Thinking Faith
The online journal of the British Jesuits
Updated: 43 min 29 sec ago
The prodigal son and his jealous brother
Jack Mahoney SJ continues to explore the ways in which Jesus teaches about God’s forgiveness in Saint Luke’s Gospel, from which our Sunday gospel readings for this Lent are taken. In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus illustrates to his listeners the joy of forgiveness, both on the part of the penitent sinner and of God. But do we not feel a sneaking sympathy for the faithful and jealous elder brother?
Book Review: The Favourable Time
This useful little book is a bit like the
Film Review: Crazy Heart
Based on the Thomas Cobb novel of the same name, Crazy Heart looks at the breakdown of an ‘old successful’ in much the same way Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler did. ‘Bad’ Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, is a country musician with a taste for alcohol and women. It is Bridges who really steals the show swinging back and forth between witty cynicism and pathetic tragedy.
Film Review: Everybody’s Fine
This is De Niro’s film, and he doesn’t make it hard for us to have empathy with him as dad, granddad, widower and man suddenly feeling he has lost touch. The ironies are bold, perhaps too bold some would say, but these ironies are used well and make a seemingly light-hearted film very meaningful and all too realistic.
‘Repent or Perish’
What are we to make of Jesus’s seemingly stern warning that: ‘unless you repent, you will all perish as they did’? Jack Mahoney SJ examines the meaning of this caution that we will hear in Sunday’s gospel, which only Saint Luke records. Far from issuing a threat to his hearers, Jesus was speaking of the wealth of God’s love and patience, and encouraging us to respond in whatever way we can.
The plank in your own eye
As the argument over Gordon Brown’s style of management continues, Joe Egerton draws on the Spiritual Exercises to suggest that, regardless of how we intend to vote, we cannot approve of the way the issue is being handled, and should pay heed to what the New Testament tells us to do when we don’t like the way other people behave.
Film Review: Micmacs
Combined with silent-era physical comedy and the joyful aesthetic that succeeded in Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest film is an excellent escape from dreariness. Micmacs isn’t anti-technology, but it is an escape from a world where something not working is a bane and a reason to chuck it out.
Film Review: The Last Station
The Last Station is an account of the last few weeks of the life of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s story may be a real tragedy because he wrecked his family and the vocation which he was given by God. He misunderstood what love was. Unfortunately, this movie teaches us little because it believes it has all the answers without knowing all the facts.
The Transfiguration of Jesus
This Sunday’s gospel reading is the account of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Luke tells us that the disciples who witnessed Jesus’s encounter with Moses and Elijah were terrified by what they saw and heard, but Jack Mahoney suggests that this experience was one that nourished and encouraged them. What can we learn from this event, as Peter, James and John did, about the Christ towards whom we journey throughout Lent?
Film Review: The Lovely Bones
With a shocking murder at its heart, and a vision of the afterlife that comes from a young, naïve narrator, The Lovely Bones combines sentimentality with realism to uneven effect. Avoiding a focussed examination of grief for extended periods in a surreal, special effect-drenched purgatory, director Peter Jackson emphasises his own film making panache at the expense of emotional purgatory.
Film Review: A Single Man
If a three-word summary of A Single Man were ever needed, then it would hardly be possible to do better than to borrow the title, and with it much of the sentiment of C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed. The same film in the hands of any other director could well have been merely a vehicle to showcase the sublime performance of its star. But under the meticulous control of first-time director, Tom Ford, the exquisite visuals of A Single Man are a protagonist in their own right.
Film Review: Anonyma: Ein Frau in Berlin
What advertising Anonyma has received in the UK has focused on the fact of sexual violence: as is now widely known, the advancing Red Army subjected hundreds of German women to rape. But the violence is not the principal subject of this piece so much as the extraordinary relationships that are suggested to have developed around it.
The Temptation of Jesus
As we begin our Lenten journey and think about the challenges that we will face during this season, Jack Mahoney encourages us to contemplate the very human challenges that Jesus himself faced during the forty days after his baptism. The temptations with which the devil taunted Jesus, as recounted by St Luke, represented the questions he would have to consider as he prepared for his ministry – how did Jesus respond to them, both in the desert and throughout his ministry?
Commons reform: From Robert Parsons to Tony Wright
On 22 February, the Commons will debate the proposals of the Committee for the Reform of the House of Commons. Joe Egerton draws a comparison between the contemporary Parliamentary reformer, Dr Tony Wright MP, chair of the Committee, and the Jesuit political theologian, Robert Parsons, who died in Rome four hundred years ago.
Keeping Lent with Saint Luke
Over the coming weeks, Fr Jack Mahoney will be guiding us on our journey through Lent as he looks in depth at the gospel reading for each Sunday during the season. As we prepare for Ash Wednesday, Fr Mahoney examines the significance of traditional Lenten observances and introduces us to the person and theology of St Luke, whose gospel will be the basis of much of our reflection this Lent.
Film Review: Nine
From the director of the brilliant Chicago (Rob Marshall) and with a truly spectacular female cast, Nine looked set to be a sumptuous treat for both the eyes and ears. But every year there is one movie that on paper should be set for awards glory but fails to deliver in reality. Nine, it seems, will be 2010’s Academy flop.
iWitness: South Africa: Twenty years on
Memories of the seminal events that took place in South Africa twenty years ago this week, which ended with Nelson Mandela’s release from prison on 11 February 1990, will live long in the minds of those who experienced the atmosphere in the country at the time. Anthony Egan SJ describes the reaction to this crucial chapter in the struggle against apartheid. How did people of faith see these events as a sign of the coming of God’s kingdom?
