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ON FAITH & MEDIA View Comments

Bridesmaids

By
Sr. Rose Pacatte, F.S.P.
Source: AmericanCatholic.org

Annie (Kristen Wiig) is a down-on-her-luck friend and maid of honor to Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Annie also has relationship issues and the man (Jon Hamm) she is sleeping with has no intention of making a commitment.

Problems start when Helen (Rose Byrne) becomes part of the bridal party. She is wealthy, unhappy, and lonely – and will become Lillian’s new sister-in-law. Annie is jealous of Helen’s ability to provide every good thing to make the wedding perfect and throws a hilarious fit. They reconcile and Annie shares memories of growing up as best friends with Lillian.  Helen uses this information to garner Lillian’s favor and events collude to almost bring down the wedding.

Some will think this is a vulgar movie, and some parts of it are. I hesitated before seeing it because it seemed as if were the girls’ answer to “The Hangover” and “The Hangover II” phenomenon of raunch.

Note that Judd Apatow is one of the producers for “Bridesmaids”; he gave us “The Forty Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”. He uses a “bait and switch” technique to get the attention of male viewers – he creates the grungiest sex and body parts and functions scenarios only to have the main characters realize how superficial their lives are and that relationships, marriage, and family matter.

Director Paul Feig does the same thing in “Bridesmaids”. Some of the scenes were unnecessary and will offend sensibilities, as will the language, but at its core, the film has so much heart and sweetness. The main characters do grow and change for the better, and it’s really funny. Thank God the girls never made it to Vegas (the airlines put them off at Casper International Airport in Wyoming. I went there once to give some presentations and there are antelope grazing beside the tiny terminal; very funny moment.)

So this review is not a recommendation, but there are probably young women in your life that will see it. The question is: what will they learn? I would hope their take away is that casual sex is demeaning and disappointing and that friendships are fragile but they can last forever if we tend to them.


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Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi: Mystical ecstasy is the elevation of the spirit to God in such a way that the person is aware of this union with God while both internal and external senses are detached from the sensible world. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi was so generously given this special gift of God that she is called the "ecstatic saint." 
<p>She was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566. The normal course would have been for Catherine de' Pazzi to have married wealth and enjoyed comfort, but she chose to follow her own path. At nine she learned to meditate from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the then-early age of 10 and made a vow of virginity one month later. When 16, she entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive Communion daily there. </p><p>Catherine had taken the name Mary Magdalene and had been a novice for a year when she became critically ill. Death seemed near so her superiors let her make her profession of vows from a cot in the chapel in a private ceremony. Immediately after, she fell into an ecstasy that lasted about two hours. This was repeated after Communion on the following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were rich experiences of union with God and contained marvelous insights into divine truths. </p><p>As a safeguard against deception and to preserve the revelations, her confessor asked Mary Magdalene to dictate her experiences to sister secretaries. Over the next six years, five large volumes were filled. The first three books record ecstasies from May of 1584 through Pentecost week the following year. This week was a preparation for a severe five-year trial. The fourth book records that trial and the fifth is a collection of letters concerning reform and renewal. Another book, <i>Admonitions</i>, is a collection of her sayings arising from her experiences in the formation of women religious. </p><p>The extraordinary was ordinary for this saint. She read the thoughts of others and predicted future events. During her lifetime, she appeared to several persons in distant places and cured a number of sick people. </p><p>It would be easy to dwell on the ecstasies and pretend that Mary Magdalene only had spiritual highs. This is far from true. It seems that God permitted her this special closeness to prepare her for the five years of desolation that followed when she experienced spiritual dryness. She was plunged into a state of darkness in which she saw nothing but what was horrible in herself and all around her. She had violent temptations and endured great physical suffering. She died in 1607 at 41, and was canonized in 1669.</p> American Catholic Blog Sisters pray a lot. They work at working together. They try their hardest to live simply – sometimes without much choice, due to real poverty. All of them embrace simplicity as a radical commitment to Gospel values, and offer that faithful witness to the rest of us.

 
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