I have a guest blogger, today. Mr. Geoff FitzGerald, O.P., is the Formation Director of the Boston Pro-Chapter of St. Dominic, and the previous Justice and Peace columnist for eLumen, and most importantly, a good friend.
Geoff has written a review of the film, The Triumph.
You can correspond with him at desidero.ergo.est@comcast.net.
The
Triumph
My
wife, Janice, and I, with Postulant Patrick Murphy, joined a packed house at
the Norwood Theater on June 23. We’d
attended the Dominican Forum featuring Fr. John Vidmar, OP, hosted by our
Boston pro-chapter; he’d spoken about his new book on The Crusades and the
Inquisition. We enjoyed a vegetarian
dinner including gluten-free pizza, then saw the film, The Triumph.
(The people of Norwood took pains to build and
maintain the theater; it’s used mostly for live performances now. Across the street on the Norwood Common a
swing band was entertaining folks on lawn chairs on a beautiful warm early
summer night.)
There’s a trailer for the film
at thetriumph.org; it doesn't reveal
anything about the subject matter. The
flier we were given last week didn't, either.
Took some Google work to find a film review and learn that it’s a
documentary about Medjugorje.
This was a private showing;
reserve tickets in advance, pay at the door.
The seats downstairs were filled; the balcony where we sat was half
full.
The film concerns a 28-year-old
named Ben who makes a pilgrimage to Medjugorje.
He serves as Everyman. Very
appealing normal guy, does nice back flips.
His progress becomes the viewer’s.
He encounters one of the visionaries, Maria, young in 1981 when this all
began and older now 30 years later.
The film
promotion may have chosen not to speak openly about Medjugorje because the site
and the claims and the
reactions among church officials have been controversial.
This is not a sidebar, but is a
story illustrating a point: I spoke with
a man who attended the Dominican Forum on the Crusades and the Inquisition. House arrest of Galileo came up, which led
this man to speak about religion and science.
The man once believed in the theory of evolution, he said, but not
anymore. Geological rock striations
don’t have to mean the earth is billions of years old. The timeline in reality is what the Bible
says it is, he thinks. [I didn’t respond
that his argument means that Anglican Primate James Ussher may have been right in
1650, calculating backwards through Biblical genealogies to conclude that the
earth was created at 9:00 AM on October 22 in 4,004 BC.]
My answer was, I am
disinterested (not uninterested). Scientists
aim a telescope and conclude that the universe was created 12 or more billion
years ago. Fine by me. 100 years from now there will be a different
interpretation. Science never proves anything; it only demonstrates. This is fundamental, and every scientist
knows it, and ordinary folks have to keep it in mind. How God created, whether in six literal days
or in six eons, does not matter. Scripture
is the revealed word of God given for our good.
Its aim is to bridge the gap between infinite God and finite us. Speculation about the interplay between
science and faith is a distraction.
The point for Medjugorje is that
the controversies are a distraction. Something
miraculous has happened or it has not. Since
reason alone cannot answer, we turn to faith.
Is Medjugorje a source of renewal, of deepened faith, of wonders, or
not? Folks from everywhere report that
they have been moved to conversion and confession. The joy on the faces of the one visionary in
particular and of others in the crowd is perfectly plain.
Has one of the visionaries
chosen to pursue wealth and fame in later years? Maybe so; I see no evidence of it in the
visionary Maria, who waits tables, speaks humbly and simply and joyfully. I hear no errors in faith or morals in what
visionaries tell us that the Blessed Mother tells them.
There’s no point getting
legalistic about all this. You go round
and round forever. I believe the
appearances are not false claims. Janice
and Patrick and I saw the fruits in the film.
I could see in the faces of others in the audience after the film –
folks of all ages, particularly those Ben’s age – that many were moved. I believe there will be many confessions next
weekend, of folks who saw this film.
No doubt the film will be
released on DVD; we will buy it.
