Hey, Tim Jones here, again. Hoping JA.O's resident film critic par excellence, Steven D. Greydanus, might have some more information or thoughts on this project;
It looks like Jose Maria Escriva, founder of the Catholic organization Opus Dei, is the subject of a movie soon to be out in theaters.
The movie has finished shooting and is in post-production under the watchful eye of director Roland Joffe, who also directed The Killing Fields and The Mission.
I haven't seen The Killing Fields, but The Mission
I thought was a great film, and in one particular sequence gave one of
the most powerful demonstrations of the value of penance I've ever
seen. Not so much the value of penance in what they call the Economy of
Salvation, but the deep human need for meaningful penance… the longing all spiritually healthy people have to do something to make up for our selfish acts.
This is not at all
to say that we can earn our salvation through acts of penance apart
from the grace of God. Without his grace, we could not even begin to
repent, and our actions would be worthless.
Repentance and the desire
to do penance is one of the surest indications of the working of God's
grace, so the idea that acts of penance – actions we take to help make
up for our sins – are somehow opposed to faith is self contradictory.
Our sins can be forgiven only through the shed blood of Christ, but
that does not relieve us of the responsibility to do all we can to contribute to the process of our own salvation (which is also called "sanctification" – they are two names for the same process).
Anyway,
I'm sure members of Opus Dei will be looking forward to the film, as I
will be. It sounds pretty highly fictionalized, but Joffe is reportedly
sympathetic to the teachings of Jose Maria Escriva. I hope the movie
provides some cultural balance to counter the loony speculation that
followed in the wake of The Da Vinci Code.
(This was cross-posted at Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine)
