By Josephine Darang in Philippine Daily Inquirer
ROLAND JOFFE, the director of “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission,” is an agnostic. But he’s the director of “There be Dragons,” a movie about St. Josémaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei which is now showing in Spain and will be released in the United States on May 7. The film is based mainly on the life of the founder during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and shows how Father Escriva at that time chose to forgive his enemies who persecuted not only him, but also Opus Dei, which he had founded on Oct. 2, 1928. Forgiving one’s enemies was something Joffe couldn’t understand.
The film director introduced his Escriva film in Rome on March 21. He was quoted in an interview comparing Escriva to Nelson Mandela in their shared love for freedom and forgiveness. The director admitted, “This story forced me to think as much as I ever have in my life.”
‘God is found in everyday life’
In researching for the film, Joffe (as told to Zenit) was struck by Father Escriva’s teaching, “God is found in everyday life,” “How can God be found in war?” Joffe asked.
“But then,” the director added, “the same question can be asked of all the fundamental challenges in life, and how we face them: How we respond to hatred and rejection, or the desire for revenge and justice—all those dilemmas are heightened in wartime. Those dilemmas are, in a sense, the “dragons” of the film—turning points in our lives where we’re faced with potent choices.”
‘Father, I am Jewish’
A video of a Jewish girl talking to Monsignor Escriva in Chile in 1974 inspired Joffe to go ahead with the film.
During that meeting where hundreds of people were present to listen to the Opus Dei founder, the girl told Escriva: “Father, I’m Jewish but I believe in the Catholic religion, and I would like to convert to Catholicism, but I am a minor and my parents won’t let me.”
Monsignor Escriva answered: “Look, I am going to tell you something that will make you very happy. I learned this from this son of mine (referring to Don Alvaro, a fellow priest, in the background). I must tell you that the first love of my life is a Jew: Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth—a member of your race! And the second love of my life is Mary, most holy Virgin and Mother, mother of the Jewish man Jesus, and my Mother and your Mother. Do you like that?
“And then, I must tell you to be very good toward your parents, to be patient, to pray. Don’t make any gestures of rebellion. Is that clear? ”
Escriva then advised the Jewish girl to continue studying for her catechism and assured her that the Lord Jesus would move her parents to let her follow calmly and serenely the path she wanted.
Read the entire article here.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
There Be Dragons: A film that shows that forgiveness can change the future
By Diane Thunder Schlosser in Enerpub
Joffe deftly explains that There Be Dragons is about “bringing love to the world --- the absence of love and what that does. When loves goes it leaves a vacuum – and that vacuum can fill with very many unpleasant things: fear, hatred, despair….This movie is made for all human beings with the sure knowledge that all human beings count – all human beings have value -- and all human beings, as St. Josemaria would say, are capable of being saints…”
Although this is not strictly about recently canonized St. Josemaria Escriva per se, he does figure prominently, and we see vignettes of his life as a young priest and a glimpse of the early days of Opus Dei -- his vision of the Universal Call to Holiness 30 years before Vatican II. In the aftermath and angst over the priest scandals, There Be Dragons sets before us a model of the priesthood that needs to be re-embraced. When was the last time Hollywood produced a movie about a priest – a real priest?
Not a vampire-chasing vengeful priest. Not a sensationalized exorcist. Not a fictitious albino ‘monk’ or even a crooning Bing Crosby priest, but a real priest! This generation is privileged to know of a priest who lived in our lifetime and has been canonized in our lifetime, yet St. Josemaria is not just a saint for members of Opus Dei. He is not just a saint for the people of Spain. He has been raised to the high altars of the Church and canonized a saint for all of us as a model of heroic virtue for the 21st century. As Joffe explains,
“Here is a man who, in a time of civil strife, civil war – when God appeared to be silent – was an example of someone going through a spiritual crisis who never lost the sense that each human being is a saint, that every human being is deserving of love, and he lived that. That is saintliness. Those subjects are worthy of honest storytelling. Josemaria also claimed that ordinary people were quite capable of being saints – and I think this kind of heroic forgiveness is what he was talking about….(it is) what offers room for hope. But the price is high: It takes a deep sense of what it is to be fully human…and, yes, heroic resolve not to be caught up in prevailing hatreds, but to fight them with unremitting love.” (www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/8815/)
Read the entire article here.
Joffe deftly explains that There Be Dragons is about “bringing love to the world --- the absence of love and what that does. When loves goes it leaves a vacuum – and that vacuum can fill with very many unpleasant things: fear, hatred, despair….This movie is made for all human beings with the sure knowledge that all human beings count – all human beings have value -- and all human beings, as St. Josemaria would say, are capable of being saints…”
Although this is not strictly about recently canonized St. Josemaria Escriva per se, he does figure prominently, and we see vignettes of his life as a young priest and a glimpse of the early days of Opus Dei -- his vision of the Universal Call to Holiness 30 years before Vatican II. In the aftermath and angst over the priest scandals, There Be Dragons sets before us a model of the priesthood that needs to be re-embraced. When was the last time Hollywood produced a movie about a priest – a real priest?
Not a vampire-chasing vengeful priest. Not a sensationalized exorcist. Not a fictitious albino ‘monk’ or even a crooning Bing Crosby priest, but a real priest! This generation is privileged to know of a priest who lived in our lifetime and has been canonized in our lifetime, yet St. Josemaria is not just a saint for members of Opus Dei. He is not just a saint for the people of Spain. He has been raised to the high altars of the Church and canonized a saint for all of us as a model of heroic virtue for the 21st century. As Joffe explains,
“Here is a man who, in a time of civil strife, civil war – when God appeared to be silent – was an example of someone going through a spiritual crisis who never lost the sense that each human being is a saint, that every human being is deserving of love, and he lived that. That is saintliness. Those subjects are worthy of honest storytelling. Josemaria also claimed that ordinary people were quite capable of being saints – and I think this kind of heroic forgiveness is what he was talking about….(it is) what offers room for hope. But the price is high: It takes a deep sense of what it is to be fully human…and, yes, heroic resolve not to be caught up in prevailing hatreds, but to fight them with unremitting love.” (www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/8815/)
Read the entire article here.
Roland Joffé: There isn’t an Opus Dei party line
By Stephen Greynadu in National Catholic Register
Roland Joffé, director of The Mission and There Be Dragons, calls himself an agnostic, but he seems to be a remarkably God-haunted one.
At a recent press event in Spain, the British writer-director reflected on what drew him to There Be Dragons — a film set during the Spanish Civil War that has predictably elicited media controversy for its positive treatment of St. Josemaria Escrivá, played by Charlie Cox, and Opus Dei, the personal prelature he founded. There Be Dragons recently opened in Spain; the film comes to the United States in May.
“I have no idea whether there’s a God or not, and it seemed to be a fascinating thing to think about,” Joffé explained to a roomful of sometimes skeptical journalists at Madrid’s Villa Magna Hotel. “I’m not a very spiritual person, unfortunately, being a Brit. We tend to go for humor over religion.”
The self-fulfilling humor of the self-deprecating line notwithstanding, the filmmaker easily uses the language of sainthood, spirituality and grace. His British penchant for humor resurfaced as he recounted the reactions of some of his friends to the news that he was doing a film dealing with Opus Dei. “Oh my God, that’s a fascist organization!” was one horrified response he related. “I mean, they slaughtered hundreds of people!”
Joffé’s deadpan rejoinder — “They have? Really? How do you know that?” — was followed by a litany of similarly preposterous charges: that Opus Dei “controls” the Church; that “hundreds” of cardinals and “thousands” of bishops are members; that their membership is kept secret, and so on.
Provocatively tweaking dubious members of his audience, Joffé continued, “The fact is: Opus Dei itself doesn’t really exist. I hate to break this to you, but there isn’t really such a thing as Opus Dei — in the sense of some kind of society with an opinion about something.
“I investigated Opus Dei, and I began to find a very important thing: Opus Dei is a group of people who come together to work on their spiritual life, to work on their relationship to God. But Opus Dei does not have a point of view, other than to say that what you believe you must stand up for — and you must take responsibility for your choices.”
“Beyond that, Opus Dei does not tell people what to think,” he said. “And, in some sense, that’s very beautiful. It’s also shocking to a culture that’s used to large political and ideological groups. Here you have a group that shares some things, but not everything. It’s very difficult to understand. We know that when you belong to a party, most of the time, you’re being told to toe the party line, in one way or another. There isn’t an Opus Dei party line.”
“That means that some people will not like the conservative members of Opus Dei that they meet, or they may not like the liberal members of Opus Dei that they meet,” Joffé said. “But I can assure you that all those sorts of opinions do exist inside Opus Dei.”
Read rest of the article here.
Roland Joffé, director of The Mission and There Be Dragons, calls himself an agnostic, but he seems to be a remarkably God-haunted one.
At a recent press event in Spain, the British writer-director reflected on what drew him to There Be Dragons — a film set during the Spanish Civil War that has predictably elicited media controversy for its positive treatment of St. Josemaria Escrivá, played by Charlie Cox, and Opus Dei, the personal prelature he founded. There Be Dragons recently opened in Spain; the film comes to the United States in May.
“I have no idea whether there’s a God or not, and it seemed to be a fascinating thing to think about,” Joffé explained to a roomful of sometimes skeptical journalists at Madrid’s Villa Magna Hotel. “I’m not a very spiritual person, unfortunately, being a Brit. We tend to go for humor over religion.”
The self-fulfilling humor of the self-deprecating line notwithstanding, the filmmaker easily uses the language of sainthood, spirituality and grace. His British penchant for humor resurfaced as he recounted the reactions of some of his friends to the news that he was doing a film dealing with Opus Dei. “Oh my God, that’s a fascist organization!” was one horrified response he related. “I mean, they slaughtered hundreds of people!”
Joffé’s deadpan rejoinder — “They have? Really? How do you know that?” — was followed by a litany of similarly preposterous charges: that Opus Dei “controls” the Church; that “hundreds” of cardinals and “thousands” of bishops are members; that their membership is kept secret, and so on.
Provocatively tweaking dubious members of his audience, Joffé continued, “The fact is: Opus Dei itself doesn’t really exist. I hate to break this to you, but there isn’t really such a thing as Opus Dei — in the sense of some kind of society with an opinion about something.
“I investigated Opus Dei, and I began to find a very important thing: Opus Dei is a group of people who come together to work on their spiritual life, to work on their relationship to God. But Opus Dei does not have a point of view, other than to say that what you believe you must stand up for — and you must take responsibility for your choices.”
“Beyond that, Opus Dei does not tell people what to think,” he said. “And, in some sense, that’s very beautiful. It’s also shocking to a culture that’s used to large political and ideological groups. Here you have a group that shares some things, but not everything. It’s very difficult to understand. We know that when you belong to a party, most of the time, you’re being told to toe the party line, in one way or another. There isn’t an Opus Dei party line.”
“That means that some people will not like the conservative members of Opus Dei that they meet, or they may not like the liberal members of Opus Dei that they meet,” Joffé said. “But I can assure you that all those sorts of opinions do exist inside Opus Dei.”
Read rest of the article here.
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