Into the Great Silence

We began watching this last night (movie totals close to 3 hours)and it would be hard to describe it accurately, but I’ll try. I think what this movie does, not with words (because there are hardly any) is to immerse you into the silence of the Carthusians. I think you will get more out of this beautiful movie if you first read the excellent book written about the English Carthusians at Parkminster,An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order. This book will make the movie very intelligible to those who do not understand even the basics about monasticism….on the other hand you might watch the movie and then read the book to answer the questions that will inevitably arise from the experience.
And watching this film is an experience. Joseph who watched the early part of the film with me (which takes place during the winter) said, “there isn’t much color” and I replied, “not much talking either.” He was intrigued as the monks prayed, “kept vigil–watch” in the middle of the night…waiting for the Lord who will return “like a thief in the night”when we least expect so “keep watch” and wondered “do they ever sleep?” This is truly a film unlike any I’ve ever seen. I joked with Amy that she was about to see the monk’s interviews–the camera focuses on them for a few minutes individually, they say nothing and in saying nothing they speak volumes.
Looking for a short retreat?

I once thought and still think that an encounter with monasticism challenges everything that we think about life and our purpose here in the great exile.

Update: Some have questioned how we have this when it hasn’t been released yet, the answer is that we have the one-disc version that was available from the Canadians. However…this two disc version that will be available contains a great additional disc that will have some of the things that I felt I wanted to see and didn’t in the actual movie…like how they make that liquor they are famous for….

Feast of Our Lady of Pompei

From Vultus Christi:

Tuesday, May 8, 2007 is the Feast of Our Lady of Pompei. In Italy and in places all over the globe the feast will be marked by the solemn recitation at noon of Blessed Bartolo Longo’s moving prayer, the Supplica, meaning supplication or petition.

The Prayer of People the World Over

The Supplica is, of Blessed Bartolo Longo’s published prayers to the Mother of God, the most famous. Its incandescent words have opened countless souls to the grace of Christ through the all–powerful intercession of His Mother.

The Supplica is a prayer that people have made their own. It is known on every continent; it has been translated into hundreds of languages. No authority ever imposed it, it is not part of the liturgy of the Church, it was never submitted to revision by ICEL, and yet, it has become universal. Sociologists of religion, take note! Translators of liturgical texts, wake up and smell the Italian coffee!

A Prayer of the Heart

Certain rationalistic types disdain the Supplica. They see it as representative of an unenlightened, sentimental, southern Italian piety bordering on superstition. They find its emphases embarrassing, its display of emotion unnerving.

The literary style of Blessed Bartolo Longo is the expression of his own character. He was capable of gentleness and of passion. He was, like all meridionals, rich in sentiment and quick to express it both in song and in tears. He was moved, before all else, by the reason of the heart.

Blessed Longo was a lover of Truth; but his particular grace was the discovery of Truth through love. He found Truth, not in syllogisms and in concepts, but in the Heart and on the Face of the Word Made Flesh in the womb of the Virgin, and held in her arms.

The Prayer of One Delivered From Evil

The Rosary was the means by which, at the age of twenty–eight, a confused and desperate Avvocato Bartolo Longo — a practicing Satanist and medium at the time — was converted to the Truth and delivered from the powers of darkness. He vowed that he would spend his life proclaiming to others the Rosary’s liberating and healing power. This is why, at the end of the Supplica, he exclaims: “O blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, bond of love which unites us to the angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of hell, safe port in our universal shipwreck, we shall never abandon you.”

Bound to Mary by the Rosary

The Supplica may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Even pious folks may find it a bit too baroque, a bit overdone. It may be the southern Italian blood (mixed with Irish) that runs hot in my veins, but I love the Supplica and I plan on saying it with thousands of other people at noon on Tuesday. It is the prayer of a man very like myself: a poor sinner who fears nothing when he holds the Rosary in his hands, knowing that the Mother of God holds her end of the chain, and will not let it go.

I include the Supplica in my book The Church’s Most Powerful Novenas, beginning on page 175, you can also find the text of it at Vultus Christi.

Fr. Z has information on the Indulgences that can be gained by praying this prayer as well as an MP3 of the Supplica.

Israeli Archaeologist Finds Tomb of King Herod

From Fox News:

Haaretz said the tomb was found by archaeologist Ehud Netzer, a Hebrew University professor who has been working at Herodium since 1972. The paper said the tomb was in a previously unexplored area between the two palaces Herod built on the site. Herod died in 4 B.C. in Jericho.