Pope Francis’s Favorite Movie

Yay!

Habemus Papam; we have a Pope!

We are of course a book club of 10 women who read only Catholic Women Authors, and we’re all very excited by the news of Pope Francis I! 

Celeste attended the Denver Rally for the Pope!!

Celeste even made it to the Rally for the Pope even though it was only 3 hours after the Holy Father made his first appearance.

Whatever could we have in common with the new pope?

Why we’re Catholic of course!

Well yeah but beyond that—I found out from NewAdvent that the new Pope’s favorite movie is also a favorite Book & Movie Night combo of ours.

We first read the novella by Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) and then watched the movie Babette’s Feast, directed by Gabriel Alex.

Truth be told we do not really know for sure if Blixen was Catholic, but we do know from her autobiography Out of Africa that she loved the Mass and attended often while living in Africa.  We hoped she had converted before her death during a long and painful illness.

I’m unfortunately not a movie critic, but fortunately for all of us, Stephen Greydanus is!  And he explains so perfectly that this is a deep and powerful movie full of Eucharistic and sacramental symbols; it is not just a foodie movie about food or an art movie about the sacrifices of artists!

Authored Babette’s Feast

I love how the setting of the movie of an isolated protestant sect (now cut off from their founder after his death) in an isolated Danish village conjures up the feeling that outside the Church one can dream up his own religion without limit and yet with each re-invention become increasingly alone; cut off from the Source of Truth.

And then…..how Babette returns with the rich makings of a feast to find the deceased pastor’s daughters alarmed and yet…..willing to allow her to serve them even in their fear.  Also, the movie is funny!  The old spinster sisters nearly faint at the site of the bottle of excellent wine at which Babette gazes longingly.

So, for a celebration of Pope Francis I and a Lenten sense of Christ’s Passion &  Sacramental presence, download Babette’s Feast and watch while you plan your Easter Dinner!

Read more about it at Patheos:

• For Your Lenten Friday Night at the Movies V: Pope Francis’s Favorite Film…

First Catholic Female Author?

Saint Perpetua is probably one of the first Catholic Women Authors.

St. Perpetua was a wealthy noblewoman and St. Felicity was her slave.  One had an infant and one was pregnant.  St. Perpetua, while held under house arrest for the crime of being a Christian, wrote the first document by a Catholic Christian Woman author that survives to this day.

St. Perpetua was under a great deal of stress and anxiety from being separated from her baby.  She also suffered a great deal because her father was a pagan who begged her to give in and renounce Jesus Christ to save her life.  A couple of deacons bribed the authorities, who brought her baby, and she lived the rest of her few days in a great deal more peace.

Thanks Communio !

Her father, a pagan, begged her to renounce Jesus Christ and save her life:

‘ “While” says she, “we were still with the persecutors, and my father, for the sake of his affection for me, was persisting in seeking to turn me away, and to cast me down from the faith, – ‘Father,’ said I, ‘do you see, let us say, this vessel lying here to be a little pitcher, or something else?’ And he said, ‘I see it to be so.’ And I replied to him, ‘Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ And he said, ‘No.’ ‘Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian.’ Then my father, provoked at this saying, threw himself upon me, as if he would tear my eyes out. But he only distressed me, and went away overcome by the devil’s arguments. Then, in a few days after I had been without my father, I gave thanks to the Lord; and his absence became a source of consolation⁸ to me. In that same interval of a few days we were baptized, and to me the Spirit prescribed that in the water of baptism nothing else was to be sought for bodily endurance.⁹ After a few days we are taken into the dungeon, and I was very much afraid, because I had never felt such darkness. O terrible day! O the fierce heat of the shock of the soldiery, because of the crowds! I was very unusually distressed by my anxiety for my infant. There were present there Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed deacons who ministered to us, and had arranged by means of a gratuity that we might be refreshed by being sent out for a few hours into a pleasanter part of the prison. Then going out of the dungeon, all attended to their own wants.¹⁰ I suckled my child, which was now enfeebled with hunger. In my anxiety for it, I addressed my mother and comforted my brother, and commended to their care my son. I was languishing because I had seen them languishing on my account. Such solicitude I suffered for many days, and I obtained for my infant to remain in the dungeon with me; and forthwith I grew strong and was relieved from distress and anxiety about my infant; and the dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere.” ‘

Thanks AmyRachelPeterson !

January Book Club Night: Babies and Chocolates

Our newest member showed up last night, even though she never read the book.  Technically therefore, we are not counting her and we’re still Ten Women Reading Catholic Women Authors.  This is Isabella, Brianne’s 1 month old future bookworm.  She actually slept through part of the meeting, can you believe it?

Brianne and Isabella

Jean brought Fannie May chocolates!  These are a perennial Chicago favorite.  Only I could manage to make the glistening orbs of velvety yumminess  look like they are sitting out drying up in the cold Colorado winter sun.  Need more iPad photo practice.  Actually Celeste takes beautiful photos whenever I ask!

We read Waiting For the Apocalypse by Veronica Chater.  It was definitely enjoyed by everyone.  The author grew up the second oldest in a Catholic family that lost their way in the late 1960s and ’70s during the chaos and confusion surrounding the Ecumenical Council called Vatican II, which ended in 1965.

It’s a thought provoking read that works well for a lively discussion!

The Next Book: Waiting for the Apocalypse

10 Women Reading Catholic Women Authors are currently reading Waiting for the Apocalypse: a Memoir of Faith and Family, by Veronica Chater which we’ll discussing in January.  What a superbly written story!

I am a couple of years older than Ms. Chater.  She and I are both cradle Catholics, meaning we were born into a Catholic family and were baptized in the Catholic faith as infants.  There the similarities end.  Yes indeed they end.

You see…. Veronica Chater’s family the Arnolds, starts out looking “normal,” headed by a “strong and handsome” California Highway patrol officer dad, the “prettiest mom I know” with her “sharp green eyes that don’t miss a trick from behind her cat-eye glasses,” and 5 brothers and sisters who all cram in to a green ’64 VW Beetle for the daily drive to St. Mary’s school.

Then the “smoke of satan” otherwise known to history as Vatican II begins to blow through the Church, and Lyle and Marty Arnold and their children find themselves part of what they believe is an invalid Mass in a “declining American” Catholic Church.  So they become one of the “remnant” of faithful Catholics who go to extraordinary measures to avoid the Novus Ordo Mass and the Vatican II Church.  In the Arnolds’ case that means packing up and moving to Fatima, Portugal, the one place on earth “Where our Lady promised the dogma of the faith will always be kept.”

I think I was in almost as much shock as they were due to what they found in Portugal because of the fantastic story crafted by Ms. Chater.

She wrote the memoir as an adult but is able to smoothly project little 7 year old, little 10 year old, and little 12 year old “Ronnie” into each time period with an authentic voice.

I’m enjoying this book, and as I move along I am able to bring up memories of my life in a post Vatican II world and Catholic Church for comparison.  We grew up only 1200 miles from each other, we saw the same news of war, race riots and moon landings, and we even ate the same twinkies & macaroni and drank the same kool-aid but we experienced two different worlds.

More about this book and Veronica Chater after the book club meeting in January!