5   MOVIES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “5 Movies.”

IT’S CHRISTMAS MORNING

Imagine it’s Christmas morning - and it’s the tradition in this family to open Christmas gifts on Christmas morning.

A teenage boy sees a neat pile of gifts under the Christmas tree with his name on them.

He opens one gift - from mom - two nice dress shirts. He says to his mom, “Thanks.”  At least it wasn’t underwear, the gift he got from her every Christmas till 2 years ago. He gets a game he wanted from an older brother. And then there is this small box - the shape of a tissue box. It’s not wrapped as neat as his mom’s gifts to him - but it’s wrapped.

He shakes it and then opens it. It’s from his dad. “Love Dad.”

It’s 5 movies.

“Strange gift - but interesting,” he thinks. Then he says, “Thank you!” to his dad, because they are 5 movies that he knows of. In fact he likes them.

It’s two evenings  later and he’s in the car with his dad and he asks him, “Dad, that was an interesting Christmas gift you gave me: 5 movies.  What was that all about?  You got me wondering.”

His  dad says, “I was wondering what to get you for Christmas - and I spotted some DVD’s near the TV set in the basement that you and your brother always use. So I went into a CD movie place in the mall and checked out the movies.”

“I found one you have mentioned from time to time - then a second - then a third - then I remembered two others - but they didn’t have them - so I got them on line.”

“Wow,” he says. “Thanks!”

But the thanks doesn’t stop there. He begins thinking about all this during the rest of the month - and he gets a glimpse that his dad really is aware of him  - thinks of him from time to time - and is listening.

What that teenage boy doesn’t know is that 20 years from now - he’ll be giving his father’s eulogy - at his funeral - and he’ll make reference to that Christmas 20 years ago when his dad gave him 5 movies as a Christmas gift.

More…. There’s more. He wonders what his dad’s 5 favorite movies are - along with his mom - and along with his two sisters and his brother.

More…. He starts talking more with his dad as well as the family - all because of that gift from his dad that Christmas.

More…. He pushes to make it a practice once a month - to have movie night as a family - and it brings their family together even more.

The title of my homily is, “5 Movies.”

MY FIVE

As I thought about all this, I started wondering what my favorite 5 movies are. I jotted down about 10 and then started cutting  out  5.  Difficult.

So here are 5 favorite movies.  The list is not chiseled into stone.

But here are 5 with something I got out of each.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

I like the Bourne movies. The first was The Bourne Identity [2002]

Jason Bourne is found floating in the water off Marseille, France by Italian fishermen. He’s rescued by some fishermen - but surprise, he doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know his identity.

He spots a gal with an old car - and she’s his ticket to Paris - so he asks her to drive him for a price. She goes for it.

On the road to Paris, they stop into a road restaurant - like the one’s on Route 95. He says to Marie Kreutz - the gal - “I don’t know who I am, but why do I know where there might be a rifle in here - underneath that counter over there.

He continues and asks why do I know who might be a police officer - that guy over there - and who’s right handed and who’s left handed.

“Why do I know what I know?”

For some reason that’s a great question.

It’s a good idea to pause every once and a while and ask, “Why do I know what I know?”

And hopefully that will lead to great gratitude towards our parents or some teacher or some significant person in our lives - who taught us key life lessons.

Ask why a movie grabs us.  Figure out scenes and situations in favorite movies that impact our lives.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

The second movie that grabbed me was Doctor Zhivago [1965].

It taught me how much in life is out of our control.

We have it easy in the good old U.S.A.  Doctor Zhivago has his life all planned out, but in the meanwhile a war, a revolution [the Russian Revolution]  breaks out and he is grabbed and his whole life falls apart.

Weather, divorces, deaths, sickness, loss of a job, new teachers, new principals, coaches,  etc. etc. etc. can change our lives - and we find ourselves out of control.

So Doctor Zhivago puts us in another person’s living room.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

The next movie that I would list is Lawrence of Arabia [1962].

He thinks outside the box. He thinks the different. He’s the one who said when the European powers were drawing the lines for mid-east - you don’t know what you are doing. You have to go tribal - not your way. Well, look at what happened? We’re dealing with those mistakes to this day.

In the movie, Lawrence decides to attack Aqaba by going across the desert. All the guns are pointed out to sea - and all the trench works and forts leading to this Red Sea port are there for attacks from the water. There is no protection from the desert - and so that’s how Lawrence moves on Aqaba.

That seeing what nobody else was seeing - that planning from another point of view. Isn’t that what our world needs?

There is another scene that I remember. While crossing the desert to attack      Aqaba a guy falls off his camel and is lost in the desert. Lawrence overhears this and mounts his camel to go in search of the guy. Someone says, “It is written in the book you can’t do that.”

Lawrence basically says, “Watch me!”  He then goes out and rescues this guy.

I hear people all the time who think that God has written the plan, the script of their life and they have to follow that plan.

I like people who laugh at life and hear God laughing at life as that person writes their own script as their life unfolds - and they work to make their life go the best ways they can make it work

GROUND HOG DAY

I’ll list Groundhog Day [1993] as my fourth movie. Bill Murray plays the part of a TV weatherman, Phil Conners. In the movie he gets to do Groundhog Day over and over again till he gets it right.

There are various messages from this movie, but the basic clear message I get is that every day we get a chance to do it all over again - and to make it a morning prayer to say: “Lord, thank you for one more opportunity to get it right.”

The next message I get is that we do make mistakes - definitely - so a key message is: “Lord, help to learn from my mistakes.” 

Name the mistake. Name the learning from that mistake.

The third message I get from that movie is this.  Sometimes I walk into a room or someone else walks into a room and someone attacks right away with a “wrong word”.  When I hear that - sometimes - not often - but sometimes, because of the movie Groundhog Day, I get up and walk out of the room and then come back again and say, “Now let’s try that entrance once more - but this time with nice!”

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

And lastly, I better include the movie, It’s A Wonderful Life.

It’s the wonderful movie  - released on December 25^th, 1946.

I’m sure Frank Capra - never thought his movie would be seen every Christmas ever since.

It’s on TV every Christmas season at least 2 dozen times.

It has so many lessons for so many people.

A key message for me is to realize that what I do has consequences - like the domino effect.

A priest walked into a classroom when I was in grammar school  - asked, “Who here would like to be a priest?” so I raised my hand and became a priest.

I wonder: if he didn’t become a priest, would my life be different - because he never would have walked into that classroom? Would I have become a priest? If he didn’t walk into that classroom, would my life have been different?

In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, finds out all that would never have happened if he never existed - especially in Bedford Falls.

My comments this morning have lifetime consequences. You might go home and be nicer to your dad - who then is nicer to your mom - and both of them go out for supper and start talking to the waitress - who was having a bad day - and their words prevented that woman from planning to kill herself or what have you.

Hey, you never know. 

It’s a wonderful life.