MYOB is the greatest export out of Iowa-"Mind Your Own Business". My mother taught me not to gossip, as did the good nuns. We did not talk about other peoples' lives at all at home. We were idea people and people who talked about the Church or science, or the hobby of all Iowans, politics.
We did not even talk about our relatives. And, good thing, too.
The Pope's admonition is fantastic. One of the greatest blessings about the silence of the convent is that there is no wasted talk; no gossip, no slander, no trivia, no winging. I loved it.
I raised my son in some silence and the ability to MYOB.
Here is a snippet from the Pope's talk.
"We supply misinformation: we tell only half that suits us and not the other half, the other half we do not say because it is not convenient for us. Some smile ... Is that true or not? Did you see that thing? It goes on. The second is defamation: When a person truly has a flaw, it is big, they tell it, 'like a journalist' ... And the character of this person is ruined. And the third is the slander of saying things that are not true. It is like killing ones brother! All three - disinformation, defamation and slander - are sins! This is sin! It is to slap Jesus in the person of his children, his brothers. "
That is why Jesus does with us what he did with Peter when he says: "What is it to you? Follow me, "The Lord in this instance" points the way ":
"'This kind of talk will not do you any good, because it will just bring to the Church a spirit of destruction. Follow me! '. These are the beautiful words of Jesus, it is so clear, that he has so much love for us. As if to say: 'Don’t have fantasies, believing that salvation is in the comparisons with others or in gossip. Salvation is to go behind me '. Following Jesus! Today we ask the Lord Jesus to give us this grace not to ever get involved in the lives of others, not to become Christians of good manners and bad habits, it is to follow Jesus, to walk behind Jesus on his way. And this is enough. "
Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/18/pope:_avoid_the_temptation_to_interfere/en1-693294
of the Vatican Radio website
