Cheering for Chris

 Many times I've wallowed in grief over my friend, Chris, who died in December 2022.  I wrote how we met and the poem I wrote when I needed her.

Missing Chris*

Happy is he who finds a friend and he who speaks to attentive ears. Sirach 25:9

My soul mate, Chris would help with my mess,
over spinach artichoke dip, nachos,
ice tea, girl-talk, dope slaps, and laughter;
deftly would your perspective fix my problem;
snap smooth wrinkled excuses and cobwebbed thoughts,
as we share late night secrets and pray for grace.

*from The Preacher Poets, Dominicus Books, Inc., 2008, page 15.

Chris was also a fan of the New England Patriot's Football Team, especially Tom Brady, when he was their quarterback. She went to as many games as she could and when she didn't have tickets, she went to a sports bar in Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play) and in that charged atmosphere she watched her team play on the big TVs.  She would have loved the movie *80 for Brady.*   It's about four octogenarians who love the Pats and Tom Brady, just like Chris did. 

I went to see it for her.  I would not have ever entertained the thought.  I never liked "Golden Girls." I thought the show demeaning.  It was unbecoming and unseemly for senior citizens to talk dirty and act sexy.  And that's what "80 for Brady" is about.  But Chris would have loved it, so I considered going for her.

As fate would have it, I won a ticket to go!  My Senior Center had a lottery to go to the movie, and I won one of the tickets.

I had the best time, as you can see from these pictures taken at the movie theater in Gillette Stadium.

and thus it is that I am inspired to write another poem for Chris.  

Cheering for Chris

1 Thessalonians 4: 13-15

“We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.”

 

My friend, Chris, who loved the Patriots,
       would have wanted to see “80 for Brady.”
And so I went for Chris, to see, to laugh, and maybe
       to lessen the feel of my grief laden cross.

Chris would have howled with laughter,
      and so I watched for the two of us.
Cheering, clapping, enjoying, plus
      thinking of your happiness ever after.

Cheating

This post should be a book review of The Circle by Dave Eggers.  But I couldn't get into the novel.  I'm on p. 127.  I get that this company, The Circle is the best company ever.  OKay, already!

Book Club is tomorrow night.  I have 326 more pages to read.  I just can't.  So I went to see the movie, instead.

I liked the movie, in spite of Facebook friends saying they didn't.  One even said that he walked out on it. And it was the dumbest movie he ever saw.

Well, I disagree.  I think of it as the new 1984.  I can see a really good discussion coming tomorrow night, at book club.  

My First Movie Review

This is my first movie review, and it's unsolicited.  I can't stop thinking about Cavalry, directed by John Michael McDonough, starring Brendan Gleeson.  Mary and I couldn't stop yakking about it, on the way home.  It embodies so much.  There's a lot to chew on.

We walked in when a man was in the confessional, telling the confessor he was going to kill him on Sunday.  So the movie takes you through the priest's week.  And what a parish he has.  Any pastor that thinks his parish is dysfunctional, has to see Father James'.  What a group!  They all disrespect their priests.  They're insulting and rude.

Father James has a milk sop for an associate priest.  I felt kind of felt sorry for him.  In fact, Father James loses patience with him and asks him why he isn't an accountant for an insurance company?  Everyone laughed at that line because it was so fitting.  I don't know why Father James treats him like that when you consider that he's kind to everybody but his associate.  He even tells him that what he can't stand about him was that he wasn't honest with himself.  Maybe he wasn't, but I think he was trying.

The movie actually was billed as a comedy.  It does have its moments.  But it deals with very serious matters.  I'm going to have buy this film when it comes out on DVD.  It is great material for discussion.

Consolatrix Afflictorum

You may have seen the Gabriel award winning series "Saints Alive!" on EWTN? Please support their new film project "Consolatrix Afflictorum"! They will soon be mounting a crowd funding campaign and I am calling attention to their new movie, Consolatrix Afflictorum to support them.

Here's what it's all about.

A dying old man sends a letter to his parish priest recalling a supernatural apparition in his childhood and the amazing healing that resulted.

Description

From the producers of "Saints Alive!", "Parable" and "The Saints Speak" on EWTN comes this supernatural drama based on the classic short story by Robert Hugh Benson.

Plot Outline

Alone in his study, a parish priest reads through his mail. He notices that one of the letters has no return address; he opens it and begins to read. The voice of the writer, an old man, becomes the narrator of the story. He thanks the priest for a wonderful Christmas day sermon on the truth of the supernatural. He explains that because of the homily, he believes the priest will understand the story he is about to tell.

In 1939, when he was seven years old, his mother died tragically. He was a very a sick child. His father was devastated at the loss of his wife, and left him mostly in the care of a Nurse, a hard woman. Living in a huge mansion, far from town, the boy too was so grief stricken that his health worsened. To make it easier, he would trick himself into believing that his mother was there. But she wasn’t. At night he would cry himself to sleep thinking about her, remembering the happy times when he experienced her love. One night, his anguish overcame him; it was almost too much to bear. Then something incredible happened. His mother appeared standing before him. She took him into her arms, and sitting in a rocker by the fire, gently rocked him to sleep. This happened night after night for months. Whenever he cried out in anguish, she would come to him and he would always fall asleep in the same way, in her arms, with his head on her shoulder, but never seeing her face. One night the Nurse came into the room to check on him. But amazingly, she did not see his mother holding him by the fireside. It was as if they were invisible to her sight. Then his condition improved. This lifted his father out of his despair. Happiness began returning to the house. Then one final night, he saw her face. She was not his dead mother! Terrified at first, he struggled to break free from her. Then, he saw her beautiful face and recognized who she was. In place of his own mother, the Mother of Jesus had come to him. A new peaceful presence filled his heart, he kissed her hand, and soon after, she disappeared right before his eyes. He would never see her again.

The priest gets a phone call. He rushes by car to the same mansion of the little boy and finds the old man already dead. At the funeral, the priest looks into the eyes of the old man’s great grandchild and we hear his final words from the letter, “I know that I am an old man, and that old men are sometimes foolish. But it more and more seems to me that experience, as well as words, tells me that the great Kingdom of Heaven has a low and narrow door that only children can enter. Thus we must become little again and drop all our burdens, for someone who will comfort all our afflictions awaits us.”


ABOUT THE STORY’S AUTHOR:

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was the son of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson. His mother was named Mary. Ordained as an Anglican priest, he converted to Catholicism and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1904. Joseph Pierce the English born author of celebrated books on Shakespeare, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and others had this to say about him:

"Few stars of the literary firmament, either before or since, have shone quite so brightly in their own time before being eclipsed quite so inexplicably in posterity. Almost a century after his conversion, Benson has become the unsung genius of the Catholic Literary Revival."