Lin Wilder's Blog, page 28

The Problem with the Catholic Church

The problem with the Catholic Church


The problem with the Catholic Church is the crucifix.

That was the first sentence of an article published shortly after my conversion to Catholicism. That there could be meaning in suffering was a concept which both beckoned and baffled me. My career in academic medicine and doctoral studies had been aimed at preventing or at least mitigating suffering. Consequently the Catholic spotlight on the Cross, and St. Paul’s exhortations throughout Corinthians …

…But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles

fascinated and repelled, yet felt eerily logical.

A lifelong writer, finding the search for the right word can be maddening. Mark Twain credits his mentor, William Dean Howells with an unerring ability to come up with that elusive and shifty grain of gold: the RIGHT WORD.

Indeed.

But are there some concepts, ideas, or events which are too huge, splendid, majestic or mysterious to fit in words?

Even those of the finest craftsman?

My mid-life conversion to Catholicism was perplexing to friends. After listening to my explanation, one friend, a former Catholic declared, “The problem with the Catholic Church is the crucifix.”

Bob was expounding on his decision to leave his childhood Catholic faith and embrace evangelical Protestantism. The Catholics emphasized the crucified Christ rather then the Resurrected Savior like the Protestants,  a far more positive faith rather than the “negativity” represented by the crucifix, he explained.

After over twenty years as a Catholic, I have come to believe that there are some things for which the right word cannot be found. Like faith. St. Paul comes close.

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for,

the evidence of what is not yet seen.

At the daily Mass celebrating the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,

I was enthralled by the way Fr. Chris Kanowitz began his homily for the day.

Wordlessly, he strode to the back of the church and touched a button which resulted in a large screen rolling down from the ceiling; since the screen is normally used for financial appeals or reports, he had peaked our curiosity.

The priest explained that he had an opportunity to view El Greco’s, Christ Carrying the Cross, at the El Greco museum in Toledo while in Spain a number of years ago. Fr. Chris pointed out the three most salient features of this painting:

Christ’s posture,
His eyes,
And the expression of serenity on His face in spite of the drops of blood visible under the crown of thorns.

Rather than the weakened, emaciated, crippled figure which we expect, El Greco’s Christ stands tall, his head raised. His eyes are wide open, clear; His attention is riveted upward, directed at His Father with whom He is One, elegant hands and fingers embracing the cross.

For mysteries like suffering our attention is best directed to wordless images -ineffable-of what cannot fit within the bounded language of man.

Rather we could spend years contemplating this ineffable painting of El Greco’s Christ who strides forth, eagerly embracing what is to come. Like a warrior, doing battle for you and for me.

The problem with the Catholic Church…

On this last day of our liturgical year 2020, the Feast of Christ the King, King of the Universe, we could end that sentence with an astounding variety of causes, could we not? There is no need to list them, for the chaos in the church functions as a magnet to the media.

But in these last months of Covid-driven fear, election polemics exceeding any I have witnessed in my life, and an elected President whose professed Catholic faith confounds me, I ponder this painting.

In his magnificent  Christ Carrying the Cross. El Greco seizes our hearts, psyche along with our vision to draw them up to Him:

A Gaze which is not merely steadfast, but inexorable.
Whose eyes are luminous.
And whose beautifully sculpted, graceful fingers clasp the Cross-tenderly- as one would a lover.

 

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Extrovert, Introvert or Ambivert: Which One Fits You?

Extrovert, ambivert ot introvert ?



Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert?

Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert: Which one fits?

“Hey Margaret, I’ve discovered I’m not an extrovert but an introvert!” After listening to my score on author Susan Cain’s twenty- question introvert versus extrovert questionnaire, along with my observation of my husband’s classically extroverted behavior contrasted with my own, my friend from undergraduate days response was a hearty laugh followed by, “Lin, we’re both introverts! It’s just taken us years to figure it out!”

If you have spent more a week in the corporate world, then the Meyers Brigg Inventory is undoubtedly familiar to you; perhaps you too hesitated when you were answering the questions which would clearly lead to the “diagnosis” of introvert versus extrovert. There were no other options but that error has been rectified by ambivert- more on that later.

Since we live in the world inhabited by “The Extrovert Ideal”, author of Quiet, Susan Cain estimates that a third to half of Americans are by nature, introverted, but do daily battle to persuade themselves and others that they are extroverts.

Why?

Because “introvert” conjures up this, right?

Introvert



Our corporate cultures are frequently prejudiced against the introvert,

therefore the thoughtful, reflective type of person is well aware of the expectations of her superiors and employees and most of us answer the questions in a way befitting the image of a boss, a Director, a CEO.

The basis of the Meyer Briggs Inventory is simplified Jungian psychology -an oxymoron since Carl Jung’s personality theory is far from simple. The test condenses Jung’s personality analysis into categories: Introvert equals shy, passive and weak while Extrovert implies strength, leadership and courage. Although these simple ratios have some semblance of relation to Jung’s theory of basic personality, the reality is a good deal more complicated. The result is what Cain describes as the extrovert ideal.

Cain, a closet introvert who has recently “come out”, argues that all major institutions, from church to corporation favor the extrovert with their relentless emphasis on group activities of all forms and purposes.
The extrovert ideal is simply another ploy that our culture holds over those who tend to stand back and watch when in a big group; prefer to write rather than speak.

Pondering about these questions for the nth time, I wonder if it’s way less complicated than is suggested by the theorists.

While in my corporate life, I was immersed in the activities that befit my position and was considered by most as very extroverted, out-going, self-assured and confident.

But when that phase of my life ended and I began to write fiction, I realized that I preferred books or writing to casual conversation; that in a crowd of strangers, my husband would be out and about introducing himself to people and enjoying their conversation while I couldn’t wait to get back to the article I needed to finish or the great book I was reading. Enjoying the fact that no longer am I required to present a certain image or pay attention to a member of the board of trustees.

All of which results in my realizing that there are situations where I act like an extrovert but that my current vocation as writer fits perfectly with a more introverted self. Ergo: An Ambivert!

With all respect to those who created the Myers Briggs Inventory,

I think the categories of extrovert, introvert or ambivert are like all labels: woefully deficient in understanding ourselves or another. [Including but not limited to Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal.]

Jung’s warning about our predilection for quick and easy compartmentalizing was ignored even by his peers:

Even in medical circles the opinion has got about that my method of treatment consists in fitting patients into this system and giving them corresponding “advice.” . . . My typology is far rather a critical apparatus serving to sort out and organize the welter of empirical material, but not in any sense to stick labels on people . . . . It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimiting of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.

Jung Personality Types

Thanks to Wharton Professor Adam Grant, some of the biases in favor of extroverts are being reversed. A study Grant conducted of more than 300 sales people revealed that extroverted sales persons were less successful than those who fit in neither the introvert or extrovert category.

Right, the ambiverts were the winners over either the extrovert or introvert.

If you can overlook my patently obvious love/hate relationship with labels, want to see where you fall on Adam Grant’s survey? Take Grant’s quizand find out!

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Quo Vadis America: Revolution of Jefferson or St-Just?

Quo Vadis America?.



Quo Vadis America: Revolution of Jefferson or St-Just?

The satanic character of the French Revolution does not lie in the deposing or even in the execution of a king but in the raising up of that ancient god, the State, in place not of the king but of God Himself. “The general will” is what the regicide Saint-Just called it, identifying it with morality and virtue that come to be by the inexorable march of historical development. “Our aim is to create an order of things,” he said, “which establishes a universal tendency toward good.” [Italics are mine]. And the State is a pitiless god, mainly because the State is not personal at all. Saint-Just needed no pity for Louis Capet: he was not a man prosecuting a man, but historical inevitability prosecuting the very idea of kingship. “Either the virtues or the Terror,” said Saint-Just, and by “the virtues” he meant conformity with the general will. Be politically correct, or die.

Babylon is Falling

Anthony Esolen’s quote of one of the Prime Movers of the French Revolution, Antoine St-Just is jaw-dropping. Not just because of the irrational nature of St-Just’s words but more their awful relevance to these precise days while we await the outcome of an election in which half of the country seems hell-bent on replacing the Creator of the Universe with The State.

Several weeks ago, a friend sent a sixty-odd year old video of Bishop Fulton Sheen

speaking about the revolution of the sixties.: “my revolution” and maybe yours. More on that video in a moment. With ease, unfortunately, I can recall my arrogance about what was right and wrong, of the hypocrisy of religion, of the fact that the only difference between men and women is physiological and that my mother had wasted her life by staying home to be a wife and mother. I could go on but suspect you get it.

Of course, I was hardly unique. They were very heady times for the college-aged of my generation: all the rules were questioned…especially those governing women and their roles. And for most of us, just like the revolutionaries of today, we had no idea of what we were unleashing. Again, precisely like the majority of today’s insurgents, we thought we understood the revolution-based history of America and its contemporary across the Atlantic, the French Revolution.

Who was Antoine St-Just?

Indeed.

At twenty-one years old, St-Just “electrified” the newly created French National Convention with his commanding speech about the deposed King of France: “As for me”, he declared, “I see no middle ground: this man must reign or die! He oppressed a free nation; he declared himself its enemy; he abused the laws: he must die to assure the repose of the people, since it was in his mind to crush the people to assure his own.”

Many of us believe that the French Revolution mirrored ours. Who could argue with Liberty, Fraternity and Equality? Who could argue with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789?

Unless the words are carefully read and understood.

Unless one carefully notes the words that do not appear,

Earlier this week, I decided to watch that video sent by my friend.

Bishop Fulton Sheen efficiently extinguishes any similarity between the American and the French Revolution calling ours the Jeffersonian revolution and the French, that of St-Just. In just twenty-four minutes, his talk, Quo Vadis, America, amplifies Anthony Esolen’s characterization of St-Just’s revolution as Satanic.

Sheen begins by stating that there are two kinds of revolutions. He distinguishes the “Jeffersonian American Revolution” versus St-Just’s this way:

The Jeffersonian was based on the dignity of man: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.The conviction that all rights and liberties come from God.St-Just exhorted that the way to power was through terror-the way to control people is through violence.People can be taught that the only way to save themselves is through violence.St-Justian Revolution is based on a “new elite”- a loud and dominant minority who force their will on the majority and aMysticism which eclipses the old spiritual mysticism-my will or nothing. God and religion are the enemy. An attraction to Satanism



As I complete this article for tomorrow’s posting, I see that

the Democratic nominee for President, Joe Biden has won the popular vote and “is the 46th President of the United States” awaiting the Electoral College meeting in mid- December. More sorrowful for that decision of my fellow Americans than any of my words can adequately express, I look to one of the founders of our country:

“It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect, at least: it will inspire us with many virtues, which we have not, and correct many errors, follies, and vices, which threaten to disturb, dishonor, and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals. And the new governments we are assuming, in every part, will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues or there will be no blessings… But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence; in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.”
 
John Adams, July 3, 1776

A quick postscript for those of us-like me- who overlooked the fact that Biden is projected to be the winner of this election. Father Frank Pavone a video recorded today called Biden Has Not Won! the head of the Pro-Life movement for the Catholic Church reminds is of the Constitutional process of which the media has no part. The media are manipulating viewers-Gasp!

Each state must certify that either Biden or Trump has won. Hundreds of thousands of ballots are still being counted in many states. Further, he reminds us, in states where the margins are “razor thin,” there will be a recount.

And we thought it was over…

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Arrogance and Scorn have now grown strong.

arrogance and scorn



“Arrogance and scorn have now grown strong;

it is a time of disaster and violent anger.” The speaker is Mattathias in the first book of Maccabees. “King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, each abandoning his particular customs. All the Gentiles conformed to the command of the king, and many Israelites were in favor of his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.”

Taken from the Monday Office of Readings of the Divine Office, the words of the ancient king ring eerily familiar 2300 years later. All should be one people meant forgoing the Law…”letting themselves be defiled with every kind of impurity and abomination, so that they might forget the law and change all their observances.”

Primary among the reasons that I love praying the Liturgy of the Hours is the reflection I see in the mirror provided by these Old Testament readings. A panorama which reveals clearly my own sin and those of all around me.

Love a panorama of sin?

Sounds odd when put that way but here is why I wrote that. We tend to think that ours are the worst of days: when compared with earlier times, we believe our politicians to be the most corrupt, our wars to be the most brutal, and our depravities to exceed any of those who came before us.

To assure that Hellenization would be followed throughout the land, Antiochus appointed inspectors to assure that all were following Greek customs and declaring obeisance to the Greek gods. Including Judah-Israel. Altars were desecrated, holy scrolls burned, and all observing the law were put to death. Jewish women with circumcised babies were murdered along with their child, found with their dead infants hanging around their necks.

These were the barbarous methods used in the third century before the birth of Christ on those refusing to conform with the king’s command to walk away from the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

Unimaginable?

Think again.

The persecution lasted throughout the life of Mattathias

He exhorted his sons as he lay dying: “Arrogance and scorn have grown strong; it is a time of disaster and violent anger. Therefore my sons, be zealous for the law and give your life for the covenant of our fathers.”

I find the knowledge that ours is not the worst strangely comforting. For, of course, He shows us that the life of His followers is one of persecution. That He knows our sin far more intimately than any of us could withstand.

There, then, in that most awful hour, knelt the Saviour of the world, putting off the defences of His divinity, dismissing His reluctant Angels, who in myriads were ready at His call, and opening His arms, baring His breast, sinless as He was, to the assault of His foe,—of a foe whose breath was a pestilence, and whose embrace was an agony. There He knelt, motionless and still, while the vile and horrible fiend clad His spirit in a robe steeped in all that is hateful and heinous in human crime, which clung close round His heart, and filled His conscience, and found its way into every sense and pore of His mind, and spread over Him a moral leprosy, till He almost felt Himself to be that which He never could {337} be, and which His foe would fain have made Him.
Oh, the horror, when He looked, and did not know Himself, and felt as a foul and loathsome sinner, from His vivid perception of that mass of corruption which poured over His head and ran down even to the skirts of His garments! Oh, the distraction, when He found His eyes, and hands, and feet, and lips, and heart, as if the members of the Evil One, and not of God!
Are these the hands of the Immaculate Lamb of God, once innocent, but now red with ten thousand barbarous deeds of blood? are these His lips, not uttering prayer, and praise, and holy blessings, but as if defiled with oaths, and blasphemies, and doctrines of devils? or His eyes, profaned as they are by all the evil visions and idolatrous fascinations for which men have abandoned their adorable Creator?
And His ears, they ring with sounds of revelry and of strife; and His heart is frozen with avarice, and cruelty, and unbelief; and His very memory is laden with every sin which has been committed since the fall, in all regions of the earth, with the pride of the old giants, and the lusts of the five cities, and the obduracy of Egypt, and the ambition of Babel, and the unthankfulness and scorn of Israel…

St John Henry Newman

St. Paul explains.

“According to the law, almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness…but the heavenly realities called for better sacrifices. For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a mere copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself now on our behalf. …He has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sins once for all by his sacrifice…”

It feels overwhelming does it not? But we are given someone who can tell us precisely what to do when we feel that it’s all too much, too hard.

They’d been out all night and caught nothing. In fact, when Jesus tells him to ‘put out your boat into deep water and lower your nets for a catch,’ St. Peter replies that they’ have worked hard all night and caught nothing.’
Why does he then go back out? Why the immediacy of Peter’s added, “But at your command, I will lower the nets…
It is all too tempting to ascribe Peter’s mysterious answer to what we know now about Peter, he is after all a saint. It was Peter to whom God the father gave the knowledge of Christ as the Messiah. But there’s a part of us that knows we’re dodging the meaning of what Luke is telling us here…or more accurately, perhaps it is that part of us that hopes we can overcome our fatigue, our exhaustion…so that when we hear His voice telling us to take the risk, open our mouth, put out into the deep, we’ll hear with Peter:
Be not afraid, from now on you will be catching men. ”

St Peter’s Catch

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A Tribute to Wisdom: The Corporate Nature of Prayer

a tribute to wisdom


A tribute to wisdom.

Even as a a college kid, wisdom was frequently the word I used. Not education, but it was wisdom I was after. Looking back, I see the desire as providential, because I got into the habit of searching—a good thing, I think. That is… if one is clear about her goal.

Once back as a believer, one of the very first things I did was to read the Bible. Although much of what I read was opaque-even incomprehensible, two books seemed oddly familiar. Reading the books of Wisdom and the Psalms felt right…fitting…packed full of precisely what I hungered for.

Many years later, while experiencing a prolonged period of what my then spiritual director would explain was desolation, I came upon these words in the Office of Readings of the Divine Liturgy.

…..wisdom is the refulgence of eternal light,

the spotless mirror of the power of God,

the image of his goodness.

And she, who is one, can do all things,

renewing everything while herself perduring;

And passing into holy souls from age to age,

she produces friends of God and prophets.

Lectio Divina- A Tribute to wisdom.

I spent close to an hour on that stanza, each word feeling like drops of gentle rain on my soul. There was so much contained there. Each word acted like balm, the most precious of ointments.

When I told my spiritual director, Father Paul McCollum about the experience, I began to cry, the emotions far too intense to be released in any other fashion. Two of the primary elements of my intense reaction were the phrase “producing friends of God” and the use of the pronoun “She.” I was affected so powerfully that I could not speak about it.

Very gently, he asked, “You know what has happened to you, right?”

To my non-verbal shake of the head, Fr. Paul explained this process of desolation followed by consolation that our Lord sometimes uses with the faithful.

The Corporate Nature of Prayer

What does that even mean? Any why talk about ‘corporate prayer?’

Why indeed? 

This perfect storm of “coincidences” has been spreading for seven months and there seems no hope for relief:

A global pandemic of illness, fear, and economic catastrophe.
Worldwide closing of churches due to fear of contagion.
 A time of unprecedented political enmity.
Rioters in major cities who seem to be receiving mysterious financial support and have adopted the symbol of the French Revolution- the guillotine to demonstrate their desire to overthrow all social order.
A significant and growing proportion of Americans – of humanity- who have lost any conception of God, His Law, and the extraordinary gift of Life brought by the Resurrection of the Christ.

That phrase, “corporate nature of prayer,” connotes mega-corporations and bureaucracy- the antithesis of prayer. But it’s the origin of the word, corpartus or ‘to form into a body’ that I write about here. For we are a body- we baptized Christians. Even if the Baptism is but a faint memory and you make jokes about the last time you were in a church.

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…”

And so when I pray the Office, and when I meditate on some passage that pierces my psyche and heart, I am praying for you…even if you think you no longer believe in God.

Despite the feelings of loneliness, fear, and depression that periodically overwhelm, trust that I and all the faithful are praying for you. For we know that right now, you cannot pray for yourself. “For through Him we have access to the Father, we are strangers and sojourners no more but fellow citizens with the saints and the members of God’s household.”

A Tribute to Wisdom: The Corporate Nature of Prayer.

For in her [Wisdom] is a spirit

   intelligent, holy, unique,

Manifold, subtle, agile,

   clear, unstained, certain,

Not baneful, loving the good, keen,

    unhampered, beneficent, kindly,

Firm, secure,tranquil

    all-powerful, all-seeing,

And pervading all spirits,

   though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.

For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion,

   and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason

       of her purity.

For she is an aura of the might of God

      and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty;

      therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.

For she is the refulgence of eternal light,

      the spotless mirror of the power of God,

       the image of his goodness.

And she, who is one, can do all things,

       and renews everything while herself perduring; 

And passing into holy souls from age to age,

        she produces friends of God and prophets.

For there is nought God loves, be it not one who dwells

        with Wisdom.

For she is fairer than the sun

        and surpasses every constellation of the stars.

Compared to light, she takes precedence;

        for that, indeed, night supplants,

        but wickedness prevails not over Wisdom.

Book of Wisdom 7: 15-30

 

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Why Look Back to the Ancients?

Why look back to the ancients?


Why look back to the Ancients: Aurelius, Seneca, and the Stoics?

Why would we want to return to one of the last Roman Emperors and Greek philosophers who personified rigorous self-denial, extreme fortitude and emotional indifference?

Perhaps because we live in an age characterized by self-indulgence, cowardice, and untrammeled emotion?

One of the very first books I devoured as a college undergrad was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. A college professor I admired greatly and have written about in previous posts would liberally quote Aurelius’ pithy observations.

I had walked away from God and all things religious but was ferociously searching to replace the deep faith of my childhood. A search which would last for a very long time. Meanwhile, I encountered friends like Aurelius along the way.

The appeal of Marcus Aurelius [if you have never read Meditations, click here for free PDF] 

and his underlying philosophy of stoicism are based on three foundations or ‘disciplines’: perception, action and will. Concepts which conflict with much of what is sold as American culture by the media, Hollywood and even politics. But more than intriguing to more than a few of us who seek what is real and lasting…Truth.

That perception varies from person to person is evident. But why what one person views as a crisis and the next as challenge, not so much. Take failure for example. Chinese billionaire Jack Ma prides himself on the numerous times he has crashed and burned. 

One explanation for Ma’s unusual perspective might be a training in objectivity- the ability to remain detached from events around us. Freeing ourselves from the notion of intrinsic good and evil.

 For Aurelius, our actions are inextricably bound with others. Because we are are all participants in the Logos, the universe is an orderly and hierarchical place. 

We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for
others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our
relationships with others we must work for their collective
good, while treating them justly and fairly as individuals…

The last precept of Aurelius and the Stoics is that of will. Hay explains in his preface to the Meditations that while the discipline of action governs those things in our control, that of will determines our response to those events which lie outside our control.

…we must see
things for what they are (here the discipline of perception is
relevant) and accept them, by exercising the discipline of
will, or what Epictetus calls (in a phrase quoted by Marcus)
“the art of acquiescence.” For if we recognize that all events
have been foreseen by the logos and form part of its plan,
and that the plan in question is unfailingly good (as it must
be), then it follows that we must accept whatever fate has in
store for us, however unpleasant it may appear, trusting that,
in Alexander Pope’s phrase, “whatever is, is right.” This
applies to all obstacles and (apparent) misfortunes, and in
particular to death—a process that we cannot prevent, which
therefore does not harm us, and which accordingly we must
accept willingly as natural and proper.
Together, the three disciplines constitute a comprehensive approach to life…

Rolling the clock forward a few decades,

I found immersed once again in Aurelius, Seneca and the Stoics when, to my great surprise, I switched from writing medical mysteries to historical fiction. In researching the early education of well-to-do Romans like Pontius Pilate, I learned that they were schooled at home- frequently by Greek tutors.

My friend Paul, who normally does not read fiction, commented recently about the idiosyncratic relationship between the conquering Romans and the ostensibly subjugated Greeks made explicit in my Rather than extinguishing the wisdom of the Greeks, the Roman Emperors assimilated Greek philosophy and language into the culture of the Roman Empire: A glaring contrast with the prevailing culture of today.

Those few years I spent embedded in ancient Rome, Greece and Israel renewed and deepened my admiration and even reverence for those learned men in search of wisdom. 

For now, these people were my allies—but I knew it would take just a whisper to awaken their enmity. I suspected that Caiaphas could incite murderous rage among these Hebrews if he chose to do so, and direct it squarely against Rome and me.

Theirs was a religious fervor I could not grasp. I had made the requisite sacrifices to Mars, just as all legionnaires did, since my childhood days. But, did I honestly believe in this deity and his power to protect me? Did I believe in the others, with their specific powers and causes?

The truth was, if I embraced any religion at all, it was Stoicism. My Greek tutors had schooled me in the writings of Xeno and Epictetus. Foundational to me was the belief that, through the forces of will and discipline, I could control my own affections, opinions, bodily appetites, and the like. And, when it came to the things outside of my control—the things controlled by the opinions of others such as position and prestige, or matters of illness and death—I resigned myself to accept what came my way with equanimity. With every cell of my being, I knew that it was my own mastery of myself that had effected the truce with Caiaphas—not the will of a remote god.

Of late, I had discovered the work of a young Spaniard named Seneca, also a Stoic, and had gone so far as to write to him, advising that I had memorized a passage of his I admired:

“The sovereign good of man is a mind that subjects all things to itself, and is itself subject to nothing: his pleasures are modest, severe, and reserved: and rather the sauce or the diversion of life than the entertainment of it. It may be some question whether such a man goes to heaven, or heaven comes to him: for a good man is influenced by God himself, and has a kind of divinity within him. What if one good man lives in pleasure and plenty, and another in want and misery? It is no virtue to contemn superfluities, but necessities: and they are both of them equally good, though under several circumstances, and in different stations.”

I, Claudia

[image error]

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Fatima: A New and Magnificent Film

FATIMA
Fatima-150RC – Jorge Lamelas, Alejandra Howard and Stephanie Gil star in Fatima, an uplifting story about the power of faith.
Photo Credit: Claudio Iannone
©2020 PICTUREHOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



Fatima: A new and magnificent film

Most of us know the story, or at least its outline. But for me, it was history, Fatima statues and primarily warnings from the Mother of God. The recently released film produced by Origin Entertainment highlights the oldest of the three visionaries, Lucia, with an astounding and mesmerizing performance by fourteen-year-old Spanish actress Stephanie Gil. Astounding and mesmerizing because of the seeming ease with which Gil portrays the simple faith of a child. A child who becomes a visionary, seeing what no one else sees, hearing what no one else does and suffering the awful consequences of wisdom from everyone in her tiny village. Starting with her mother.

Taking thirteen years to make, (three years to write the screen play) this movie Fatima: A magnificent film about redemptive suffering, has so much to teach us citizens of our darkened 21st century. So many lessons for religious and non alike, that it is difficult to know where to start. So I’ll turn to the reviews.

Like these two from the Chicago Sun Times and Roger Ebert:

The moving film starring Sonia Braga and Harvey Keitel depicts the skepticism of a 10-year-old’s mother, mayor and priest. In the flourishing faith-based movie genre, this is one of the better ones.
You don’t necessarily expect to see Harvey Keitel pop into a movie about the Marian apparitions seen by three small children in 1917 Portugal, but there he is, clad in black, cloaked in skepticism and asking tough questions about Our Lady of Fatima.
Spoiler alert: Keitel’s Nichols isn’t an early 20th century Portuguese detective. He appears in flash-forward scenes as a non-believer author working on a book about the visions and is interviewing the elderly and graceful Sister Lucia (the great Brazilian actress Sonia Braga) about her claims she and her two cousins were repeatedly visited as children by the Virgin Mary.

To say Lucia’s claims are met with doubt is an understatement. The well-meaning parish priest, Father Ferreira (Joaquim de Almeida), is convinced the children are lying and calls on the church hierarchy to come disavow these dangerous lies.

The bulk of this beautiful, moving and nuanced faith-based film from director Marco Pontecorvo is set in and around Fatima, Portugal, with Stephanie Gil turning in fine work as 10-year-old Lucia, who, with her younger cousins Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) and Francisco (Jorge Lamelas), is visited by the Virgin Mary (Joana Ribeiro), who tells Lucia she must pray hard and endure much suffering to help bring about the end of the war.

Chicago Sun Times

Marco Pontecorvo is the son of the legendary Gillo Pontecorvo (“Battle of Algiers”). He has worked mostly in television, and “Fatima” is his third feature. For “Fatima,” he and his co-screenwriters Valerio D’Annunzio and Barbara Nicolosi, use a framing device: in 1989, an author and professional skeptic (Harvey Keitel) visits the aging Sister Lúcia (Sônia Braga) in her Carmelite convent in Coimbra to interview her about her experiences. Over the course of the film, Keitel’s character raises questions, interrogates her testimony, and Sister Lúcia answers forthrightly, sometimes teasing him with little quips, a twinkle in her eye. (People who went to visit Lúcia over the years mention her sharp sense of humor.) These conversations provide space for the philosophical and theological questions the story presents. Keitel’s manner with Sister Lúcia is respectful and both allow the other to have their say. “Not everything unexplainable is necessarily transcendent,” Keitel says. Sister Lúcia responds, “Faith begins at the edge of understanding.” While there is a gap between the characters that will probably never be bridged, their conversation is invigorating, a healthy debate that avoids polarizing hostility.

RogerEbert.com

Fatima: a new and magnificent film about redemptive suffering

Fundamental to faith is the utility of suffering, that our embrace of our own anguish, however small or great, can unite us to Christ in unique and mysterious ways. To much of the world that statement is, at the least, foolish, at the most, abhorrent, even evil. I understand, because I spent years of my life believing that the suffering and indignities I witnessed among too many patients in the academic medical center where I worked were appalling and unnecessary.

That suffering could be used to serve a purpose, be ennobling, even redemptive, for him who suffers and potentially others if so desired was alien, cruel, even crazy in my pre-Catholic reality. That is until the divine two by four: Upon the act of conversion, the divine ‘two by four’ flattens everything in its path. Just like St. Paul says, We are made new. Nothing is the same once the blinders are removed:

I recall the horror with which a friend greeted my new Catholic understanding of suffering quite clearly. The notion that Peter could use his anguish over losing his girl-friend was so shocking that he literally backed out the door of our house. His burgeoning interest in returning to the Catholic faith of his childhood vanished soon after that conversation.

The real star of Fatima is the ten-year-old Lucia

who takes-and acts on- the words of the Lady in White literally. Despite the relentless, even unbelievable cruelty from all the adults surrounding her, the child obeys without question. Understanding that what is told to her is truth.

“You must pray hard and suffer much…” is accepted and practiced at each insult, threat and torture devised by the scheming bureaucrats of church and state. This film about redemptive suffering shouts loudly to those of us encased in futile hand-wringing about the sickness of all creation: humanity and our damaged earth.

“This was a remote faith-filled village in Portugal over a hundred years ago. Protected from the seduction of television, social media, riots, and the endless justifications of evil. How much worse would it be if she appeared today?” I opined to my husband as we sat watching the credits following the end of the movie.

“It was no different then, Lin, “John replied. “Those villagers were riddled with the same mean-spirited, petty, jealous, and small mindedness of all of us.”

It’s so easy to complicate sin…make it humongous, placing it outside of me, outside this heart which is all too eager to compare, demean and criticize another.

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The Problem with the Catholic Church

The problem with the Catholic Church is the crucifix. That was the first sentence of an article published shortly after my conversion to Catholicism. That there could be meaning in suffering was a concept which both beckoned and baffled me. My career in academic medicine and doctoral studies had been aimed at preventing or at […]

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Extrovert, Introvert or Ambivert: Which One Fits You?

Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert? Extrovert, introvert or Ambivert: Which one fits? “Hey Margaret, I’ve discovered I’m not an extrovert but an introvert!” After listening to my score on author Susan Cain’s twenty- question introvert versus extrovert questionnaire, along with my observation of my husband’s classically extroverted behavior contrasted with my own, my friend from undergraduate […]

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Quo Vadis America: Revolution of Jefferson or St-Just?

Quo Vadis America: Revolution of Jefferson or St-Just? The satanic character of the French Revolution does not lie in the deposing or even in the execution of a king but in the raising up of that ancient god, the State, in place not of the king but of God Himself. “The general will” is what […]

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