Catholic in Film School

In case you hadn’t figured it out, Pilgrims is postponed. My aim is to have the first episode up by next Friday.  Eventually, I will tell you why it was postponed, but for now just say a prayer and smile…because it’s a darned good reason.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Friggin Youtube is at it again:

YouTube, the popular Internet-video website, blocked four videos from the pro-life student organization Live Action over the past two weeks, saying that the videos contained “inappropriate content”. YouTube gave neither advance warning nor
specific reasons for why the videos were removed, and has not responded to Live Action’s request to cease censorship and to unblock the videos for public viewing.

The videos include phone recordings of Planned Parenthood employees agreeing to process donations from a caller with a racist agenda…”These four videos have received over 160,000 YouTube views in total with the oldest video having been public on YouTube for over seven months. Why are these videos being removed now?”

YouTube has been censoring politically conservative and/or Christian videos for a while now. Live Action Films has a battle plan posted on their site. Please go to YouTube and email a complaint. This is one of those things that will not be fixed without a grassroots effort.

And now for the hilarious yet still relevant theme song of the post…ignore the graphics:

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

There are two new and very exciting media resources that just hit the market.

First, there’s Catholic Media House, run by Stephen Officer:

CMH has many media resources like backgrounds and short films to enhance any homily, conference, or youth event.

Real Catholic TV launched yesterday on the 1st, and has some fresh new programming I’m interested in viewing:

Three cheers for the New Evangelization.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Well, school is awesome.

On Monday I had my first college history class. Yes I’m a junior and yes it is a bit late for me to still be taking general ed classes but I’ve never been one to do exactly as I’m told.  The professor seems like she knows what she’s talking about as I have not had to correct anything she’s said in my head.

Monday also brought me my “Teaching Religion to Youth” course that I have been anticipating with bated breath the entire summer. It’s a service learning course, which means I am required to teach! But more on that later.

I’m only taking one screenwriting class this semester, something I did purposefully to allow for more time for independent projects. It meets on Tuesday morning, but was cancelled because my professor had to go to a funeral. I’ve taken one of his classes before so I’m not worried.

Tuesday night I also had my “Women in Film” class, which is one of those classes where all you do is sit around and watch movies and then talk about them. We watched Adam’s Rib (1949) which I would totally recommend.

Thursday, I only had my Orthodox Christian spirituality class. My professor is a lovely older priest who has a voice made for radio and likes to go whale watching in Malibu. He goes off on random tangents so that’s how I know that.

Wednesday and Friday were the same as Monday, only I got more info about when, where, and what I will be teaching on Friday afternoon. It looks like I’ll be teaching either confirmation or regular CCD, but I’m still looking for a parish I want to serve at.

And in case you care, the apartment “Hot Man Wall” is in stage 3 of development, and has been affectionately renamed “The Wall of Hot Man-ness.” We (my roommates and I) also decided to make our kitchen wall the “Wall of Man Shame” starring Flava Flav, Arnold Schwarzenagger, and any other dude we deem so fit. 

Pictures will be posted.

Update: Photographic evidence has been posted.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I never talk politics on this blog because 1) it’s not what this blog is about and 2) because I write about politics almost every week in my news column back home and I already have to take behavioral drugs just to do that.

I’m kidding. 

But I, like many Americans (and global citizens for that matter) was shocked—SHOCKED I TELL YOU, when I learned that John McCain had picked Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his VP. But unlike many Americans I knew exactly who Sarah Palin was, and by consequence was ecstatic to hear the news.  I’ve been keeping track of her for at least 7 or 8 months. Palin’s name came up when I did some research on possible female VP’s I would actually vote for, but she really hit my radar when I read she was suing the Bush administration on behalf of her state Alaska.

You can consider this post an endorsement. I’m even creating a “Palin Watch” thread on Modestia. There are already a plethora of lies being spread about her (which I will be addressing in this week’s news column)…and I look forward to watching her put the press in their place. Plus, she’s got style!

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

PS: My prayer intention this week is for those affected by Hurricane Gustav. And if you’re interested in other GOP newcomers, keep your eyes on the Golden Boy.

Dare I give in to the hype? Jindal/Palin 2012? *gasps….sucks in breath*

Update Numero Uno:

Palin’s daughter is pregnant? Do you care? I don’t, but I do think we should have known on day one.

Update Numero Dos:

On second thought, I’m starting to think this may help Palin with adult female voters. She’s already got the working mom with a high profile job schtick, and now she just looks like even more of a “modern mom” who can deal with her kids’ antics without freaking out publicly.

Woohoo! I finished the site! It’s primitive to say the least, but web design has never been my strongest skill. I finished it around 11:30pm last night, and then promptly walked down the hall to the apartment of a few “cast members.” They weren’t that excited as they were watching Family Guy, (you know men and their television) but I was excited!

Check it out.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Continue Reading »

Older readers will know that I have a devotion to the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph together, the Most Holy Couple as I call them. I have never been able to find any sort of devotions or saint medals to just the two of them and not the Holy Family. I asked one of my priest friends for some help and he told me he didn’t know of any devotions to them either.

I sort of gave up and have been wearing a Holy Family medal for a while now, but a few weeks ago I was looking for missals on Ebay when I found this:

The crucifix is set between two medals, one depicting Mary and the other Joseph, made some time in the 40s. On the back, it says “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, be with us on our way.”

Naturally, I purchased it on the spot, and it just arrived in my campus box today. Smiles all around.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

…the blog will be a little lacking this week. I’m still designing the site for Pilgrims, not to mention doing last minute filming for the first episode that will be up next week.

I have to get my car fixed, and I must say there’s nothing like taking my car to the mechanic that makes me wish I had a husband. I understand the basics of car mechanics, but for some reason I always feel like I’m being taken advantage of at the auto shop.

I’ve only had one day of class but I’m loving school already. I have a couple of random posts to publish but for the most part I’m on hiatus until next Monday.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I’m officially back in LA, back on campus, and all moved in to my new campus apartment. I haven’t quite finished decorating my room yet, and my roommates and I are still selecting the art pieces for our “Hot Man Wall” in our living room. (I’ll be ordering a rather large Michael Phelps poster in the coming days…heh.)

Funny story time:

Since I passed my driver’s test, naturally I took my car with me, but alas, today it broke down! I went to Ralph’s for some groceries, which is literally about a 3-minute drive that only requires 3 turns including the one into the parking lot. I noticed the ride was a little funky on the way there, but the road is under construction and I figured I wasn’t used to driving on a road that isn’t smooth.

But on the way back, poor Franklin (that’s what I named the car) sputtered once, he sputtered twice, and then Franklin crapped out and died…on an extremely busy road in the middle of the day. And to add an element to make this scene even more suspenseful, I didn’t have my cell phone! (I lost it during WYD, a priest found it, and he’s going to mail it once he gets back from holiday later this week.)

There were some people nearby across the street who called my mom for me, but she didn’t answer because she was at work. About 5 seconds later a green truck pulled up behind me with a married couple inside asking me if I needed help. Bob and Patricia offered to “bump” me about a block up a hill to a gas station.

Thankfully, that idea worked and I was able to call Triple AAA to come and rescue me. But to make a funny story even more funny, once the mechanic got there he turned the key in the ignition and Franklin started as if he had not caused a disaster 20 minutes earlier.

Ahhhh, independence.

I start class tomorrow, and I will be saying a prayer of thanksgiving for the people who helped me this afternoon.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Behold:

For the time being, ignore the pilgrims site url because it hasn’t been built yet. If you could, I would appreciate any prayers for this project. I’m having some tech problems and have been since I decided to make this series. If you missed the teaser, here you go:

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I’M A LICENSED DRIVER!!!!!

I passed my test! I passed my test! I can’t believe it either because within the first two minutes I made two errors…and I wasn’t even driving the car. Apparently you’re still supposed to know your hand signals (which I didn’t) and where your front defroster is (which I did, but accidentally pointed to my rear defroster.)

But in any case, it is officially legal for me to drive, and I just want to thank everyone who prayed for me and sent me words of encouragement over the last few days.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I was supposed to be moving in on campus today, but there’s been an administration delay and I won’t be moving permanently until the end of the week. I’m driving to LA this morning anyway to take my behind-the-wheel driver’s test because I can’t get an appointment in San Diego until September. And so all of this was to say that I’ll post the Pilgrims trailer when I get back as I still have to tweak the audio a bit.

Pray that I don’t kill anyone while I’m on the freeway in LA traffic for 3 hours each way. I’m serious.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I intentionally did not read any reviews of this film before I went to see it because I didn’t want anyone’s opinions too affect my own. Even when I quoted Mark and Clayton in my pre-review I just scanned their articles looking for what looked like a relevant chunk of text. But now for my verdict…

It was okay I guess, much better than the first, but still just okay.

I didn’t like the first Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman movie because when it comes to superhero movies I’m a purist, and Batman Begins was a little too Tom Cruise “Look everyone I’m a pretty ninja warrior” for me.

Even though he is the Rico Suave version, I think George Clooney is still my favorite modern Batman only because those movies are more “comic” in aesthetic, and I think George Clooney does a much better job of playing the different faces of Bruce Wayne. I don’t know what it is, but Christian Bale is a little too big and brawny to play the lady-killer that Bruce Wayne is supposed to be during the daytime. He almost gets it…almost. But just out of curiosity, was anyone else weirded out by the fake deep Batman voice that they clearly doctored in post-production?

I actually had an angry purist moment within the first ten minutes of The Dark Knight when in Batman’s first scene it appears that he is using a gun to fight some bad guys, though as it turns out they are just copycats trying to help him…a good element I must admit. But for a second I was like, “What? Batman joined the NRA?”

I didn’t really find the action sequences to be exceptionally thrilling, but that’s not necessarily a negative because Batman is a character-driven story and the characters were so crazy I was paying more attention to them than anything else.

They gave it an honest try, but I was also slightly disappointed in the gadgetry, perhaps because I’ve seen way too many spy movies and hardly anything impresses me anymore. But regardless, cool gadgets are a given for Batman and I thought they could have done a better job with that. (There goes that purist again…)

The only elements of the film that I sincerely enjoyed from start to finish were Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart’s performances, both of which I thought were exceptional. Even I have to admit that was the craziest Joker performance ever; it was borderline diabolical, but at the same time the Joker made me laugh as much as he scared me.

On a deeper moral level, I actually enjoyed the film. Shocking I know. I’ve read complaints that the film was too evil, but I think that was the point. At the beginning of the film there are three types of characters: the heroes, the villains, and the innocents. But throughout the film the Joker makes it clear he couldn’t care less about what type of villain he is supposed to be, he represents a new brand of crime, not unlike Satan in reality. The Joker fed on his own evil—it was evil for evil’s sake, not money and not world domination. This makes the movie more interesting 1) because of its illusions to contemporary global terrorism and 2) it puts more pressure on Batman. What is he going to have to do to stop this villain that has no boundaries?

I was curious to know how this problem would be solved in the film, and I think the screenwriters did a pretty decent job of interweaving Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent’s egos and emotional issues to resolve this particular portion of the story.

One of my favorite moments of the film is the sequence with the two boats where one is filled with citizens, the other with convicts, and the Joker has given them a timeframe to blow each other up. The performances were blah, but I, like Batman, took solace in the humanity shown by both boats.

I don’t know if I can necessarily pin down what was the overall theme of the film, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly Christopher Nolan was thinking when he went the “misunderstood hero” direction for the ending.

All in all, Heath Ledger died way too young, and film itself was eh—okay.

As an aside, there was a couple sitting next to me I was resisting the urge to yell at because they had brought their toddler along. He wouldn’t sit still 1) because he’s a toddler and 2) because the movie was scary and he was crying. I think it goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: I do not recommend this film for anyone under the age of 13.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I’ve been meaning to make a post about upcoming animated films for a while:

The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog will debut in 2009. Set in New Orleans, this film will feature the first black princess in an animated Disney movie…ever. I don’t care what anyone says, Nala from the Lion King doesn’t count. So excited! I’m going to see if I can snag tickets to the LA premiere.

Toy Story 3

Yay! One of my favorite animated franchises ever. According to IMDB:

“Woody, Buzz, and the rest of their toy-box friends are dumped in a day-care center after their owner, Andy, departs for college. Meanwhile, Hamm, Rex and Mr. Potato Head begin a quest to find their long lost twin brothers.”

It’s scheduled to come out in 2010.

Pixar has another film in post-production that sounds interesting. “Up” is set to come out in 2009 about:

…a seventysomething hero, alongside his clueless wilderness ranger sidekick, travels the globe, fighting beasts and villains, and eating dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.

We may have to wait another 5-6 months for teasers for the last two, but regardless, I’m excited…

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I apologize for the lack of posts these past two days. At the moment I’m working on my review of The Dark Knight that I saw over the weekend, as well as the official trailer for “Pilgrims.” I do most of my blogging/creative work at night with the idea that most of you will see it the next morning, but alas these past few nights I have been parked in front of my TV watching nothing other than the Olympics!

Angela of Saint School has been teasing me on Facebook because as the title of this posts suggests, I am most definitely a “Phan.”

A “Phan” is a fan of US Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps. I’ve been closely following our entire men’s swim team that is doing enormously well. If you didn’t see the 400 meter relay smackdown victory against the French the other night, do yourself a favor and find the video of it on YouTube. That has got to be the best swim race I’ve ever seen in my entire life. (I actually put my hands up in the air and yelled, “WOOOOOO!”)

And now for an obligatory pictorial salute to my favorite members of our swim team:

Matt Grevers, better known as 6 feet 8 inches of blonde Dutch cuteness…

Cullen Jones

…who knew being handsome would give you the ability to fly…

And of course, Mr. Michael Phelps…*sigh*…

Victory!

I love this picture.

Go USA!!

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Celebrities

The sole purpose of this thread is to relay positive
Catholic entertainment news. With all of these celebrities having babies out of wedlock in the last six months, I think it’s important that I salute those Catholics in the industry who are expanding their families in a God-fearing manner. 

With that intro, here is the baby edition of the Rumor has it thread:

I heard through the grapevine that “Bella” producer Leo Severino and his wife gave birth to a baby girl in July. I have another friend ready to give birth in a few weeks (I’m praying I make it back to LA by the time the baby gets here), and now we wait on the Willits baby #5 due in January.

Ali Landry and Alejandro Monteverde’s daughter Estela’s first birthday was covered in the August issue of Hola Magazine (pictured to the right). Actor Eduardo Verastegui is Estela’s godfather.

Congrats to all, and hooray for Catholic babies!

Did you know that one of the two executive producers of LOST is a practicing Catholic?

In an interview on the radio program “Personally Speaking with Monsignor Jim Lisante,” [Carlton] Cuse said, “The issue of faith and reason is really central to the lives of all people who are religious and grappling with a desire to find meaning in their lives. It felt like some of those larger issues would be relevant to a show which sort of examines the nature of existence the way Lost does.”

Though he doesn’t have any interest in proselytizing, Cuse knows how to skillfully weave spiritual elements into the show’s stories and characters. He said, “I think it’s about not putting things upfront. If there are religious issues in the show, they’re buried in the background of a show that’s essentially sort of an action-adventure-drama. Source

Eduardo Verastegui recently made a trip to Puebla, Mexico with a group of volunteers from his foundation Mantle of Guadalupe that “has the dual mission of providing assistance to minor pregnant women while promoting adoption; and better shelter conditions for impoverished families in underserved regions.” There’s plenty of pics here. I noticed a guy with a Sony camera in some of the pictures, and I’m wondering if there’s going to be some sort of documentary published about the foundation?

Okay random news: the White Ranger is Catholic! If you didn’t grow up in the 90s you have no idea what I am talking about, but the White Ranger is in reference to the show Power Rangers. Actress/model/designer Jessica Rey has starred in multiple shows and commercials, but most importantly she played the White Ranger in one of the later generations of the popular show I grew up with. I recently highlighted Jessica on my second blog Modestia for her modest line of swimwear that you can check out here.

TV/Film News

Great news everyone: Transformers starlet Megan Fox is going to play Mother Teresa in an adaption about her life. Check out one of the promo posters:

Ahaha, just kidding! That poster is a promo for one of Fox’s new comedies that is doomed to bomb at the box office. I know it’s going to bomb because after I saw this fake trailer for the fake MT movie which one guy called “atheist porn”, I’m sure there is nothing funny about the movie…

More great news that involves two words and a number: Lethal Weapon 5! I’m not even joking. Rumor has it that both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover have signed on to the project that will probably begin production next year (?)…allegedly the script is “fantastic” though I’m wondering what kind of action movie is going to be produced when Danny Glover just turned 62 last month…I’m just sayin…

Former NFL player Danny Abramowicz has created a sports-themed men’s show to premiere on EWTN August 31st…dude shows aren’t really my thing but I’ll probably check out the first episode….

Are there Catholic themes in the latest X Files blockbuster? A reader pointed me to a review that claims the film is anti-Catholic, but Fr. Peter Malone seems to think there is merit to the film…tomorrow I am going to go see The Dark Night, but the X-Files is next on my list and I will be sure to write a review of it, probably next week…

And speaking of alleged anti-Catholicism, it appears that people aren’t very happy with the new Brideshead film…I’ve never seen or read Brideshead, but a number of Catholics have come out against it. Barbara Nicolosi said the integrity of the book was “eviscerated” in the latest adaption…this movie is also on my list of ones to see ASAP…

Right now I’m reading “Left to Tell,” a book by Immaculée Ilibagiza about her surviving the Rwandan genocide. I’ve mentioned before that Steve Mcveetey was maybe(?) talking about doing an adaptation of the book, but I also just learned that there was a documentary made on Imaculee too.

A movie about St. Thomas premiered in India on July 3rd…

An Act One Alumnus’ new movie “This is My Body” screened in Hollywood a few weeks ago..

Might there be a new Fatima movie in the works?

Origin Entertainment is working to bring the story of the apparitions of the Mother of God at Fatima Portugal to the big screen. The story was made into a movie once before in the 1950’s, but recent events, like the assassination attempt on John Paul II, the revelation of the 3rd secret, and the recently published recollections of Sr. Lucia are all good reasons to tell a more complete version of the story today. Also, today’s CGI can render events like the miracle of the sun and the vision of hell much more impressively.

Catholic Media

My newest project “Pilgrims,” a World Youth Day mini-series, will have its web premiere September 1st. You can see the teaser here. The official trailer will be out next week.

The Hands & Feet Show is undergoing some major changes. Jose, G, and the ladies save Aneesa are no longer a part of the crew for various reasons. Javier and Aneesa will be teaming up with their parish priest Fr. Roberto to overhaul the old show and create new content. It’s sad news yes, but let’s pray for the crew and encourage them in their new direction. The newest episode of the 2.0 version of the show premiered earlier this week…

It looks like Lisa Hendey of the Catholic Mom Moments blog and podcast has ventured into video. You can watch “Catholic Book Chat with Lisa” here.

And finally, have I got big podcast news for you! The Rosary Army has officially hit satellite radio…Sirius Satellite Radio. Greg and Jennifer Willits of the Rosary Army and SQPN apostolates will have a three hour show on Sirius Satellite Radio five days a week. For the time being they will continue to podcast in addition to the show, though it looks like the second season of “That Catholic Show” is going on hiatus.

I was so happy when I heard this news, because it means that the Holy Spirit truly is working within those of us involved in Catholic Media to bring the Gospel to others.

If you would like something included in the next Rumor Has It thread, email me.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

*Note: The original version of this article had a blurb about singer Jaci Valesquez who was incorrectly referred to in my news source as a Catholic singer. Because the purpose of this thread is to relay exclusively Catholic entertainment news, I took the piece about Jaci out.

The interview I did with Mark Banks, managing editor of Soul Food Cinema has officially been posted. This is the first of a series of interviews I will be doing with Mark each year on a quarterly basis until kingdom come, or at least until he decides he gets bored with me.

Fun fact: There’s a note above the first page of the interview that says my responses are written in British English. This was probably the most relaxed interview I’ve ever done since Mark and I had been emailing each other for a while and it was more of a conversation than an interview. So basically the poor man had to craft together my responses from everything we talked about.

So how does the British version of me sound?

SFC: And so did you have an interest in film making beforehand?

RC: No not really; I kind of fell into it. When I was much younger I wanted to be a scientist; I wanted to be a biologist at first, and then I wanted to be a journalist when I first got into high school. I had a drama teacher that had put together a newscast project, and he asked me if I wanted to do that, so I said yes, and so there’s this footage of me somewhere sitting in front of the camera doing this news reading to camera! And so I did that and I liked it, but I was more interested in the technical side really; I was more interested in loading up the tapes and sorting the equipment out. And at the same time as that I was taking a film studies course at my high school. So I was trying to figure out if somehow I could reconcile film making with journalism, and that led me into making documentaries for a while. On top of all of that I was also playing basketball on a scholarship, but I didn’t want to play college basketball, so in the end I settled on film studies.

SFC: Really - so do you think you could’ve made it somewhere in Basketball if you’d have been motivated?

RC: Oh I don’t know about that; I wasn’t that good – just tall!

You can read the rest here.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Despite the fact that I have been incredibly excited about the movie all year, I have not seen The Dark Knight just yet. I went to the movies last Friday, but my mother refused to see it due to Christian Bale’s erm…legal troubles…so we went and saw the latest installment of one of her favorite franchises, The Mummy.

My verdict: Parts of it almost made me cry from boredom. It was too short, the development was predictable, the action sequences were typical, Rachel Weisz wasn’t in it, the list goes on. It was lame, don’t waste your money.

But back to The Dark Knight, both Mark and Clayton have had interesting takes on the film. Mark was slightly troubled by it:

As I came out of the cinema last night I was searching to identify what exactly the overall message was that The Dark Knight was communicating. I couldn’t identify that message then, and I’m still struggling to identify it this morning. That is never a good thing in a film, but for a film laden with brutal and intense violence as well as diabolical personas and demonic actions, it’s made all the worse.

And Clayton saith:

After viewing the film a second time, I have to take back the part about the satisfying ending. There is a line given to Batman near the very end about people needing something better than the truth. Either this attractive lie was a very sloppy piece of writing, or the whole movie collapses into nihlism and becomes a pointless charade of over-earnest silliness.

Very interesting…I’m hoping I will get to see the film in the next few days and let you know what I think. I have a feeling it’s going to reawaken the old debate of whether or not evil on film is necessarily always a bad thing. (I say it isn’t. It depends on the intent of the filmmakers.)

In other news, the X-Files is doing decently, and rumor has it that there are some seriously Catholic themes in the movie. But more on that later…

I have a super random prayer request. I would greatly appreciate it if you could pray that I pass my driver’s test next week.

My new car was sitting in the driveway when I got home from the airport last week and I have been practicing driving every day since. I drove us to the movies last week and to and from church on Sunday (my first time on the freeway). The only maneuvers I’m still having trouble with are going in reverse with relation to backing out of our driveway that has an odd curve to it, as well as parallel parking.

Funny story: I practiced parallel parking for like an hour yesterday afternoon, and apparently it was pretty evident that I was a new driver because some random man walked up to the car and said, “Are you practicing parallel parking? Let me help you. I used to be a driving instructor.” I did it a few times without any verbal help, but still…it’s the one thing I still suck at…

If I don’t pass the test then I can’t take my car with me to school, which will seriously screw me over this semester and I will have to change my schedule and everything.

Our Lady of the Road, help me pass! (And not kill anyone…that too…)

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

My body still thinks it’s in Australia, but life is officially back to normal for the time being, which means the blog is back to normalcy as well. This week I will be publishing another edition of the Rumor Has It thread, a review of The Faithful Traveler DVD, a small note about new movies and TV shows I’m excited about, and more commentary on the latest celebrity pregnancy shenanigans.

But for now, here is a sneak peak at Pilgrims, the WYD mini-series I am in the process of editing together. You’ll hear more about it and see the official trailer in the next week.

 
As an aside, I soooo just decided I am not using YouTube to host the series. No matter what I do the vids still look funky!

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

Introduction

It goes without saying that Hollywood is a place someone my age can easily get lost. I went there with a plan, but at the time that plan did not include my faith. Now that I have been renewed, I can’t leave God out. It almost hurts to do so, and in the last year and a half I have had to reevaluate all of my priorities and goals. Starting this blog was a means to help me do so.  In the last school year, I’ve seen a number of people all my age who all work in the industry get burnt out, hospitalized, sent to rehab, etc. These are all good people who don’t do drugs or anything of the sort, they just got tired of the hustle and bustle—the parties, the constant working, the schedules, etc. That scared me, because if it happened to them it could happen to me.

At the beginning of the summer I became aware of my own exhaustion and need to rest. I’m so glad I was able to visit JP Catholic and attend the CNMC, because it was nice to be around people who are using media specifically for the New Evangelization.  But even though it was a nice break, when I came back home the pressure and stress returned.

I sat with it for another month until WYD, hoping and praying I would get some clarity on the trip. I don’t think I went with any expectations, only hopes. 

In the beginning…

During the week of WYD we stayed at St. Ignatius’ College, an all boys’ prep school in Riverview, a suburb just outside of downtown Sydney. I had looked at the school’s website before we left and so I knew that “college” in Australia is the equivalent of a high school in America, not a university. But apparently I was one of the only ones who knew this because everyone was pretty shocked when they found out we weren’t staying in dorms. St. Ignatius is also a boarding school so it had dorms, just not enough of them to house all of the pilgrims staying there. We slept in two classrooms for each sex, an interesting experience to say the least.

The first couple of days were taken up by catechesis and the youth festival events. I have to say I was a little disappointed in my catechesis sessions, not because the talks were bad, but because the Q&A sessions were borderline embarrassing.  People were asking very poignant and somewhat controversial questions, but it seemed to me like the bishops were doing a lot of beating around the bush instead of just explaining what the church teaches and why. There is beauty in truth. When will we learn that?

The youth festival events were awesome. I saw Fr. Stan Fortuna, Jesse Manibusan, and Matt Maher all live. I actually saw Matt sing twice, but I cannot wait to edit the footage of the first  concert because it’s pretty awesome. Myself and three of my group members muscled are way to the very front, and afterwards I finally got to meet him! I also met the bass player Kemi, who is actually quite handsome in person.

Due to the time it took to travel to all of the different events around Sydney, I didn’t go to very many speaker sessions at all. One of the talks I did attend though was exclusively for women hosted by the same young woman who co-hosted the papal arrival (I forget her name.) It was all about modesty, chastity, etc. but the speaker mixed it up a bit when she spoke about how we can use our God-given feminine qualities to help other women. Looking back on it now, that information was vital. Catholic women need to engage in the ministry of presence. We need to help other women who have been used and abused while walking down broken paths return to God.  It’s very easy to separate ourselves from liberal feminism and other ideologies contrary to the faith, (and I’ve done this too) but I think now is the time where we need to stand up for ourselves, our church, and other women.

The good stuff…

I’ve already written about the papal arrival, and I don’t want to talk about it too much more because I don’t want to leak all of the info about my footage, but that was definitely a highlight of the first week. Papa Ben is so little! He’s got to be somewhere around 5 feet. I loved his speech that day, and I can’t tell you how nice it was to look around and see people from around the world all gazing up at him and listening intently. My image of him was not tainted in any way. He truly is a brilliant man.

I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that  9k pilgrimage walk. I didn’t know how long the walk was when we started, which just may have been a good thing. Of course we all had our gigantic hiking backpacks stuffed with sleeping bags and other gear, and about 3k into the walk my sports injuries started to flair and both of my ankles started to swell.  I was a little pouty for a bit until I heard my friend Jessica saying a Hail Mary. I had pulled out my rosary to pray as well, and when I turned to her I noticed she didn’t have any shoes on. I asked her why in God’s name she wasn’t wearing them, and she told me that earlier in the day she had decided to follow St. Ignatius and walk the pilgrimage barefoot.

Obviously her feet were hurting pretty badly, and so I walked with her and her sister for a few more kilometers as the three of us prayed the rosary together. (And yes I got her ordeal on film.)

After we made it to Randwick Racecourse where evening vigil was to be held, we set up camp. Once the vigil began I  got a bit of Papa Ben’s speech and some B-roll and went to sleep. I was exhausted! Despite the fact that it is Australia’s winter it wasn’t too bad sleeping outside. But of course a few hours into sleeping I was loudly woken up by some very cute (but loud!) Aussie boys some of my friends and I had met the night before. After that I didn’t get too much sleep because there was a group from Poland not too far away who were burning the midnight oil and chanting anything they could think of until about 6 am the next morning.

World Youth Day…

To be honest, the actual WYD wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it would be. Karma had it’s way and we were very far back to the point where we couldn’t see the stage. After the a night of sleeping outside half of us were sick and the other half was starving for something other than the canned tuna we had been eating all week, and so after I filmed a bit we left.  The only cool part was when Papa Ben drove right by us and I got to see him a few feet away again. (I still cannot get over how short he is…)

As an aside, I am incredibly excited about Spain in 2011! I hope to see you there!

The Back ‘o’ Bourke…

One piece of Australian slang I learned was the phrase “the back ‘o’ Bourke” which is the Australian equivalent of “the middle of nowhere.” As previously noted, the next part of our excursion was literally in Bourke! (At first it didn’t make sense why people in Sydney couldn’t stop laughing when we told them that’s where we had been.)

Originally, we had a jam-packed itinerary for the second week that had been organized for us by another Jesuit program. However, that particular program that shall remain nameless cancelled our plans and we were stuck trusting God to figure out where we were going to sleep and where we were going to do service. Luckily, we were put in contact with Fr. Anthony, a remarkable Indian Carmelite priest who lives in Bourke. He opened his parish home to us, and that’s where we stayed for those few days. 

I call Fr. Anthony remarkable because he is the only Catholic priest in Bourke territory for miles. He is the priest for two parishes, a primary school, a high school (I think), as well as the surrounding aboriginal villages. He admitted that he sometimes gets lonely, with his only company being his parishioners and four Missionaries of Charity who were out of town at the time.

We became somewhat famous in Bourke as word travelled quickly that there was a loud bunch of Americans in town.  On the second and final day, one of the aboriginal elders named Phillip took us around on a mini-retreat to see some nature and rock art. He was an interesting man who explained to us the history of the plight of the aboriginal people, that “what we don’t see is most important.” Also on that day, I finally saw some kangaroos! (That were alive in the wild and not dead on the side of the road.)

Bourke was definitely my favorite portion of the trip because1) I was touched by the community and the kindness we were shown and 2) because Bourke was where my group finally bonded.

Many of us didn’t know one another before we arrived at the airport, and with the chaos of WYD we didn’t completely gel together.  (And there’s always the little problem of different personalities.) I think the Spirit was moving the people of Bourke to teach us something about living in community. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit. (And that includes me…) 

If I had to pick out the most difficult time of the trip, it would probably be the two days we spent at St. Canice’s, a parish near King’s Cross that runs a homeless shelter.

Homeless ministry is in no way foreign to me, but instead of embracing the situation and trying to learn something I let myself get bored. Looking back on it, I think I was just trying to protect my heart from what had happened the night when we arrived:

We were the last of two groups to arrive at the shelter. We had been driving from Bourke all day, it was late, it was raining, we were tired, and everyone just wanted to go to bed.  The other group was from France (more on those nutty Frenchmen later).

I went to the bathroom with a couple of girls, and a woman who was taking a shower was yelling and cussing at us through the door. I didn’t pay too much attention to her as I was still sick from the pilgrimage walk and it was late at night, but I heard her loud and clear when she said, “I hope you enjoy our beds tonight.” It didn’t really click just then, but the next morning I learned that the basement we were sleeping in was the actual homeless shelter. Everyone who “lived” there had to sleep outside until the service groups left.

I don’t think I can describe how I felt at the very moment I learned that I had taken someone else’s home. If there’s anything I have learned from working with the homeless it’s that trust is everything, and we had violated their trust even before we had introduced ourselves. I think I shut down emotionally that morning, and I pretty much kept to myself for the rest of the day.

What brought me out of myself was our visit to one of the local synagogues. One of the rabbis there was from SoCal and had invited us for the Friday evening Shabbat service. I’ve seen Jewish ceremonies before but I had never seen an authentic Torah, and the rabbis were nice enough to let us touch it. Again, we stuck out like sore thumbs, and the members around us helped us out with the Hebrew and the Psalms.  The service was absolutely beautiful. There was a lot of singing, which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the psalms of lament.

The next morning, the parish priest Fr. Steve gathered us all into the church where he taught us about homelessness in Sydney. It was a good talk, and afterward Fr. Steve added some spice to the session when he introduced Kelly, a woman who had been living at the shelter for years.

For the next hour we listened to Kelly tell her story, how she had left home at the age of 13 to escape abuse and fell in with a crowd of drug users who became her family. We learned of how she involuntarily contracted HIV, how her son died of brain cancer, and how she was hoping God would cure her of her illness for the sake of her unborn child, who should be about 4 weeks old in the womb now.

I’ve heard plenty of stories like this.  But when Kelly started to explain how she is trying to help herself and how she didn’t want charity, I sort of lost it. After the session we had some time to ourselves and I went in a corner and cried for a bit. I felt selfish and ashamed of my own inability to deal with myself and be present to others. 

We had mass afterward, a fitting end to the day.

And now for a toast to the French.

That same night we all went out to a local bar to watch the rugby game of all rugby games—Australia vs. New Zealand. I had never seen rugby before, and I can’t help but feel like American men are slightly more wimpy now. No offense guys…but rugby is rough…

I went into the bar rooting for Australia (of course) but after I watched the first half and determined that the New Zealand players were significantly more attractive I secretly switched sides. (Don’t judge me…)

But anyway, what would a rugby game be without crazy beer-chugging Frenchmen who barely speak English? The photos are up on Facebook…oh a toast to the French…

The end is near…

Older readers will remember that originally my group was supposed to go to Vietnam for two weeks and then go to WYD. For monetary reasons that portion of the trip was cancelled.

But God always provides, and it seems that though we couldn’t go to Vietnam, Vietnam came to us. For the last two days we stayed at the home of a Vietnamese family who also happened to be hosting another WYD group from Vietnam.

Unfortunately, the footage from that time was damaged, which is unfortunate because our interactions with them were hilarious and faithful all at the same time.

For the next couple of days we just sight-seed. We went shopping, to the opera house, the aquarium, etc. I had kangaroo steak! But only a bite because I couldn’t get over the thought that I was eating a cute, cuddly kangaroo.  

El Fin

And now for the big question: did I gain the clarity I desired?

Not really. Well, I suppose it all depends on the definition of clarity. I still don’t know what I should be doing next, but I do feel stronger to remain firm in my decision not compromise myself or my values, and I know that this trip has planted seeds in me that will continue to grow.  The pressure is still there, but I think I’m finally starting to learn how to be happy with where I am, and not always obsessed with what I’m going to be working on next.

All in all, It was an amazing trip, and I have three years to work on my spanish for for España! Viva il papa!

Yes, I know that last bit was Italian.

Pax Christi, Rebecca.