Son of God

Last night I took my two kids to see the movie 'The Son of God', which opened yesterday.  It's playing in Hyannis and at the Heritage Theatre in Sandwich.  We chose to go to Sandwich and we purchased our tickets early before grabbing some Sandwiches (ha ha) for Dinner.  As I was paying for the tickets, the manager told me that he didn't know what to expect for a turnout at the 6:15 showing and he seemed to indicate that we'd be viewing it in the smaller theater of the complex.

I'm not writing this to you with any suggestion of being a film critic, but instead I want to share my experience and my hopes.

I can honestly say that I went through my complete set of emotions as I watched the movie; the sights, the sounds, and that well-known plot had me glued from start to finish, even sitting through credits at the end ('Mary did you know...').  It certainly didn't seem like 138-minutes. 

My daughter Jennifer was reluctant to go in the first place as she hates to see anyone suffer and she heard it was 'bloody'.  Once the film got going though, I noticed that she couldn't look away.  Occasionally I'd feel a tap on my arm from my son Jack, sitting between us.  He'd say, 'Jenn wants to know if that's the Roman Centurion who...?' or "Jenn wants to know if blood and water will flow...".  As the movie went on I could see them talking while never taking their eyes from the screen.     Who says we Catholics don't know the Scriptures?  My kids have been reading along in the missalette since they were little and now it was wonderful for them to see the Scriptures come alive.

Which leads me to my hopes.  I pray for the commercial success of this movie.  Not to make the producers richer or to make big stars of the talented actors but instead, to show Hollywood that they don't have to objectify women or splatter blood on the camera lens to produce a successful movie. 

In my children's lifetime, I don't think there have been enough good movies like this made but perhaps 'The Son of God' will be that small ember that gets fanned into a blaze.

Deacon Paul Harney