-joan-of-arc/. A portion of this article was paraphrased in the section of this publication titled “Who was St. Joan of Arc?” All credit is given to the authors of the original article.

2. The painting of St. Joan of Arc used in this publication’s logo and header is: Joan of Arc (1865) by John Everett Millais.

3. Painting 1 of Joan receiving visions: Joan of Arc Hearing Voices by Francois Leon Benouville (1850)

4. Painting 2 of Joan receiving visions: Appearance of Saints Catherine and Michael to Joan of Arc by Hermann Anton Stilke

5. Image of Joan of Arc being burned at the stake: Jeanne d’Arc in the Panthéon de Paris, by E. Lenepveu (1889).

6. Painting 3 of Joan receiving visions: ***Joan of Arc*** by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1879)

7. Final image: Joan of Arc, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I genuinely believed this. It wasn’t until I began studying for my creative writing degree that I was greatly humbled. I was nowhere near being the best. My classmates were infinitely better than I. I wasn’t mediocre, though, more like average… nothing special. :-(

What impacted me the most was that the best writers in my classes were people who wrote about painful and terrible moments in their lives in such beautiful ways. Their writing reflected their sadness, despair, and brokenness.

I knew they needed God …

I knew I needed to do it, but I was scared

I heard a whisper in my heart that told me to be the one to bring Him to them, to be the light they needed and bring a ray of hope into their life. It was a nerve-wracking invitation, one that I rejected for a while.

I didn’t want to be one of those “Christian writers” and write sermons and preach to them with religious stories. Despite being a Catholic writer, I didn’t write theology, nor did I want to. All I wanted was to write fantasy and ghost stories.

I wanted to be able to bring hope and joy into people’s lives with my own talent. I didn’t think I needed to bring God into the mix, since it would only drive people away…the same people I wanted to reach. I was afraid that if I invited God into my writing, it would end up becoming a sermon, not a story worth sharing.

Later, I joined an online community of Christian authors. What surprised me is that the writers on there were just writing regular fiction stories: no religious drama, just dragons and secret agents.

The writers there embraced the title of “Christian writer” without the fear of it compromising their ability to write fun fiction. Instead, their ability to incorporate God into their writing allowed them to embrace their creativity and make it more fully theirs.

Everyone there felt the conviction to write for the glory of God. (The same conviction that I had felt for a long time.) Even though they wrote stories about jousting tournaments and fairies, their writing still reflected the truth, goodness, and beauty of God because they genuinely believed He gave them the gift of writing.

Despite this encounter with that writing community, I would still struggle with these thoughts about the creative process for a while longer.

Rethinking my creative life

I have had this newsletter for a while and managed it without a direct purpose. I know I wanted this publication to serve young people and bring a little joy to their lives. But how can I bring joy to others when I am hiding a big part of myself?

I would look back at my writing and discover that no matter how much I wanted to hide my creativity from God, He was always there, like a subtle motif of a bird song.

He was a part of me, something I had repressed for a long time, and I felt incomplete because of it.

I discovered that I find more joy in my writing by working alongside God and letting Him guide where my writing takes me, rather than shoving Him aside, doing all the work myself, and then showing Him the final (oftentimes messy) product, expecting a seal of approval. This process kept leaving me unmotivated and undisciplined.

I needed a new goal behind my writing.

I knew that the only way to become the writer I wanted to be was by giving God the credit for my talent and letting Him guide me through it. (Much like Master Yoda and Luke Skywalker). My new reason for writing was to let the light of God’s beauty shine through my writing, even through the darkest words I write!

Fighting back against AI

This new mission in my writing also stemmed from trying to find meaning as a creative person in this new AI world, where art has been treated like a microwave meal instead of a spiritual and personal process.

After seeing the soulless art being generated online, I knew I needed to transform and invite the Creator to my creative space. I can’t compete with the machines in terms of speed or quantity, but I sure can bring a human and divine quality to my writing that they will never be able to produce.

I know this might not have been the reason you joined this newsletter, and this is not the original purpose I had in mind when I started posting… But the creative process is one of consistent rediscovery and renewal.

My new mission

I will continue to write fiction, poetry, and posts appreciating the human experience; the only “rebrand” is that I will be writing through the lens of my beliefs. This transition of incorporating God into my fiction, poetry, and posts will not be seamless, and I still have a lot to learn! But I want to give it my best efforts to join my creativity to the divine.

I wish to write to contribute to the world positively and participate in the ongoing discussion of humanity that has been going on for many, many centuries. I want to bring hope to the world through the underlying message of the good news.

I am excited to take on this renewed endeavor from a different point of view and give it new value in Christ.

Thank you for reading, and many blessings!

-Cristina💐

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I know that was last week, but it’s technically still Easter 🐣✝️.

I know I’ve been out of this platform, and I haven’t kept up with any of my writing either on here or personally.

Life has gotten much busier now that I’ve “grown up.” I finally got married this past February! After what seemed an eternity of a year and the stress and tears of wedding planning (far from the bliss I was promised in social media), my husband and I finally met at the altar and promised to love one another for life!

It does feel like a shift, a season that I’ll enjoy for the rest of my life. 😊

After our wedding, my husband and I got our own apartment…across the country…far away from home. (1600 miles away from home, actually).

Being in a different state and having to learn to live in a new city has really rattled my world. (But that’s a topic for another day.)

I filed my taxes this year, and I look back at last year and remember how I reacted to filing taxes, and I can’t help but smile at how naive I sound.

Who knew how much your perception of life would change in 365 days?

Which brings me to share the news of this newsletter moving forward!

Where I Came From and Where I’m Going

When I first began this project, I was nearing the end of my Bachelor’s degree. I hadn’t lived as anything but a student for most of my life. All my life experience was school.

I didn’t know how to deal with the upcoming change in my life, and didn’t know who to go to.

So, I started this newsletter as a way to make sense of life and to connect with people who could relate to my experience.

This newsletter accomplished its purpose of allowing me to cross the bridge of studenthood to adulthood. My life has changed so much to the point that I no longer relate to the topic that started this project.

It saddens me to think that those days are over, yet it fills me with excitement to see what lies beyond.

I know in my heart that I can no longer write about the “Young Adult” experience, since it is a reality that cannot fully be captured in words. I mean it can… It’s just not something that interests me anymore.

I have been praying and meditating on where to take Reasonable Nonsense in this new season of life, and I think that God has given me a very specific answer.

So, I wanted to announce that I will be rebranding this newsletter!

This decision came out of much meditation of who I’ve become as a person and what I want to share with the world. I don’t just want to share things as a writer but as a human who is experiencing the same events you are.

I have also found that in this time of uncertainty, what has brought me peace time and time again has been my Catholic faith. Whenever people or situations have let me down, the one person who hasn’t has always been God. I wish to honor Him with my writing and share the joy of my faith with you, my reader.

This newsletter will not become an exclusively religious work. But I am just a writer who is Catholic. You cannot take that away from me; my faith will always find a way to show itself in my art, whether I want to show it or not.

My goal is to share the truth, goodness, and beauty found in art, specifically human art, which is divine in nature.

I want to explore new topics with my newsletter, such as what it is to be human in a highly AI-generated world. (I’ll share more about it in a future post!)

In the coming weeks, I will be updating my Substack pages, sharing with you all my new publication logo and my “Why I Write” post.

I just want to express my appreciation for all of you who have stuck with me through the silence and who will now join me through the rebrand and change of season.

Know that all my work, I do it with you in mind.

Thank you for reading, and I cannot wait to share more with you in the coming weeks!

Many Blessings!

-Cristina 💐