Monthly Archives: June 2017

Compassion and Strength – The Wonder of Wonder Woman

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I never watched the Wonder Woman TV series with Linda Carter (1975-79), but as a moviegoer, I found Warner Brothers’ WONDER WOMAN a Larger-than-Life Female protagonist worthy of our daughters, granddaughters, nieces (and their male counterparts’) attention without reservation.  This Wonder Woman is the kind of Princess / Hero combination that will not only confirm little girls as royal members of humanity, precious and important, it will affirm them as strong, smart, gifted and capable of contributing to the world—sometimes, perhaps (dare we hope?) surpassing that of mere mortal men (sic).

 

As a source of inspiration, this Wonder Woman is to girls what Superman is to boys.  Yes, she’s from another world.  Yes, she has attributes beyond mere mortals but –YES! –she is determined to utilize her talents for the greatest good: a love for humankind.  Good News Boys and Girls: Love for humankind is proper motivation for life beyond gender, culture and creed.

 

As scripted by Allen Heinberg from a story he created with Zack Snyder, Jason Fuchs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=nv_sr_1 WONDER WOMAN is artfully directed with panache and vision by Patty Jenkins.  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0420941/?ref_=nv_sr_1

If you are not familiar with this protagonist, Wonder Woman is a demigoddess–a creative composite from the pantheon of Roman, Greek Myths and the imaginations of DC Comic authors since 1941/42. Thus, she’s a little bit Diana (Roman goddess of the hunt, the moon and nature), the Greek Artemis (the daughter of Zeus and the mortal Leto), and the invention of Warner Brothers’ and DC Comics’ Screenwriters and Marketing departments. With so many chefs adding ingredients to ancient myths, it’s amazing that Wonder Woman (also named Diana) has turned out as appealing and outright inspiring as she is. The credit belongs to the creators, for sure, but equally to Gal Gadot, a captivating actress who incarnates Wonder Woman with a perfect balance of courage and compassion, sensitivity and strength.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2933757/?ref_=tt_cl_t1

And, depending on your point of view (and your expectations for an ideal feminine role model) Ms. Gadot offers us an additional bonus of being truly beautiful in the old Hollywood tradition of Beautiful Girls –think Vivian Leigh:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000046/mediaviewer/rm1343240704

think Paulette Goddard: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002104/mediaviewer/rm3071685376

Some feminists may object, but, hey, she is who she is!

There’s no need for me to reiterate the plot as it is rather typical of super hero origin stories. There are parallels galore throughout the DC and Marvel comics universe.  In that regard, if you are up for a ride in the realm of the familiar, you’ll have a grand time:  All things begin with our hero/heroine nurturing skills and talents, discovering some surprise attributes, and completing his/her formation for a battle of good versus evil.  As for the villains: their goals and objectives can be seen in many action movies these days– –if you saw Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Exploring the full identities of the villains in WONDER WOMAN is an important mystery imbedded in the plot so I will not identify who plays what here. Just know that all the cast members are first-rate, even when the plot wears a bit thin.  You’ll enjoy watching Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Connie Nelson, Danny Huston, Said Taghmaoui, David Thewlis and Ewen Bremner incarnate their characters.

 

Happily, this presentation of a DC Comics character maintains some of the joy and comic touches of the original Superman movies: moments of charm, innocence and fun. The last several Superman / Batman movies were disappointingly dark and cynical with very little light in our heroes’ attempts at saving the world. True to formula, however, our new Wonder Woman movie does culminate in a great cosmic battle (overblown as it has been in movies of this kind for far too long), but, I guess, in the march for equality in movies, women must be given their due.  If men do it, woman must do it, too.  Seriously, though, must these heroes / heroines always save the world?  Is there no merit in saving one person at a time?  One organization at a time?  Wonder Woman does offer hope, however, on another scale.  Here, greater cooperation among the male and female members of our species is on full display.  In this version Diana/ Wonder Woman not only has several strong female mentors, she has, well, one (but a significant one) male mentor, too.  That character is Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), ethically flawed but in the Great American Tradition, he reveals a heart of gold.   If you enjoy films based on comic book characters, written with broad, bold strokes, and exploring what a women protagonist can add to the national psyche, WONDER WOMAN is for you!

 

Want More?  Here’s my Theological Reflection:

 

I am pleased to report that WONDER WOMAN ‘s screenplay imbues spiritual dynamics into its storytelling.  True to form, DC (and Marvel) Comics continually borrow themes and ideas from Greek, Roman, Native American Traditions and Eastern Religions but it’s important to recognize these inspirations have genuine Biblical counterparts.  The most important insight this script offers may be found in the words spoken by our heroine and her male mentor in one of the film’s penultimate scenes: “We do good not because people deserve it, but because of what we believe.”  I.e., our humanity is fallible, both faulty and foolish, but because we are capable of great good, too, it’s the goodness we hold onto. This makes our heroine reflect an essential element of our Judaic-Christian tradition: God as the ultimate ever-patient ONE, offering humanity millenniums of opportunities to learn from its mistakes. Ours is the God who abides our faults, forgives us while motivating us to better, wiser, kinder, compassionate.

 

Yes, there are biblical accounts in which God gets fed up with humanity (Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, Jesus’ many rebukes to the disciples, the Book of Revelation / Apocalypse and so much more!).   But note that many Jewish and Christian theologians now see these biblical passages as human projections on God—evidencing the ways the Bible’s writers vented their very human responses to sin and suffering. As they strove to move forward in formulating their impressions of God, they often took one step back in every two steps forward. In many ways, we still do! Taken in its entirety, however, the Bible ultimately offers a more complete, more honest picture of God as nothing short of Love and Mercy.  This is evidenced in both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, taken together or within their respective individual canons.

 

For those who would like to spend some time meditating on this theme, here are some Biblical excerpts for you:

 

Psalm 8: 5: 5 [d]What is man that you are mindful of him,     and a son of man that you care for him?

 

Psalm 51:  3 “Our offenses truly you know them,

Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love;     in your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions. 4 Thoroughly wash away my guilt;     and from my sin cleanse me. 5 For I know my transgressions;     my sin is always before me. 6 Against you, you alone have I sinned;     I have done what is evil in your eyes

 

Psalm 103: 10He has not dealt with us as our sins merit,     nor requited us as our wrongs deserve. . .

17 But the Lord’s mercy is from age to age,     toward those who fear him. His salvation is for the children’s children 18     of those who keep his covenant,     and remember to carry out his precepts.

 

Proverbs 10:  12

12 Hatred stirs up disputes,      but love covers all offenses.[h]

 

Isaiah 43:25  It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.

 

Isaiah 44:22 I have brushed away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like a mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.

 

Jeremiah 33:8 I will purify them of all the guilt they incurred by sinning against me; I will forgive all their offenses by which they sinned and rebelled against me.

 

 

Luke 6: (from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain)

37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

 

Luke 23: The Crucifixion: 33When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. 34 [Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”][e

 

Luke 24: The Resurrection Instruction: 46 And he (Jesus) said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day 47 and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

 

Matthew 12: 31 ff

31 Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit[v] will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

NOTE: The CHRISTIAN TRADITION interprets this passage to mean that “to speak against the holy Spirit” is to deny God’s Spirit, which is to deny God’s forgiveness.  I.e. to not believe in God’s forgiveness is not to accept it or participate in it. It also makes clear that one does not have to believe in Jesus as the “Son of Man” aka “Son of God” to receive God’s forgiveness.  God’s forgiveness is offered to all.

 

 

Biblical Quotations Taken From: New American Bible Revised Edition from

https://www.biblegateway.com

 

 

 

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Trinity Sunday 2017

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Trinity Sunday. Why is it important – so important, in fact, that we devote one Sunday every year to exploring this confounding Mystery and all its implications?  Just as we do for the Christmas Incarnation, the Good Friday Cross and Easter Resurrection.  It may be the most taken for granted Holy Day in the Church for it has no secular counterpart or observance.  Christmas and Easter are everywhere in stores and bank holidays, Good Friday, not as much, but there’s still a general cultural acknowledgment. But the Trinitarian Understanding of God, well, it’s only for those of us who call ourselves CHURCH.

 

Just as all life is a burst of energy, creativity, diversity, life, death and rebirth –a confirmation of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus in all things, the Trinity, too, makes its imprint on all creation.  How?  Because all life is Relationship.  Nothing exists except in relationship to something else.  No human being originates all by himself or herself.  We say humanity is made in the image of God, and as we are relational beings, so too must the heart of God be relational. The Great Mystery is that God is ONE, Indivisible, Undividable yet still Relational: Father, Son and Spirit.  Not merely different functions of God, although we often speak of God in those ways, but ONENESS. There’s relationship in ONENESS, in UNITY, in HARMONY.  In, dare we say it—in COMMUNION!

 

But I may be getting ahead of myself.  Understanding of the Trinity began with the words of Jesus –his unity with God whom he identified as FATHER, and his promise to send forth God’s SPIRIT -the advocate who bestows Wisdom, Courage, Stamina, Inspiration on all humanity, with, we believe, a unique dose of faith and comprehension bestowed on Jesus’ followers.  In fact, Jesus cultivated us to perpetuate preachers and teachers to help us understand and express this reality imbedded deep in Creation and human experience. So, powerful, important and penetratingly deep was this revelation that it took the Church many generations and over three hundred years’ time to begin to articulate TRINITY in any formal way.  We must not be surprised at that.  One of the many consistencies in the Biblical Revelation is how slow humanity is to understand God and God’s purposes.  From the back and forth, hide and seek relationship the Israelites had with God and their prophets, themselves and others to the obtuseness of the disciples and the trials of Peter and Paul in the Acts and in the Epistles—humanity groans in its struggle to experience and articulate TRUTH.  Biblical and Church History (and human history) make very clear: No pain, No gain.  Therefore, it should be no surprise that even after the Great Councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon and Ephesus we continue to debate within ourselves and with other religions the Reality of Unity and Relationship that is our God.  (You’ll find it a delightful surprise to learn how other religions, while rejecting the Trinity, articulate their own understanding of God desiring relationship with humanity and all creation.)

 

What is NOT relationship in living things?  The ATOM is comprised of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons.  The ATOM is ONE ENTITY but it’s the relationship between the three components that is the source of its energy, source of LIFE. Plants need Sun and Water and Earth to thrive.  John’s Gospel states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”  So, of course, CREATION would be in God’s IMAGE-a relational IMAGE.  Tending to the quality of relationships—all relationships-must be the heart of our lives because it is the very Heart of God who showers love on the grateful and the ungrateful, the just and the wicked alike.  God’s patience with us may be as difficult to comprehend as the Trinity itself, and, yet, it’s in evidence everywhere.

 

This mystery of TRINTITY is a gift to us.  But not just a gift for us.  It is essential that we find creative ways to keep it current in our consciousness and conversations, and attend to passing it on to future generations for the Kingdom to come. We must look to ways can we convey these truths to our children—the future Church. And we must be persistent, and prayerfully insist the Spirit inspire us.  Because in some ways this young generation is less likely to explore this Mystery, less likely to take the time to contemplate GOD as we do today.  There’s less in our culture to help them familiarize themselves with the potency of Jesus, His Life, Death and Resurrection.  But there is now in Science, as our insight into the components of the ATOM reveal and in the ways more and more Science acknowledges MYSTERY and the relationship of all things.  Still, we must cultivate conversations of these parallels at home. Dropping the children off to Religious Education or even Catholic School is not enough.

 

We all know that Myths, Stories, even Fairy Tales posit truths about life that can be helpful in explaining and understanding eternal truths.  Analogies with familiar stories are important teaching tools. My favorite for kids is THE WIZARD OF OZ –  one of the few movies that we can speak about with confidence that everyone has seen or read the book. The theme there is that to be one’s true self – to be HOME – is to encounter and appreciate the OTHER, and the only way to do that is to risk relationship.  Dorothy represents all of humanity who needs the gifts of a Trinity – Mind/Brain, Love/Heart, Courage/Respect and Patience with our Animal Natures—to know herself, to grow, to fully love: the essential energy of all human persons.   (And, if you go see the current WONDER WOMAN, you’ll that love is an essential theme of that story, too.)  These are important conversations to have with our kids, don’t you think?

 

From the Fairy Tale Analogy, may we return to our FAITH perspective in and through the realities of this Eucharist we all share.  What a diverse group we are—essentially the SAME soulful bodies, yet unique with different stories and experiences to share – yet ONE in Unity, In Communion in Faith, Hope and Love that is an essential TRINITY that binds us to God and One Another. What an insight! What an inspiration. What a grand scheme, a marvelous mystery to experience time and time again until our very pores and sinews, our bodies and souls understand a little more who we are and who Jesus calls us to be: A diverse people, a diverse world as ONE loving the Lord Our God with our whole heart, all our mind, all our strength and our neighbor as ourselves.

Pentecost 2017

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Photos of Young Adults smiling, cheering in cap and gown. A great day for them and for their families.  Celebration!  Degrees earned, lessons learned, friendships fostered others abandoned for good or ill -yet, hopefully insights gained about self, others, the reality of relationships. There is a lot to cheer about. And there’s Hope and excitement: What’s next? What’s new? Onward and Forward to the challenges ahead—ready or not!

 

Have they, do we, acknowledge what all events like these encompass?  Or do we just go through the motions, eager to enjoy the dinners planned for the evening or anxiously anticipate getting back to work, or addressing the problems at home in the days ahead?

 

In these, and in each of our lives’ celebrations, faith demands that we ask: Where is God in all of this?  To what extend are we, are they, our families and friends conscious of the spiritual potentials in these and other events that comprise the moments of our lives?  To what extent can we / might we surrender to the moment, be attentive to the present and allow the events of the past these events evoke bring us Wisdom, give us humility and insights into who we are and who we want to be in the days and years ahead?

 

In truth, Graduations, like Confirmations, Weddings, Job promotions / transfers, moving into new apartments/ new homes/ new neighborhoods have the potential to echo the realities of that first Pentecost – a culmination of life experiences with Jesus that give an ordinary celebration profound effects as it did centuries ago for Peter, John, James, the Blessed Mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary (Mother of James) and other disciples—deepening our understanding of who we were, who we are and what we are becoming.  Yes, they have the potential, but what do we do to bring their potentials to fulfillment?

 

On that first Christian Pentecost, the disciples were gathering for the Jewish Feast of Pentecost: The Second Harvest Festival 50 days after the Barley Harvest Festival of Passover–a day of Thanksgiving, rest and celebration.  It may or may not, at that time, have merged the festival with the commemoration of Moses presenting the people with Ten Commandment from Mount Sinai—perhaps a different Feast Day that was combined with that one.  Nevertheless, the disciples had gathered to pray and focus on Thanksgiving –for the simple gifts of life and nourishment, and, for them, gratitude for the Resurrected Jesus and his pledge to be with them always and strengthen them with the Holy Spirit.

 

On that day, as in other days, the disciples hoped for further clarification of Jesus’ story and how they would / could / should understand His Story as foundational to their own.  They didn’t have a guarantee that this would be the day; Jesus hadn’t told them the date.  They had to be present to the Feast they came to celebrate and simply be conscious that God’s Spirit is alive in all good things, and in all times and places.  Do we enter our celebrations—Graduations and otherwise–in the same way?

 

Whether conscious of it or not, our graduates have benefited from the Gifts of the Holy Spirit since birth.  They, like us, were endowed with the Spirit at Baptism and strengthened in the Spirit through Confirmation and every reception of the Eucharist in between and beyond.  Yes, Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Awe of God, Wonder in God’s Creation, Courage, Fortitude, Aptitude for Mercy, Justice with Compassion.

 

The lesson here: How much more could they, could we engage in life’s challenges and struggles if we more consciously and deliberately attend to the Holy Spirit?   All we must do is connect our stresses with those of Jesus and the disciples, relate our vacillating between fear and hope with Israelites in the desert, the peoples of the Scriptures and the Saints who’ve come after, continually learning from them, and, like them, acknowledging our conscious dependence upon God.

 

On this Pentecost, we can take comfort that God’s grace is active in us and our world whether we pay attention to the Spirit or not. Despite ourselves. Jesus walks with us whether we know it or not.  But Scripture, Prayer and Sacrament connect us to the bigger picture, the better picture: our lives are not our own but belong to God and for the service of God. In Churches and in Homes we are the people called to a great awakening in our consciousness for charity toward ourselves and others in all things, to make this a better world, more caring world, a world where others see that discipleship in Jesus does and can make a difference—for everyone.  All for the greater glory of God.