The Anchoress

Taking a very brief break here, to clear my head.

I have looked forward to only two films this year, Happy Feet, (I’m a sucker for penguins) and Apocalypto.

The trailers are both amazing…you can’t help but smile at the penguins, and you can’t help but feel awestruck at the beauty of Apocalypto, even as its message chills and feels all-too-familiar, all too much like a warning.

Mel Gibson is probably both mad as a hatter and a bona fide genius. Perhaps what he is about to let loose from his fevered brain will help us to look closely at ourselves, at what is happening in our world, and what it all means.

As the film concerns ancient Mexico, it was surprising that Gibson didn’t try to release it on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but perhaps he had something else in mind.

Gibson released both Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ on a Wednesday, if I remember correctly, because he likes to have the extra two days in his boxoffice count…I’m betting it’s no accident that Apocalypto is being released on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception - the utter beginning of the pageant of salvation, not - as too many erroneously believe - celebrating the conception of Christ via the Holy Spirit, but commemorating conception of Mary, his mother, as the beginning of the construction of the Ark of the New Covenant.

In an age where theories of eugenics are gaining hold, where post-modern wars are fought badly and retreat-and-surrender is considered more noble than victory, when civilizations are clashing, with one side baldly proclaiming its intention to utterly destroy the other…no, I don’t think it’s an accident at all that Gibson is releasing this film about endings and beginnings this particular day.

Morning Prayer for today, in the Liturgy of the Hours, was disturbing. It was endtimes gloom and doom, “raise your hand against the heathen” very apocalyptic. Very much the prayers of people who have kept the faith and been beaten down, who have looked for deliverance, who are ready for the passing of an age. The canticle was from Sirach:

Come to our aid, O God of the universe,
and put all the nations in dread of you!
Raise your hand against the heathen,
that they may realize your power.

As you have used us to show them your holiness,
so now use them to show us your glory.

I’ve read that hundreds of times. Today is the first time it ever chilled me and seemed so completely timely. I didn’t like it.

Advent is coming. It cannot come too soon. Then, we wait in purple, with a certain hope. Now…we simply wait, with Jeremiah:

Remember me, Lord, visit me,
and avenge me on my persecutors.
Because of your long-suffering banish me not;
know that for you I have borne insult.
When I found your words I devoured them;
they became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
because I bore your name,
O Lord, God of hosts
Jeremiah 15:15-16

Ever wonder what prayers a president prays? Or a prime-minister or head of state? Between now and Advent, I think I will pray for them all, for government leadership on every side, with stepped up prayers. Seems like it would be a good application of time.

UPDATE: Oh. Yeah. I guess I’d like to see The Nativity, too. But penguins first.