ON FAITH & MEDIA | Palindromes

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Palindromes

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Source: Catholic News Service

Intriguing but, at times, highly disturbing film about a 13-year-old girl (alternately played by seven different actors of varying ages, races and genders, including Jennifer Jason Leigh) determined to have a baby, who, after her mother (Ellen Barkin) forces her to have an abortion, runs away from home and eventually winds up in a household of disabled children run by a cheery evangelical Christian (Debra Monk). Director Todd Solondz's bleak "comedy" mocks both sides of the abortion debate in equal measure without making their representative characters wholly unsympathetic, but the inclusion of candid depictions of what amounts to statutory rape and under-age sex are unsettling and egregiously unwarranted. Explicit though nongraphic sexual content, including pedophilia and sex between minors, brief violence and some rough and crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.

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Romuald: After a wasted youth, Romuald saw his father kill a relative in a duel over property. In horror he fled to a monastery near Ravenna in Italy. After three years some of the monks found him to be uncomfortably holy and eased him out.
<p>He spent the next 30 years going about Italy, founding monasteries and hermitages. He longed to give his life to Christ in martyrdom, and got the pope’s permission to preach the gospel in Hungary. But he was struck with illness as soon as he arrived, and the illness recurred as often as he tried to proceed. </p><p>During another period of his life, he suffered great spiritual dryness. One day as he was praying Psalm 31 (“I will give you understanding and I will instruct you”), he was given an extraordinary light and spirit which never left him. </p><p>At the next monastery where he stayed, he was accused of a scandalous crime by a young nobleman he had rebuked for a dissolute life. Amazingly, his fellow monks believed the accusation. He was given a severe penance, forbidden to offer Mass and excommunicated, an unjust sentence he endured in silence for six months. </p><p>The most famous of the monasteries he founded was that of the Camaldoli (Campus Maldoli, name of the owner) in Tuscany. Here he founded the Order of the Camaldolese Benedictines, uniting a monastic and hermit life. </p><p>His father later became a monk, wavered and was kept faithful by the encouragement of his son.</p>

Jesus has suffered for all of us, and he suffers in all of us. He is the reason why redemption and glory are destined to rise up out of our own suffering. We simply need to adhere to him in faith, hope, and love.

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