Questions for Reflection: • In John's Gospel Jesus is the "very word of God." How is Jesus the "Word of God" to you? • Baptism calls us to maturity, holiness, community and service. Which call do you hear most clearly? Discuss this month's Questions for Reflection from "God in Our Midst."

We all like to listen to a good story. When the story is about someone we know it is even more interesting. The Gospels are such stories—stories of Jesus according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John told and retold, generation to generation. They shape us as a Christian community. They tell us where we come from and what we are about. Our family stories can have the same effect.

One of my treasured keepsakes is a tape recording of my father telling his story. He shares his memories as a four-year-old of the boat ride from Poland to Ellis Island, and as a 10-year-old working in a bowling alley to help support his family. He talks about how he courted and married my mom, and their everyday life during the Depression and the Second World War.

I remember when we taped the stories. My daughter was working on a paper for school, and the whole family sat around the kitchen table as she asked her questions. Before long we had more than an hour of his life story recorded. I had one regret: I wished we had done it before Mom died. I would have loved to hear her version of Dad's stories. Our family elders can be a great resource of information and inspiration, but it's best not to put off tapping into the gold mine of their memories.

When Dad died I made a copy of the tape for each of his grandchildren. Today his great-grandchildren can listen to his voice and hear a firsthand account of their family history. They have, along with the Gospel stories of Jesus, "Papa Z's" good-news stories to help them know where they come from and what they are about.

For Family Response: Plan a time when family elders can share their life stories or take some time to tell your youngsters the life stories you remember your parents telling you. Discuss this month's FAMILY CORNER.

James Bond meets Inspector Gadget—as juniors—in Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams. High-tech gadgets and a nonstop pace kept the audience I watched the movie with highly entertained.

When we left Juni and Carmen Cortez at the end of last year's Spy Kids movie, they had earned a place along with their super-spy parents Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) in the superspy agency, the OSS. Their assignment now is to save the world from an evil plotter whose pending "transmooker" device can give him total power by rendering all high-tech devices useless. (Note the implied commentary on our growing dependence on high-tech aids.) But the spy kids' job is now complicated by a pair of unpleasant competing spy kids, Gary and Gerti Giggles (Matt O'Leary and Emily Osment) and their father Donagon (Mike Judge).

The movie is loaded with visual fun and wild imagination. The film opens with an extreme theme park that provides the requisite pre-teen body humor with its spinning ride called "The Vomit." The snooty president's daughter arrives at a special event surrounded by a wall of Secret Service agents stepping like a dance of wooden soldiers. The island of the movie's title is populated by a host of weird hybrid creatures including a flying pig and, Juni's favorite, a spider centaur.

But high-tech gadgets are at the heart of the movie and even offer the basis for a moral. Gary Giggles shows up with an armful of technology that trumps all the fresh gimmicks of Carmen and Juni, and sneers, "An agent is only as good as his gadgets." Carmen and Juni's technology developer reminds them, however, that the most important tool they have is their mind.

Like the original Spy Kids movie, the central value of this film is family solidarity, although here it seems a bit of an add-on to what is essentially a kid action movie. In this sequel not only the parents are involved, but also the grandparents. Dad and Mom are joined by Grandfather (Ricardo Montalban) and Grandmother (Holland Taylor). Some in-law jokes provide a little "tension" so that the film can end with a newfound moment of family solidarity and appreciation.

Moreover, loyalty to blood relations finds a foil in the Giggles family when Gary and Gerti finally must face a choice between backing their father or doing what is right.

Spy Kids 2 is another remarkable achievement by a young filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez.

Even the final credits are entertaining because of the accompanying postscript. In a life-imitates-art kind of way the credits become movie-imitates-DVD, providing bonus material, including outtakes from gaffes of the key actors.

For Media Watch: What values did you find in the film Spy Kids 2? Discuss Frank Frost's film review in this month's MEDIA WATCH.

What is it that makes Thérèse of Lisieux—widely known as "the Little Flower"—one of the best-loved saints? How is it that the young nun who lived a short, obscure life in a cloistered convent has captured so many hearts?

In part, the answer lies in the very ordinary life she lived as a Carmelite. Thérèse's uncluttered days consisted of prayer and work. Her way to perfection involved a never-ending series of hidden sacrifices, small gestures, simple kindnesses, obscure tasks.

"Great deeds are forbidden me..." she said, "but what does it matter? I will scatter flowers."

Thérèse's life was indeed about small deeds—but great ones as well, beginning with her burning desire to serve God as a Carmelite nun. She obtained special permission to enter the convent at the early age of 15. She longed to become a missionary and a martyr—dreams that went unfulfilled in her brief time on this earth.

But Thérèse quietly followed her way—the little way—and bequeathed it to the world through her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, which gained quick and wide popularity. Through her life and her writings she taught that everyone is called to sanctity and anyone can become a saint—even "little" souls.

The early signs of tuberculosis appeared during Holy Week of 1896. Over the next 18 months Thérèse endured immense physical pain and spiritual suffering. She embraced the long days and nights as her preparation for heaven. Her agony ended on the last day of September in 1897.

Thérèse of Lisieux was canonized only 27 years after her death. Her feast day is October 1.

Carole Binzer knows suffering when she sees it. She sees it every day as a staff nurse at St. Elizabeth Medical Center Hospice in Covington, Kentucky. But she also sees faith, courage and a certain kind of healing that takes place in patients' final moments and hours.

"I don't have to try very had to find God in my workplace," says the 60-year-old mother of five and grandmother of seven.

When she first returned to nursing after raising her family, Carole worked on a medical-surgical floor in a hospital. She couldn't help noticing that so many of her co-workers did not want to approach dying patients. "This is not why I want to be a nurse," she told herself. She turned to St. Elizabeth's, then opening its new hospice unit. That was 16 years ago.

"It's a privilege to be with people in the last part of their life's journey," she says, especially when they have made their peace with God, said goodbye to their families and are ready to let go.

Carole is often called on to help facilitate one or more of those last steps. In such moments, she is convinced, "it's not the words we say. It's just being there."

Over time, Carole has turned to song to help a patient in the final phase of his or her life. Hearing a gentle song, such as Marty Haugen's "Eye Has Not Seen," she says, "seems to be especially helpful with people who won't let go" for whatever reason.

What helps Carole return to work each day with her faith and energy renewed is the belief that God is at work, whether the dying person has lived a long or short life, whether few or many mourn the life that is ending. "God doesn't measure in people years," she says.

The following material is available at www.AmericanCatholic.org:

"Community of the Beatitudes," St. Anthony Messenger, March 2002
"The Forgotten Art of Blessing," St. Anthony Messenger, October 2000

The following products can be ordered from St. Anthony Messenger Press/Franciscan Communications (1-800-488-0488):

"Archbishop Oscar Romero: A Shepherd's Diary" (book)
"Lessons From the School of Suffering: A Young Priest With Cancer Teaches Us How to Live" (book)
"Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount" (book) "Breaking Open the Gospel of Matthew: The Sermon on the Mount" (book)
"Sermon on the Mount" (audiocassette)
"The Beatitudes: Finding Where Your Treasure Is" (Catholic Update)

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