The whole of your education has been one grand, sweeping gesture of hope. With all the flaws and failings of your school and the educational system in general — flaws and failings that you probably see better than anyone else — what it all says if you really let yourself listen is that a great multitude have said that “You are worth investing in. We place our hope in you. Not for our sake, but for yours.”... read more at OSV
‘Outcasts’: A film for our time
At its best, art puts us in contact with what is true, good, and beautiful in a new and creative way. Art can reveal what was hidden, remind us of what we have forgotten, and usher us towards what we might otherwise avoid.
Art can also, easily, do the opposite of all these things: it can numb us, distract us, saturate us, and move us away from what is true, good, and beautiful.
Perhaps no form of art is as regularly immersive as filmmaking, and thus as potentially powerful either for good or ill. Film surrounds us with both images and sound, with movement and development, with the appearance of what is real and the invitation for reconsidering reality. Therefore, when one person describes a certain film as “a kind of moving icon” and another says it is “a sermon for our age,” it is hard not to take notice. But this is precisely what Outcasts from Grassroots Film is: it is a startling, challenging, necessary, and inspiring look into the light of Christ shining—vibrantly shining—right in the midst of the darkest parts of the world in which we live.
Outcasts portrays the Franciscans Friars of the Renewal who live and work among the poor of New York, England, Ireland, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal are a branch of the Capuchins founded in the Marian year of 1987. These friars seek out situations of desperation, violence, and great suffering in order to slowly and diligently build peace and the conditions for the possibility of redemption. Outcasts shows them doing nothing less than letting the light shine in the darkness.
A 37-year-old woman in Bradford, England, who is addicted to heroin and caught in a cycle of prostitution, says that it “seems like I’m going in a circle that I can’t get out of.” All she hopes for is “to be safe; to be warm.” She is overcome with loneliness, with a deep sense of loss that includes her estrangement from her daughter. Every day is more of the same and every night is filled with everything she wants to leave behind, and yet each sunrise and sunset brings about the same story, over and over again. The friars go to England for her.
In 2012, a fire ripped through a massively overcrowded prison in Comayagua, Honduras, killing 359 inmates. The inferno consumed those whose wide-spread violence across Honduras had been jammed into the close quarters of horrendous conditions within cement walls. Inside those walls, violent language and violent urges, mixed with violent actions and violent customs created a living hell in which communion was impossible and survival was an urgent daily concern. The fire was just one more horrific destruction of humanity within a place where peace was impossible. And because peace was impossible, the friars rushed to this place to bring what only Christ could bring: life out of death. They went to help start a new life in the ashes of ruined lives, and to introduce a new way of being in a place where the only rhythm to daily existence was violence. As one friar simply confesses: “I’m there because Christ wants be to be there.”
Even without the concrete walls and mandatory sentences, communities can be undone when the conditions of hatred become systemic, passing from parents to children, and perpetuated by warring factions unbreakably bent toward destroying each other. Moyross, Ireland, is one such failed community, from which the only news that ever makes its way to the rest of the country was only ever the news of more murders, more arsons, more degradations, more hatred. But Moyross is not the first city possessed of demons who turn neighbors into adversaries. The Tuscan city of Arezzo was every bit as hopeless—if not even worse—during the 13th Century. Arezzo is the city to which Saint Francis sent his brother Sylvester to drive the demons out, while Francis prayed for its liberation. As modern day brothers of that most humble saint, the friars entered the city of Moyross to teach their children, to live among the neighbors, and to introduce a new way in the midst of the old, habitual ways of enmity and suspicion. They willed to suffer in the midst of a suffering city so as to plant a seed of joy where nothing good ever grows. In response to Francis’s instruction to them—passed down over the centuries—they invited Moyross into 40 days of penance, dedicated to a simple prayer: “Free us O Lord from hatred, from addiction, from abuse. Free us, O Lord.”
Outcasts continually draws into the frame of our vision what is otherwise hidden, forgotten, or avoided. We see the darkness of addiction, of exploitation, of violence and neglect. We see how the chains that bind one generation become the very chains that bind the next one—we see how suffering absorbed becomes suffering inflicted on others. We see the cycles of desperation in which no other way is ever made possible, in which nothing but more of the same and much worse is all that one can ever see. We see what it looks like when we abandon each other and fail to love.
And in that very same frame—as difficult as it is to gaze upon—we see something else: the will to love; the commitment to suffer with, to suffer for, and to wait in hope with those who have none. We see works of mercy that heal weary bodies and enkindle darkened spirits. We see the light of Christ, given in the spirit of Saint Francis, in the love of joyful men in gray habits.
Outcasts is a piece of art at its best. It helps us to discover the truth, beauty, and goodness that would be invisible to us otherwise. Through this film, we see the rays of that eternal act of love that took flesh and dwelt among us—among us as we are, not as we wish to be. Outcasts is an icon, it is a sermon.
The one thing that Outcasts does not do is tell us, exactly, who the “outcasts” are. The outcasts may be those “cast out” of civil society, who slip out of view, who bear the weight of becoming un-useful, disgraceful, addicted, alone. The outcasts may certainly be the friars, who leave behind all wealth and possession in imitation of Saint Francis, who read the Gospel and believed it, plain and simple. Or, the outcasts may be those of us who find ourselves hiding within our own comforts and blindnesses and failures to love. Maybe we are all outcasts, in different ways. But what is common to us all is the paradoxical way in which we become more human together, in the way that Christ is fully human, in the way that Francis craved that fullness, and in the way that these friars offer a witness in the modern age. On their behalf, Outcasts says this:
Run toward poverty.
Run toward suffering.
Run toward loneliness.
“Rise and do not be afraid” (Matt 17:7).
For more on Outcasts, visit: www.outcaststhemovie.com/. Outcasts was screened on April 3, 2017 under the auspices of the McGrath Institute for Church Life.
The Light By Which We See: The Problem and Promise of Identity
If someone were to call you by name and ask, “Who are you?” how would you respond? It is an unsettling question because having to say one thing about the whole of your existence is daunting. Each of us knows a lot about ourselves while, at the same time, most of us also know that there is a lot about ourselves that we do not understand. To define yourself in one way comes at the expense of defining yourself in other ways, and no one likes to be limited. Even more disturbing is the occasional realization that “I may not really know myself at all.” This problem of identity exists for each of us, no less for those who claim to be disciples. And it was precisely this question that an interviewer asked Jorge Mario Bergoglio shortly after he took the name Francis. After a period of thinking and searching for the right words and the right image, the new pope responded in the manner of a disciple: “I am one who is looked upon by the Lord.” ... read more at Church Life Journal
All I want for Christmas is you (to come to Mass)
Christmas often brings together those who, in some way, were separated before. God and man are brought together. Within the same household, those who practice their faith and those who do not find themselves mingling. So, too, at Christmas liturgy, are regular Massgoers combined with occasional ones — an event we undoubtedly would like to have happen more often. ... read more at OSV
Pilgrimage and the Urgent Question of Faith
“But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8).
We were asked this question twice—once when the Gospel was proclaimed in Latin and once again when it was translated into English. The strange urgency of the question didn’t strike us the first time because the words were foreign, but the second time they were spoken in our native tongue even though we were in a foreign land. The setting was ornate and the occasion was peculiar: we were 19 Americans gathered at the 9:15am Mass in St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, the capital of the tiny rock country in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea known as Malta. We were not tourists but pilgrims and to hear this question on the first morning of our pilgrimage was quite an odd thing. No one would leave for a pilgrimage unless he already assumed there was faith to find “out there”, a faith that he hoped would grow in him. And yet from the lips of Jesus comes the question as to whether he would find any faith on this third rock from the sun. The urgency of that question strikes in a particular way for a novice pilgrim because if faith is not certain then I might as well ask myself: “What am I doing here?” ... read more at Church Life Journal
By Sea and By Air: The Journey of the Gospel
Traveling by sea as a prisoner en route to his martyrdom in Rome, St. Paul was brought to the rocky shores of a small Mediterranean island with the debris of the shipwrecked vessel that hurled him with his captors and fellow prisoners into uncertain squalls. One thousand, nine hundred, and fifty six (or so) years later, I hope to descend on the island much more softly alongside 18 other pilgrims from Notre Dame, hopefully with all luggage in tow and in tact. Then as now, the unpredictable sway of the Gospel draws wayfarers towards a small and seemingly obscure destination: Malta. ... read more at Church Life Journal
The Saint of Calcutta: Mother Teresa & the Pain of Joy
On September 4, 2016, the woman who claimed that if she ever became a saint she would “surely be one of ‘darkness’" will enter the canon of the Church in broad daylight, for all the world to see. Till the end of the age, the universal name of charity that was “Mother Teresa” will become “Saint Teresa of Calcutta.” With the possible exception of St. John Paul II, no saint in the history of the Church has been known by so many people at the time of canonization, which makes the holiness of this saint both more available for observation and more difficult to discern. Knowing more about someone is not the same as knowing them well and in coming to know Mother Teresa as Saint Teresa, we are asked to deepen our knowledge of her according to her holiness, which her very public persona both hides and discloses. If she is a saint of darkness she is also a saint of joy. Yet, knowing her as the one in darkness and the one in joy is not knowing two Teresas, but rather coming to know the one Teresa as a saint. ... read more at Church Life Journal
The Mystery of Mercy
Seeing through mercy changes what we see. With conferences for four distinct communities this summer (and two already completed), Notre Dame Vision has ventured into the mystery of mercy in three moments: revelation, reception, and response. ... read more at Church Life Journal
And the Nominees Are... The Revenant
When faced with a masterpiece, one trembles with the anxious urge to say too much. Consider the predicament of the author of Genesis 1. In the midst not just of the poetry of creation but the emergence of poetics itself, how does one punctuate the calling into being of what does not exist? The commentary that the author puts on the lips of the Creator is the six-fold repetition of the judgment “good,” culminating at last in that comparatively robust verbosity: “very good.” Such is the extent of verbal commentary on the masterpiece of creation and indeed creativity itself. The Revenant is a masterpiece. ... read more at Church Life Journal
Being Hungry is What Happens to Us
Lent is the journey into deeper conformity with Christ who emptied himself unto death and who, risen, is the gift of everlasting life. In Luke 4 Jesus’ self-emptying is presented in his period of temptation in the desert. When encountering this text it is not uncommon for one to focus one’s gaze on the three temptations to which Jesus responds—and for good reason—but the swiftness with which we turn our focus there may prevent us from pondering adequately enough the manner of Jesus’ entry into the desert. But the way the evangelist crafts the beginning of the episode calls for our attention so we may more deeply contemplate Christ. And so I want to look together at just the first two verses of this chapter in hopes of beginning to discover Christ anew as we enter into our Lenten journey. ... read more at Church Life Journal
Three steps to a better understanding of mercy
In the words of Pope Francis, “We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy.” But contemplation is really hard work; it takes tremendous effort to learn to receive well, to take up a posture of willed passivity in the manner of Jesus’ Immaculate Mother who “[heard] the Word of God and [acted] on it” (Lk 8:21; cf. Lk 1:26-56).
God’s merciful action toward us frees us to act mercifully toward one another, and coming to know ourselves as recipients of God’s mercy teaches how to see the possibilities for merciful relationships in the first place. ... read more at OSV
The Journey from All Saints to All Souls
I had just seen my grandfather a few weeks before his death. He was in the hospital; and in accordance with the directives of his living will, the feeding tubes had been removed. He was unable to speak and mostly unable to move, but it was clear he knew when my brother and I walked into the room. I was the last one to leave his hospital room that night, staying behind to say goodbye and to whisper a prayer over him, tracing the sign of the cross on his forehead. It was the first time I had ever prayed with Louis DeLorenzo. ... read more at America Magazine
The Communion of Saints and Sinners: Loving an imperfect Church
The church is full of sinners. On this much pretty much everyone can agree. If one took the secular media’s typical presentation of the church as truth, one might even think that the church is full of nothing but sinners. Actually, that too is true. What is less apparent is that those in the church know this well; it is why we cling to this church. ... read more at America Magazine
A Spoiler-free Analysis of 'Breaking Bad' as a Deeply Human Drama
When it comes to AMC’s mega-hit “Breaking Bad,” there are really three types of people. The first are those who have just crossed the final threshold of suspense in the series finale, whether they arrived there via the steady and loyal consumption of five years of broadcast or, like myself, via the gorging that is binge watching. The second are those who are still wandering somewhere in the middle of the show’s vast desert, wondering as they wander how much worse the stress can actually get (and yes, it keeps getting worse). The third are those who haven’t watched and don’t really know (or care) what all the fuss is about. This analysis—written just on the other side of the show’s conclusion—is written for all three audiences. For the first, I am attempting to offer some insight about what we just witnessed. For the second, I am attempting to provide some possibilities for deeper viewing. And for the last, I am giving you either a final excuse to definitively pass on the show or some incentive to watch it, depending upon your preference. For the second and third types, I assure you that this article will not spoil your future viewing even though I obviously have to talk about the show to analyze it. ... read more at Oblation
Benedict and the Speed of Light: How the pope called us toward the quickened life of God
Light moves very slowly at Harvard. That’s because Prof. Lene Vestergaard Hau did what what Einstein himself would have had difficulty imagining: she harnessed light. The key to doing so was figuring out how to super-cool atoms so that they acted as if they were just one, dense, nebulous atom. With the help of some nifty lasers used to cross-manipulate sodium atoms (like the ones found in table salt), Hau was able to cool these atoms to just a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero, creating a cloud of the coldest matter in the universe. This cloud is capable of taming and even containing light. So when Hau sent a pulse of light moving at 186,000 miles/second into this cloud, she was able to slow the light down to first 38 miles/hour, then 15 miles/hour and now even 1 mile/hour. This means that a person could crawl faster than the speed of light. Hau has refined her technique so well that she can even trap light indefinitely in her atom cloud. The virtually unfathomable speed of light is, in her laboratory, reduced to commonplace human terms. ... read more at America Magazine