In the fourth class we watched clips from the movie “The Giver”. The movie tackles a number of relevant themes: suffering, love, free will, redemption, and the Incarnation. At the heart of the movie, we can perceive a fundamental human desire – to live in a world without suffering, without heartbreak. This desire, in and of itself is not bad; we are, in fact, made for Heaven, made for a place without war, pain, illness. But here on earth, suffering is a part of life. How will we face it? Please watch the following clips, read through the additional materials posted, and then submit the discussion questions in the Google Form. The password is smaconfirmation (no capitals, no punctuation).
Scripture Passages
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. – 1 Peter 5:10
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance…
– Romans 5:3
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
– Romans 8:18
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
Catechism Quotes
God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? “I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution”, said St. Augustine, and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For “the mystery of lawlessness” is clarified only in the light of the “mystery of our religion”. The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace. We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is it’s conqueror. #385
As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”). #418
The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). #420
Movie Quotes
At the bottom of the hill I saw something, like a place… home. Home? Like a dwelling? No, it is different. A dwelling is not a home. A home is more.
Music… just like music, there’s something else you can’t see with your eyes. Something that lives deep inside you, something those morning injections take away… they remove something. What? Emotions. You mean, like, feelings. Feelings are just fleeting, on the surface. But emotions are very deep, primal, they linger… Listen to what is calling from inside… Why would anyone want to get ride of this?
Have faith, the Giver told me. Faith, that was seeing beyond. He compared it to the wind – something felt but not seen.
The emotion was so strong. And at the wedding – everyone all together, laughing and dancing, the old with the young, the bride and the groom… there was something there. Different to what we have. Yes. We don’t have “that” anymore. What do you mean by “that”? I’m talking about what you feel for someone else. The mind can’t explain it and you can’t make it go away. What is it? Love. It’s called love.
Quotes to Ponder
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. […] We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
He remembered suddenly a particular summer morning, wondering about the woodlands with Polly. Far from home they had come out into a lush meadow with a little hill in the center crowned with a spreading oak. There he had sat, leaning against the bark, with Polly lying daintily at his side. He must have been, he supposed, about fifteen. He couldn’t recall what it was in his reading that had begun the train of thought – yes, he could: it has been the great brains in their towers in Stapledon’s splendid Last and First Men. He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions – tears – were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a town, nothing but a brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky – no feelings at all. But feelings – feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then – this was awful! – maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself: showing one’s emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love – a great love – though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. He didn’t aspire to that, though; he didn’t even believe in God. Certainly not! So, if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still the joy would be worth the pain – if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice – and he suspected there was – a choice between, on the one had, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths. – Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise […] If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. […] Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
In his messianic activity in the midst of Israel, Christ drew increasingly closer to the world of human suffering. “He went about doing good”, and his actions concerned primarily those who were suffering and seeking help. He healed the sick, consoled the afflicted, fed the hungry, freed people from deafness, from blindness, from leprosy, from the devil and from various physical disabilities, three times he restored the dead to life. He was sensitive to every human suffering. – Salvifici Dolores #16
Christ drew close above all to the world of human suffering through the fact of having taken this suffering upon his very self. During his public activity, he experienced not only fatigue, homelessness, misunderstanding even on the part of those closest to him, but, more than anything, he became progressively more and more isolated and encircled by hostility and the preparations for putting him to death. […] Christ goes towards his Passion and death with full awareness of the mission that he has to fulfill precisely in this way. Precisely by means of this suffering he must bring it about “that man should not perish, but have eternal life”. Precisely by means of his Cross he must strike at the roots of evil, planted in the history of man and in human souls. Precisely by means of his Cross he must accomplish the work of salvation. This work, in the plan of eternal Love, has a redemptive character. – Salvifici Dolores #16
Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. – Deus Caritas Est #28
SMA Confirmation 