Cabrini and Divine Mercy

I don’t know if we’ll take her to the theater at all, let her see it later. But I wanted to see it first to understand how dark the dark scenes were, because it talks about violence, but movies handle violence in different ways and after seeing it, I think she could handle it, but that’s just a decision that I think parents should watch the movie and then decide, you know, per the maturity of their own child. Because there were definitely, I mean, there’s definitely talk about prostitutes and, a man tries to hurt one of the prostitutes and then maybe violence with kids. Maybe there was one scene where someone likes to knock a kid over. And so, you know, it’s not nothing, it’s it earns its PG 13 rating. So I’ve watched this movie and have been watching the internet react ever since it came out. And all the thoughts that are swirling around about it. And here are my thoughts.

So first of all, it was a beautiful movie. I mean, some movies are just beautiful. I love Joe Wright. He filmed the 1990, no, not the 95 the later Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley. And it’s just beautiful like that. Like the cinematography is just gorgeous. And in an age where there’s so few movies now that don’t have absolutely horrific things in them. I mean, my husband and I rarely go to see a movie. They’ve slipped so much yuckiness into movies. Now they’ve slipped so much yuckiness into movies that for those of us that really want to guard our eyes, it’s quite difficult to know if we want to see a movie at all or not. And so for that bar, I think this was great.

It was beautiful. It was, there was nothing egregious in it. I didn’t have to look at anyone’s boobies. I didn’t have to hear a lot of swear words. Like, it’s so nice to be able to watch a movie that doesn’t assault my soul. And I feel like that’s really rare these days. And so one of the biggest criticisms about the movie, and I do agree, is that it does not portray her relationship with Christ. And so as you watch mother Cabrini, who was the first American Saint to be canonized, who I love a lot. She was one of the very first saints that I learned about when I became Catholic. And so I just really love her. She has a special place in my heart. It does not talk about her relationship with God.

And so as you’re watching her have problem after problem after problem. Which is what the movie is about. The movie shows her deep desire to create orphanages and hospitals and to serve people who are marginalized. Which is a beautiful thing. But what you never get to hear in the movie, is why she had that calling and what Jesus tells her to keep going. It almost just looks like she was hanging around in Italy and was like, what I think I could do. I think I could start an orphanage. Like it looks the way they depicted in the movie it looks like this desire comes from her. And at least in the movies I’ve seen from Mother Teresa. Which were Catholic movies that were not. In the theater, as widely seen as this movie was, they show Mother Teresa’s calling that Jesus calls her. We call it her call within a call.

So she was called to be a nun. And then within being a nun you know, the Lord called her to start this order and to go into the slums of India. But we never have this impression of mother Teresa hanging out in the first order that she was in being like I don’t know this. This just doesn’t feel like enough to me. It would be interesting if I went and did something else. Like that is just not how these great saints are lived. God puts something on their heart. And then by the way, I think most of them are like, I don’t want to do that. I think that’s probably the initial reaction for most of them like, oh Lord. Okay, that seems really hard. That seems really big. Mother Angelica has shared that so, so many times that God was calling her to start this a radio station, this complete network. She didn’t know anything about it. And she didn’t think that sounded, sounded like a rocking good time.

She just felt called. And when you feel called, when you feel sure that the Lord is asking you to do something, then when there are problems, it is your conviction that helps you keep going. And so in the Cabrini movie, it kind of looks like one, it was just her idea out of nowhere. Both, I mean, really just, even to start the orphanage, she wants to start one, in Asia, but then the Pope eventually goes, look, if you’re going to do it, go do it in America. And then when she gets there and she begins to take care of these orphan children, again, it feels like a little bit of whiplash that she, someone says, Hey, you should start a hospital. And the way the movie makes it look. It’s almost as if she goes, oh yeah. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Why wouldn’t we start a hospital when she had not mentioned anything about that? Up until this point.

But I think, what would have happened? Is that someone who came to her and said, Hey, thank you for taking care of these orphans. Going into the community would also really like it. If you helped build a hospital and then a hundred percent, she would have taken that to the Lord. And she would’ve said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And we know that she experienced her own dark night of the soul, her own spiritual dryness as most saints do. I mean, I don’t know that I can say with great confidence that for sure every person experiences that, but that is the impression I have when I read about saints. They all kind of go through this, this dark night of the soul and the spiritual dryness and Jesus walks them through the desert without a lot of constellations as part of their journey to be a Saint.

And so we know that Cabrini experienced this but she was just with the Lord. She walked so closely with him. And that is absolutely the only explanation for why a woman I would stand up for so much adversity because the movie almost makes her look foolish. And you know, it is clearly a feminist movie they’re trying to show, you know, how powerful women are. But her power in the movie without Christ almost doesn’t make sense. Like you’d want to say, Hey, this isn’t safe, this isn’t working. You should pack it in, this isn’t wise. Like there were so many obstacles for her, the only reason why you would keep going is because God told you to. And that’s true, Mother Teresa too, right? When he tells her to build her city of hope. She has all these permitting problems. And so if you weren’t really sure that God was calling you to do this it’d be really tempting to just pack it in.

And so I wanted to share my commentary with you about this, not to just throw my hat in the ring of thoughts about the Cabrini movie. But to invite you to examine how you are living your life. Are you living and walking so closely with the Lord? That you hear him at all. And that when you hear things even if you experience obstacles in the world. Are you continuing to be obedient and to push through them? Now all of us have been called to the vocation of motherhood. He doesn’t need to tell us every day. He doesn’t need to tell me, hey, Sterling, I need you to be a mom today. Like he has made it very clear through the sacrament of marriage that I’m called to marriage. And through the act of having children, whether they’re biologically your children or some other version of being your children. That is a calling, it is a vocation.

And most of us aren’t negotiating with it. Most of us aren’t like, oh, today was hard, maybe I’m going to give it up. We do have conviction that we are called to that, and we do show up and push through the obstacles. And some of you have been asked for other things. This podcast is one of the things that God has asked of me. And one of the things he asked of me was also to create that daily podcast, which has not been easy for me. But it was so clear in my prayer life and it continues to be clear. I still ask him sometimes like, Lord, are we still doing this?

Because it’s a lot. And I just, every time I feel him gently say, yes, I’m asking this of you. So it doesn’t matter what obstacles come up I’m going to say yes. And I think that’s just the piece that we did not get to see in the Cabrini movie. In the Articles that I’ve seen that have pointed that out, they feel almost like scathing articles. Like almost panning the movie. Like it’s so ridiculous that they didn’t show her praying. And I have heard it said that the word Jesus or Christ was not even in the movie at all.

And maybe that’s true. I wasn’t paying attention specifically for that the entire time. But I believe that it’s true. I don’t really remember them talking about Christ. But I do want to say that we get to vote with our dollars at the movie theater and I don’t know about you, but I would like a whole lot more movies, Like Cabrini. Then what was that latest doctor strange movie that was so demonic and awful? Like Marvel just went off on the deep end and put, I don’t know, there was something very demonic about that last doctor Strange movie. And I just remember being like, Why did they do that? And so I want to encourage you to go. I want to encourage you to pay your money and vote with your dollars and show Hollywood we want more movies like this. I agree that it does not show Christ. It does not show her relationship with the Lord. And that is a bummer.

It’s just a missed opportunity. But it is a beautiful movie and I think we just need more beautiful movies. I also think that there have been very few movies that have portrayed Catholicism in such a positive light. Because I remember as soon as she was going to go visit the Pope, I was like, oh no, they’re going to make the Pope look crazy. They’re going to make him look greedy there and they didn’t like the Pope look pretty nice. And then even the Bishop in the United States who did give her some opposition; His opposition was very reasonable. It was very reasonable, what he was deciding and he explained it to her, like he definitely was not the villain in the movie. And I thought that was incredible. I thought the movie really portrayed Nuns. And an Archbishop and a Pope in a positive light. And I just can’t think of a lot of places where that’s true. And so I feel really glad that any amount of non-Catholic Americans got to experience that.

And then if you, if you show the movie to your children, I do think it bears pointing out to them. And maybe you could pull some quotes or read some stories about her, that she did walk so closely with the Lord. That is why she pushed through it wasn’t because she was like a strong woman. And she was a strong woman, but the strength came from her. Her walking closely with the Lord and being obedient to that. She would have still been a strong woman If God had said no, I’m actually not calling you to do the hospital thing. Like if he had just said or for us even right. When we are called to just manage our, our domestic church and we’re not called to something more public or bigger than that. We are not less. Of a woman. We are not strong women. The strength I think comes from our discernment and our obedience.

And I hope our wisdom comes from the Lord too because they don’t talk about that. It just looks like she has a lot of self-determination. But that is not at all what was happening. I do think it shows appropriately the incredible things that women can do with their feminine genius and their desire to care for other people’s hearts. But her strength came from God. And so if you are feeling tired, if you are feeling worn down, go back to your calling and say, Lord, I need your strength. He gives us strength for what he calls us to do. He does not give us strength for what he does not call us to do. And I actually think that is the real danger of this weird kind of new agey feminist stuff that says you can be whoever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do.

And you could do all the things. Then we’re like, okay, we get our marching orders from the culture and we start doing all the things. And then we’re exhausted and God is standing next to us going, hey, I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t ask you to do all things. I’m going to go, sorry. I’m not giving you extra grace or strength for those assignments that aren’t yours. So I just want to invite all of you to pray, especially, you know, for these last weeks of lent. Sit with the Lord, spend some time with him and say, what are you calling me to do?

And if it feels too heavy, be curious about why. Because when he calls us to something, the burden is light, we can handle it. It doesn’t mean it’s not intense or that we don’t have full days, I imagine Cabrini’s life was very intense, but she could just handle it. She knew what he was asking her to do. And so I also want to talk about Faustina and the message of divine mercy, because we’re going through this series on the daily podcast where I’m going through Faustina’s diary. And then just basically doing some commentary and asking a reflection question, but over and over again, we see the same thing with Faustina that she has been given this very big calling. And it’s difficult. And she struggles. And God is with her. She keeps coming back to the Lord and she’s like, Lord, it’s too much; this is a lot. I need you to help me.

I mean, literally one of the things that Jesus tells fostering that he says, can you imagine hearing this. You will prepare the world for my final coming. And she appropriately is kind of freaked out when she hears that. But she grapples with it. She says, Yes! She says, all right, Lord, I am nothing, but with you, I can do all things. So we’re constantly seeing the juxtaposition of her littleness. Her littleness of position in her order. And this great call that he’s asking her to do. And if it were not for Jesus, she would be foolish; foolish and prideful. And that I think is what feminists, the new agey feminists, get wrong is they think the power comes from doing these things.

But that is not where the power comes from. Our power comes from our receptivity, just receiving whatever God brings us. And God may bring us a big public calling and God may bring us completely invisible. No one will ever know your name calling. It might be completely hidden. And it is kind of a bummer that I think that there are all these incredible saints, particularly women, particularly mothers. And we don’t know their story because they lived a hidden life. And we really just won’t get to know those stories until we are in heaven. But they are no less powerful. Then the saints who were called to live big and public lives, where we were documenting what they were doing.

And now we read about them. And I want you to know that is kind of a cross too, right? It is also a cross to be called to something like this; to what Cabrini was called to, to what mother Teresa was called to, to what Faustina was called to. The big girl calling I don’t know that it’s better. And it doesn’t matter because actually the best calling is whatever the Lord has for us. That is the right calling. And so, if you haven’t read Faustina’s diary and if you are not following the daily podcast, that is totally fine, but I want to absolutely encourage everyone to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet as a novena starting on good Friday. That’s the first day you do it, and you do it for nine days, and then you make prayers. You pray for the intentions of the Pope. You’ve gone to confession. I feel like there’s a third thing. Maybe you do the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Sunday, and you receive special graces.

The promises of Christ for Divine Mercy are incredible. And we start on good Friday. And then we ask him to forgive all of our sins and a special favor on divine mercy Sunday. I usually pick someone in my life who is not a believer and that’s my one thing. God is so good. His mercy is endless. He gave Faustina these very specific instructions to have this image created and to have the Sunday after Easter, be divine mercy Sunday. And to have this Chaplet and to spread the word that his mercy is endless and it is for sinners. That’s all of us, my friends. So I’ll mention it again next week.

But if you can think about it right now, pull out your phone, mark your calendar. And just put the divine mercy novena starting on Good Friday. Nine days, if you go to praymorenovenas.com I love that website they have it there, if you just Google Divine Mercy Novena you’ll find so many links to it. It’s a very specific thing. But God knew that the world was going to be so dark right now and so he sent Faustina with this message for us in the darkness. This is our hope, let us clean this hope and believe his words believe that he is who he says he is. And then women are powerful and we are powerful because of our ability to receive the holy spirit. And then we respond with whatever he is asking us to do. To grow in virtue, to be hidden, to be public, to endure, to create change.

That is the real power of women. And women, I can absolutely change the world. And we do but it begins with what’s setting down, what the world tells us about our ideas about things. And just being completely open and receptive to what God has for us.

All right my friends, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.