by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on June 8, 2011 · 6 comments
. . . Most people don’t know that “Inherit the Wind,” – both the play and the classic 1960 Spencer Tracy film – first borrowed the title from the Book of Proverbs: “He who troubles his household will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise.” (Proverbs 11:29). It’s just possible that the Book of Proverbs itself borrowed the phrase from an even more ancient source: the followers of Pazuzu, the Assyrian god of wind and pestilence. In some ancient Mesopotamian religions, “an ill wind” carried the spirits of demons, and so to inherit the wind could mean generations of suffering for one person’s sin. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 20, 2011 · 11 comments
. . . “The Passion of the Christ” depicted Simon of Cyrene just as I have always imagined him: resentful, even bitter at first, about the Cross he was compelled to bear. He was simply a man on his way to something else when fate, on that day, pulled him out of the crowd and into the Fifth Station of the Way of the Cross. In his inspired and inspiring new book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011), Pope Benedict XVI underscored the historical necessity of Simon of Cyrene’s role: “The fact that Simon of Cyrene had to carry the cross-beam for Jesus, and that Jesus dies so quickly, may well be attributable to the torture of scourging, during which other criminals sometimes would already have died.” (p.198). Critics of “The Passion of the Christ” deride it for its graphic and violent depiction of the scourging and crucifixion of Christ. It is an event of history, however, and it was not a gentle, civil affair. By the end of Simon’s brief journey with Christ, he was changed. In the film, he was now compelled from within himself to remain there with Christ, to finish it. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on March 31, 2010 · 13 comments
. . . I received a letter from Simon of Cyrene last month. No, not the original one but one of the many people I have come to equate with him. Dr. James P. Guzek, M.D., an ophthalmologist and surgeon in Washington State, is a devout Catholic and author. I have been privileged to proofread and comment on some of his upcoming book on the Early Church transition from the Jewish Sabbath to a Sunday celebration of The Lord’s Day. What could be dry historical theology became fascinating in Dr. Guzek’s hands. I’ll write of it when it’s published. I am proud to say that Dr. Guzek is a subscriber and occasional commenter on These Stone Walls. Dr. Jim Guzek has also fulfilled the example of Simon of Cyrene in profound ways, and I have come to admire him as a true model of faith and witness. He is a modest man, and will be the last to tell you that he has accomplished a Corporal Work of Mercy of Biblical proportion. Dr. Guzek has restored sight to the blind at home, and, more recently, in Ghana and Ethiopia. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on December 2, 2009 · 16 comments
. . . Then the other prisoner was back! “This was in the book,” he said as he propped a photograph against my small TV screen. It was the photo of my mother and Frances that I had lost four years earlier – the photo I searched for in vain when my mother died. Just as Mass began on my mother’s birthday – at the very moment I was offering the Mass for her and her sister – their last photograph together found me. An accident? Mere coincidence? It’s a greater leap of faith to dismiss such events as coincidence than to accept them for what they are: personally miraculous gifts of actual grace. When I looked at the photograph, it was as though someone had lifted a tiny corner of the veil between life and death. I saw something in the photo I hadn’t noticed before. The two sisters stood side by side – my mother on the right – on the shore of a new life, being prepared for the Presence of God. I never saw my mother look happier. I never saw more contentment and hope in her eyes. I never felt so happy for her, so filled with promise that her journey is near its end: Home, her New Found Land. . . .
