OLD  MOVIES 

NEW  TAKES 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year A, is, “Old Movies, New Takes.”

In many homes there is a shelf or two that holds old movies. There is also Netflix and the TCM – the Turner Classic Movies channel.

I like old movies – old favorites.

Question:  Is that a sign of old age?

Listening to some younger people who love to go to new movies – I think not going to movies is a sign of old age. How many times have we heard old folks say, “The last time I went out to a movie, it was The Sound of Music or The Passion of the Christ or Gone With the Wind.”

And the other person says, “Oh my God, you’re old. You’re out of touch.”

I was visiting my sister Mary at Easter and I spotted a cabinet next to the TV with 4 shelves – 4 shelves of old movies. She doesn’t have cable, so I suggested, “How about watching a movie?” She said, “Good. Pick one.”

So I had my pick of the liter – and there they were lots of old John Wayne westerns –as well as Casablanca – Moonstruck – and The Fugitive.

I said, “Did you ever see The Fugitive with Harrison Ford?”  “Nope,” she said.

So for the 10^th time at least, I watched The Fugitive. For the first time she watched The Fugitive.

Father Joe Krastel loves baseball games on TV. If he’s not there and I get the clicker, I love to catch old movies – no commercials – and if he walks in - he often says, “How many times have you seen this movie?”

And I say, “I love to see movies I like, because every time I watch one, I see something new.”

I do.

Question: How about you?

OWNING A BIBLE

To me the Bible is like that cabinet with its shelves of old movies.

I used to go to a Jesuit priest, Father Frank Miles, for Spiritual Direction in my life.  I made a few directed 8 day silent retreats with him – and  each day we’d meet for a  one to one session of chatting. At the end he’d give me – as well as each person making the directed retreat – a Bible text or story – to ponder – and be with – and pray with. The retreat house he was at - was in Wernersville, Pa. and then he ended up down in the Jesuit Retreat House in Faulkner, Maryland - on the Potomoc River. Both have great green grounds to walk on.

I once asked him out of the blue – how many scripture stories – did he own? How many scripture stories or texts – were his own?”

And he paused and thought about my question and then said, “Oh! …. Maybe about 75.”

He didn’t ask me, “How many do you own?”

In time I asked myself that question and my answer today would be, “Oh! …. About 40.”

Question: how many old scripture texts and stories do you own?

By this Bible question, I'm asking, how many scripture texts and stories - do you have written within yourself - you might not go by chapter and verse - but you go by the theme - the message - like you find yourself saying about one of your kids, "Father, forgive her because she doesn't know what she's doing!" Or, "Relax, some people get into the vineyard the last hour."

Question: how many old movies do you own?

By this movie question, I’m asking, how many movies do you know the plot so well - that it’s part of your life? How many movies do you think about from time to time – without watching them on a screen – but they are re-reruns in your mind – and someone says something or something clicks – and on goes the movie or a key scene or line from the movie in your mind.

If you watch NCIS – you know that the character, Anthony DiNozzo,  is doing this over and over and over again. He frames what happens to him and others – with scenes and lines from movies he has seen.

So once more the question: what movies – what scenes from what movies – do you watch over and over and over again in your mind?

I often  think of the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus  - starring Richard Dreyfus – as Glenn Holland. How many of us think – we could be somewhere else – doing the real thing – that we want to be doing – but in the meanwhile here we are right here, right now, doing what we’re doing in the everyday of our life – and sometimes we feel an “uh”- that is, a feeling of the uneasy – when it comes to life’s duties. Surprise, Mr. Holland discovers: "This was my life! My life work was teaching high school music. This was my opus. It was a lowly job compared to being a football coach. It was a job I took in the meanwhile  -  while always hoping to write a great symphony - yet teaching music to all these kids for all these years: that was my life. That is my meaning." 

How many people are like Marlon Brando, playing the part of Terry Malloy, in the movie, On The Waterfront? And we find ourselves saying in our own words, his words to others in our life: “You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am.”  It’s some of the same feelings of Mr. Holland.

How many people get through the day, because like Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, “We always have Paris.” And they play that line, that scene over and over again. “Play it. Sam. Play, ‘As Time Goes By.’”

People own Bibles. They are on some shelf in their home. But we have to take it off the shelf – hear the readings at Mass – watch the movie – over and over again.

If you get this, you get what I mean by owning not the whole Bible, but certain stories and texts from the Bible.

LIKE TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel, the story of the disciples, on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus – a seven mile walk – is a movie, a story, that is worth knowing and owning.

It’s the story of every Christian – it’s the story of every person.

We need time – distance – talking to strangers,  talking to each other, talking and walking with ourselves, breaking bread, living lots of life,  so as to figure out from a distance – so as to get in touch with what really happened in the here and now of our life. 

And in that walking, and in that talking, and in that questioning, they  and we can discover Jesus – a stranger – walking, talking and listening to us, someone,  whom we finally realize, “He is the Lord.”

I remember giving a high school retreat once and the kids called one of the nuns in their school, “Sister Mary Emmaus.”  That wasn’t really her name, but she referred to the Emmaus story, so many times, like every other day, that the kids called her that. That nun owned the Emmaus story.  It was her movie.

WEDDINGS, WAKES AND FUNERALS

As priest, I get to a lot of weddings, wakes and funerals.

I like to ask about the deceased, “Did they have a favorite Bible text?”

I like it that families are asked to pick the readings for a funeral – because they try to match scripture texts to a person’s life – or to what they think people will be thinking and praying about at the funeral.

Couples about to be married are asked to do the same thing. For the second reading, they often pick, Paul’s words from First Corinthians, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not inflated, etc. etc. etc. Love never ends.”  But not always. I’ve noticed changes in these readings.  They answer favorite movie with more ease and answers that favorite Bible text.

At weddings, wakes, funerals, and baptisms, I see people living out the Emmaus Gospel text. Luke’s story is pointing out that it takes distance – to really see.

And so on a wedding day, or a funeral or a baptism, sometimes it’s a very clear day  and people can see forever. At the baptism of a new baby,  it’s the grandparents and great grandparents whom I assume are seeing the most, because they have lived the most. They sit there looking at the whole scene and the whole scene makes sense. They sit there looking at the movie of their life – their parents – and being parents themselves – seeing their life going on in their kids – and it all makes sense.

They sit there and they are feeling the same words we heard in today’s gospel, “Their hearts were burning within” as they were watching the scene in front of them – and the movies of their lives going on within them.

So too the parents and grandparents at every wedding. There is no popcorn in church – but there are tears and tissues – as people watch re-runs of the lives of the couple being married.

So too funerals – at the wake – and at the funeral – with the eulogy - and at the grave – and in the days that follow.

Isn’t that why we have the slide shows now at funerals – along with pictures of the person who died on tables around the room?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Old Movies, New Takes.”

In the Emmaus story, Jesus the stranger shows the two disciples scenes from the whole Bible – and the two disciples begin to see – not only who Jesus really was, but who they really are – and they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread – and they have to run back to Jerusalem to share what they experienced with the community they had been with – whom they had walked away from.

A good movie, a good story, has to be experienced over and over and over again – and with each watching – we get new takes and retakes on our life, each other’s lives and the life of Jesus within us. Amen.