For many people reading books is not their thing. It is simply not how they learn. Even when wanting to educate themselves in the faith reading a page a year is a struggle. Rather they learn more from watching movies. With the rise of production and technology a great way to learn and be inspired about the faith is to watch movies about the life of saints. Most saints movies around are in Italian with subtitles. Maybe production in Italy is easier financed. Not sure. Maybe also we have many saints from Italy since the process for canonization facilitates this.
Either way saints movies can be inspiring, informative and for some addictive. But dare I point out after seeing more than a few and observing people’s reactions, there are some clear and obvious concerns and in many way clear dangers to our spiritual life. Instead of giving us spiritual growth, if those pitfalls are not addressed they can lead to stiffling our growth.
My first clear rant has to be about how the writers, producers and directors with perhaps good intentions I should think, present the saints as picture perfect. Watching most of these movies, you are left with a clear idea that the saint is pretty much a perfect person from birth to death. It is like they are gods walking on earth or divine robots. Maybe summarizing years of a person’s life is a challenge. But brushing over sinful part of the lives is not helpful either.
All if not most, of these saints I imagine if they watched their own movie would be offended to say the least. They would have refused to be glorified because for them holiness is not of their own heroism but rather God’s work in them. They would feel that it may be an attack on their humility.
What that does to the audience is almost raise the saints on a pedestal beyond reach. How can I be like them and I am not perfect? How offended do people get when I say we are all called to be saints? Why? Because they say almost unanimously: I am not perfect like St Anthony or Monica or Saint Charbel or Saint…..
Idealising saints does little to help our call for holiness. They feed into what Carl Jung speaks about, namely that others live what we aspire to be because we fear our own light. So we are happy to watch sports, movies and religious stars to be what we want to be because we are scared to be that person and fulfill our true potential. Yes we are all potential saints in the making.
Movies in the name of feel good experiences that present saints like Augustine as perfect or brushing over his weaknesses that he himself was wounded by and so affected that he wrote his book “Confessions” telling the world his weaknesses and the power of God’s grace are not helpful.
Even many movies have been made about Paul or Peter with the former a zealous persecutor of Christians in his early days and Peter who is made out to be some perfect disciple. The least one can say here is go back and read the Gospels and New Testament and see that God’s glory was manifemanifested in and through their weakness.
In our Maronite tradition this is manifested in presenting St Charbel as a spirtual robot. God has made many miracle im his name and Amen to that. But showing Charbel as perfect would be offensive to him. He lived an austere ascetical life and went to confession every day they say. He refused to be given extra attention. He knew himself a humble sinner in need of God’s grace. Presenting him in any other way is not being faithful to his life and is putting him out of reach.
Brushing over the weakness of a saint is unhelpful for it is making it look as if God gives them these graces exclusively because they are perfect. This is quite false and misleading. God’s gace filled the lives of saints precisely in their weakness. Their daily metanoia, repentance and conversion is what activates grace in their lives. This is the only authentic path to holiness.
This conversion sadly is presented as a one time event in most movies. It is as if after a famous conversion or a big event the saints lived happily ever after. This is as false as it gets. Daily inner conversion is what we are all called for. There is a great danger in a lot of the conversion testimonies that are trending online and in our parishes to present a fairytale model where one changes dramatically from a bad life into a good life. There are miraculous and life changing events but they are only the beginning. True conversion must be ongoing and daily for we are all in need of God’s grace at every moment.
Perhaps Pope Francis sums it up best when he says:
Saints are not “supermen” who are “born perfect,” but rather are ordinary people who followed God “with all their heart.” “They are like us, they are like each of us, they are people who before reaching the glory of heaven lived a normal life, with joys and griefs, struggles and hopes.”
Thank you
Burning Hearts 