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Concerning Mortis and the Symbology of the Force Part III — The Agenda of Higher Beings

April 4, 2015

Adjua Adama

When looking at the Priestesses and the Overlords of Mortis as one general amalgamation of a higher plane of existence beyond the tangible world of our main heroes and villains, it was seen in Part II that the beings of a higher power, serving as guides and instructors for the instruments of destiny in the real world, often play the role of the trickster as part of the standard hero’s peregrination — shaping and molding the actions of corporeal chess pieces through contrivance, surrealistic visions, trials, and suggestion.

No one exhibits those characteristics more than the Priestesses: the beings who christen Yoda with the knowledge of post-mortem omniscience and omnipresence. Perhaps intimating that Yoda couldn’t handle the additional understanding of the Chosen One’s inevitable destiny, destroying both the corruption within the Jedi and the Republic, before eliminating the Sith at the height of their power (metaphorically exhibited as Anakin’s taming both the Daughter’s Griffin and the Son’s Gargoyle toward the end of “The Overlords”), upon successful completion of a conspiratorial Priestess/Sith final exam, ‘Serenity Priestess’ plants a seed that draws Yoda toward a different Skywalker other than Anakin. As they exist without time or space, she allows Yoda to hear a baby’s prospective clamor, and echoes the great Jedi master’s notable final words: “There is another Skywalker.” Given the additional criteria used to convince her sisters of Yoda’s prerequisite qualifications for greater power — that, “he will teach one who is to save the galaxy from the great imbalance…,” the die is cast for Yoda’s return to extant-Phantom Menace apprehension concerning Anakin’s promise as a Jedi, and upon his inevitable fall into darkness (really a fulfillment of the first half of his destiny as the Chosen One), the simultaneous birth of Luke and Leia will trigger the memory of that moment ‘Serenity Priestess’ shared with him, and Yoda (with the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi), will continue the pursuit of the prophesy with renewed vigor amidst the despair surrounding the destruction of their once proud Order. But the great Jedi master, with a principled Obi-Wan at his side, isn’t privy to the prescience afforded the exalted beings of the Force: Anakin will be that phoenix who rises from the ashes, but he must first reawaken from his dark sleep via the trigger he created out of an act of rebellion against the very dogmatic doctrine the Force created him to destroy.

It was previously documented that trickster characters, particularly within African spiritual motifs, engage in “signifying” — essentially verbal play that cannot always be trusted, as the signifier often has a greater agenda that plays into their personal interests. As John Wideman (1988) noted within his review of Henry Louis Gates’ The Signifying Monkey, “…even the most literal utterance allows room for interpretation…” The Priestesses, as well as the Overlords, understand that Anakin’s destiny, “…lies along a different path…” than the Jedi hierarchy are willing to acknowledge or understand. They can be used, however, to protect and nurture the key to Anakin’s resurrection, and subsequent destruction of the Sith, via Luke — even as their understanding of Luke’s destiny is still mired by the very axiology the Force has deemed apocryphal. Though both Anakin and Yoda are exposed to various elements of their futures, only Yoda is permitted to return with that knowledge — select impressions of the impending destruction of the Jedi at the hands of the clone army, the rise of Darth Sidious, and the revelation that there is another Skywalker on the way. Permitted to keep a map of his future deeds would derail the Chosen One’s path — which could be used by Palpatine to outmaneuver even the Force itself. That Yoda is able to retain these elements leads to the skepticism exhibited on the gunship in Revenge of the Sith, when he says, “…a prophesy that misread could have been…,” to which Mace Windu nods in agreement. And if Anakin’s outward affection for Padme already gave him pause, this new revelation perhaps furnished an understanding that their relationship is stronger than previously thought, with this other Skywalker on the way. Why doesn’t he expose Anakin’s “violations” to the rest of the Order? Because he knows, through his visions on Dagobah, the Jedi will take a hard fall, and this “other Skywalker” might be the path to the Order surviving. The Priestesses perceive — had Yoda and Obi-Wan continued to believe Anakin was the Chosen One, they might falter when he betrayed them in the name of the Empire. After all, if your Messiah turned out to be the Devil, that might make you question your beliefs, and even your life’s work, leading you to simply give up and end it right there, perhaps even in suicide. However, if you believe the prophesy is valid, but you only misidentified the Messiah, you can still have hope that this period of emerging darkness is just a season to be endured, until light is restored at a future moment. Yoda and Obi-Wan turn to Luke and Leia as their new investments in a possible bright future, not realizing that Anakin is still in play for the Light Side.

The Key Element to Decoding Anakin’s Messianic Destiny

When The Phantom Menace debuted, perhaps the most striking element of Anakin Skywalker’s past was the revelation of his virgin birth: a deifying rather than humanizing trait. Though the Western world is familiar with the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the rest of the world is replete with mythological and religious tales that begin with a similar transformative figure, where a higher power acts as its father. Thousands of years before Christianity was codified, the people of the Nile told of Heru (or, what the Greeks would call “Horus”), the being who would destroy Set (the visage of darkness), also born of a virgin birth. Author Joseph Campbell (2008), in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, documents that earthly mythologies are replete with paragons that forever shape the world, but whose origins often are derived from a single woman impregnated by the cosmos (see “The Virgin Birth,” p. 255-69). In essence, whatever possesses the power to shape the world only exists in spirit at first, and can interact with the world by transforming himself through birth via the mother. “And she is virgin,” he writes, “because her spouse is the Invisible Unknown (p. 255)” — or the Force, as it’s called in our favorite fantasy world.

Campbell also corroborates that the sanctified universal mother often retains a transformative nature in the cycle of the hero, who makes an appearance to the world in many “guises.” She has to simultaneously act as the mother of life and death, and she brings both feast and famine, or disease. The virgin mother of Star Wars, Shmi Skywalker, appears to Anakin in a vision on Mortis as a transformative figure as well. Though there is a cryptic confirmation from the Father that this is a trick emanating from his perfidious Son, away from the celestial plains, Shmi does retain the dichotomy of one who brings life and death. In life, she serves as the medium used by the Force as the universal mother, affording it a manifestation of flesh and blood, rendering it the power to change the physical world. In death, she serves as the principle key to send Anakin toward his inevitable first metamorphosis —which will destroy the corruption within the Jedi Order, and by extension the Republic, abiding both to begin anew.

Contact Adjua at [email protected] and on Twitter @Adjua_Adama.

Concerning Mortis and the Symbology of the Force

February 4, 2015

Adjua Adama

Within the films, Star Wars has given audiences the Force — the mysterious energy field that binds all living things together. Those who can tap into that energy field either serve benevolent purposes (the Jedi), or they embody the selfish and deleterious evil of the dark side (the Sith)…“The Mortis Trilogy,” from Season 3 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is a story in which the anti-hero, Anakin Skywalker, may learn that maintaining the muddiness of the ethereal waters is essential to preventing the galaxy from ripping itself apart — rather than engaging in a sojourn of purification aligned with what the Jedi believe to be destined for the “Chosen One.”

The Anthropomorphic Moral Dilemma

Within the films, Star Wars has given audiences the Force — the mysterious energy field that binds all living things together. Those who can tap into that energy field either serve benevolent purposes (the Jedi), or they embody the selfish and deleterious evil of the dark side (the Sith). From the original film, it appears that the goal of those who follow the light endeavor to destroy the darkness, thus achieving peace in the galaxy. It seems a rather simple conceit, until the proverbial waters are muddied, as the audience finds out the driving force for what is good in our protagonist, Luke, is also the face of evil — Darth Vader.

“The Mortis Trilogy,” from Season 3 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is a story in which the anti-hero in question, Anakin Skywalker, may learn that maintaining the muddiness of those waters is essential to preventing the galaxy from ripping itself apart, rather than engaging in a sojourn of purification. Lucas continues to draw upon the mythology of Earth civilizations to forge that galaxy far, far away. In an effort to explain the great campaign between good and evil, every culture, every civilization, every religion known to man has documented the concept anthropomorphically, the essence of each personified in corporeal form – be it human or animal. For Lucas, the nature of the good side is embodied by the Daughter, the first of the entities exhibited on the strange interior of Mortis’ octahedronous form. The dark side later materializes as the Son, the crimson-eyed, clean-shaven, ancient Sith-looking being who causes great danger for the trio.

Later, Anakin finds their father, the Star Wars equivalent of Tehuti, the Kemetic deity responsible for maintaining Ma’at, the principle of balance and reciprocity – often symbolized by a scale throughout the temples and pyramids of Northeastern Africa. Sitting upon a throne that balances the manifestations of the light side and the dark side of the force, the Father declares his neutrality in this epic struggle, perennially maintaining a firm hand on the leash that separates the two warring siblings, and begs Anakin to replace him in this task upon his death. As the two discuss the prophesy of the “Chosen One,” Obi-Wan and Ahsoka witness first-hand the continuing titanic skirmish. Even the world itself appears to play a role in the cyclic nature of this war, as the day brings forth rebirth and light, while the night signifies death and dangerous storms. If it is permissible to use the Nile Valley story of Ausar (whom the Greeks called Osiris), and given the Father might represent Tehuti, then the Daughter denotes Heru, the symbol of good, while the Son could signify Set, the symbol of evil and jealousy. Indeed, people of the Nile often used the diurnal movement of the sun as an allegory for the constant clash between good and evil, the cyclical nature of life and death. When Heru would win, the day came. Once Set regained the upper hand, night would fall. It is no coincidence, then, that the Jedi arrive in the day to the greeting of the Daughter, yet only spot the Son after the darkness prevails.

Concerning Animals

Both the Son and the Daughter undergo deliberate permutations in the story, to that of a gargoyle and a griffin respectively — effigies of each appear to the left and right of the father’s throne in equal proportions. It’s rather interesting that Lucas, and the Clone Wars creative team, chose these two representations to typify the extremes of the Force. The griffin, half eagle, half lion, often are essential creatures in the mythic struggle of good and evil throughout human civilizations. In “The Griffin,” an article which appeared in The World & I, author Rachel Hajar writes that these creatures were, “…fabled to be the offspring of the lion and the eagle…,” the ultimate royalty of the animal kingdom. Throughout the ages, both animals have come to represent universal principles of royalty, strength, honor, bravery, ferocity, and valor. Their marriage represents the best of both worlds, and often, “…because of its ferocity, the griffin was also used as a talisman to ward off evil.” “As a guardian beast,” Hajar writes, “it protected sacred or symbolic objects by frightening those who would steal or desecrate them.” Some griffins, however, could also come to embody “fear and evil,” and many Mesopotamian societies would symbolize the victory over bestial forces as a humanoid god standing between two griffins — essentially acting as the, “Master of the Griffins.” The Daughter, who takes the form of the griffin, does essentially protect what is good about the Force from those who might corrupt its power. She continually battles her sibling for hegemony over its celestial powers, and she also demonstrates her frightening faculties in the kidnapping and restraint of Obi-Wan within the arena.

The Son transforms into the gargoyle, a rather curious choice for Lucas. Obviously, the crimson-eyed creature successfully characterizes the consuming darkness that befalls one who turns to the dark side of the Force — outwardly. This gargoyle, however, closely resembles the form of a bat — a rather controversial symbol for humanity, as its inherent nature meanders from that of good fortune to demonic witch familiar the further one travels. It is true that Western culture discerns the bat with satanic regard, consorting with witches and demons. Often, as angelic figures are afforded the wings of birds, demons take up the wings of bats within the void of night. Among Native Americans, in contrast, the bat is often depicted as the icon of rebirth, swarming out of the dark caves of Mother Earth, to live again among the creatures of the surface.

Though sometimes frightening creatures, gargoyles are not meant to signify evil. According to “The Mysterious World of Gargoyles,” found in a 1999 issue of Renaissance, author Cristina Pelayo writes that, “the word ‘gargoyle’ from the French ‘gargouille’, meaning throat, seems to reproduce the gurgling sound of water and air passing through the throat and, not surprisingly, it was used to refer to the sculptures affixed to rooftop drains and gutters.” One can often find many of these beastly manifestations adorning the great cathedrals and religious centers of Christianity, continuing to act as the “givers of water.” One can dig further into French mythology and find the medieval tale of La Gargouille, the fearsome dragon which emerged from the River Seine to spread its waters across the countryside, causing destructive floods.

Water is a universal symbol of life – without it, nothing exists as we currently know it. How curious, given that every discussion of physical life in Star Wars, the selfish protection of it, the creation of it through the manipulation of midi-chlorians, or magic, or cloning, the prevention of death, the rebirth, seems to revolve around the dark side — and the Sith. How curious that the anthropomorphic dark side recomposes into such a creature!

In Part 2 of this post next month, I’ll look at the relationship of this cosmic trinity to the path of the “Chosen One,” Anakin Skywalker.

Concerning Mortis and the Symbology of the Force Part II — The Prophesy of the Chosen One

March 4, 2015

Adjua Adama

In Part I, the symbology behind Mortis — the world and the trinity of Overlords — was explored, where it was posited that Lucas, Supervising Director Dave Filoni, and writer Christian Taylor, continue the tradition of drawing from human mythological history as source inspiration for their Star Wars tales.

Between the griffin Daughter and the gargoyle Son stands the Chosen One, bound by prophesy, in a world made from the nature of the Force itself, capable of taming each of these creatures, as with the Mesopotamian “master of the griffins.”

Indeed, Anakin’s destiny does stand above the Jedi and the Sith, as Lucas removes his character from the limited vestiges of flawed humanity, affording him the status of Force deity replete with virgin birth. As both Orders seek to utilize and manipulate his power, Anakin has a hand in eviscerating both — he is, in essence, Shiva the destroyer in Star Wars mythology, cultivating balance and reciprocity through an Old Testament, “fire and brimstone” approach. Apparently, the Father understands the wisdom of hiding his power from the galaxy’s population. He tells Anakin, “There are some who would like to exploit our power; the Sith are but one. Too much dark or light would be the undoing of life as you understand it.” This man engenders enough wisdom to understand that the Jedi would be just as guilty of exploiting their power to eradicate evil, as the Sith would be in cleansing the galaxy of good. Either tipping of the scale would spell doom for all who inhabit the world of Star Wars.

But is Anakin the “Chosen One,” as Qui-Gon deemed him in The Phantom Menace? This has actually been a heated topic of discussion among fans even before The Clone Wars series debuted. I’ve seen a number of discussions online, and via podcasts, in which people have hotly championed both Anakin and Luke for the sacred appellation; a discussion that has increased exponentially after the debut of “The Yoda Arc” from Season 6 of The Clone Wars (sometimes referred to as “Mortis Part II”). Those that advocate the belief that Luke Skywalker is the “Chosen One” refer to a line from the “Yoda Arc” by the mysterious Priestesses (who measure Yoda’s worthiness in understanding the mastery of life preservation post-mortem), when the “Serenity” Priestess declares: “He will teach one who is to save the galaxy from the great imbalance…” This has been interpreted to mean that Luke is the actual “chosen one,” as Yoda does train Luke in the future (as exhibited by the deliberate phrasing, “He will…”), but he isn’t directly responsible for Anakin’s training as a Jedi — even initially opposing it. Ultimately, after a series of trials that Yoda successfully mitigates, including a number of significant encounters on the Sith home world of Moriband, the Priestesses repeat to Yoda the sage’s own words from Return of the Jedi: “There is another Skywalker.” At the time, this would mean nothing to Yoda, as he had no knowledge of Padme’s impending pregnancy, let alone young Anakin’s tacit marriage. On April 7th, model and actress Jaime King, who voiced the Priestesses, engaged in a discussion of these issues with her husband, Star Wars superfan and director Kyle Newman; the actor who voiced the Son, Sam Witwer; Ralph McQuarrie preservation artist Paul Bateman; and Rebel Force Radio podcast hosts Jason Swank and Jimmy Mac. Jaime mentioned a number of times that Lucas and Filoni declared to her that, “Anakin is the Chosen One…” Later in the discussion, she presumably texted Filoni [she actually attributes this to, “…someone on very high authority…”], who replied, according to King: “There is another [Skywalker], and then Yoda sees off-screen his future, even older, self say, ‘There is another Skywalker.’ Right? As in Return of the Jediright before he dies. The Priestesses exist without time or space. They are a part of the cosmic and living force.” And as participants of the discussion outwardly wished the prophesy would be more clearly articulated in the mythology, Paul Bateman afforded the debate what I believe to be the missing link — that Lucas was a student not only of Joseph Campell’s “hero’s journey” universality, but also Peruvian American author Carlos Casteneda’s Tales of Power, which explores the mysticism of Native American spirit and vision quests, along with the role of tricksters in religious mythology.

Indeed, the Priestesses do play the trickster role in these sequences, often taking Yoda through vision quests to test his mettle, including taking the form of Sith rule of two progenitor Darth Bane. Albert Arnold (1996), in Monsters, Tricksters, and Sacred Cows: Animal Tales and American Identities, speaks of the trickster as the amoral character who can be a hero, but because it is so inextricably tied to its own agenda, can also be an example of what not to do. In Nigeria, the Yoruba deity Eshu (also known as Elegba or Elegbara), according to William Bascom’s (1984) The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria, is the youngest and cleverest of the Yoruban deities, “…a trickster who delights in trouble making…” He survives the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in various iterations throughout Latin America, and in the U.S. as the character The Signifying Monkey, joining other African-based animal tricksters like Anansi, the Akan spider, and Br’er Rabbit, of the American South. While studying at Penn State, within the African-American history department, we often referred to Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ treatise concerning this subject, and how these characters informed the rebellious nature of slaves who simultaneously eschewed the wrath of severe punishment. John Wideman (1988) wrote a New York Times article covering the debut of Gates’ book The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, explaining:

Signifying is verbal play — serious play that serves as instruction, entertainment, mental exercise, preparation for interacting with friend and foe in the social arena. In black vernacular, Signifying is a sign that words cannot be trusted, that even the most literal utterance allows room for interpretation, that language is both carnival and minefield.

As the Priestesses do not actually teach Yoda how to become a force ghost, but only serve to measure his virtuosity through a series of tricks he alone must navigate, one must question everything they say. If Anakin is the “Chosen One,” but they appear to hint at Luke serving that role, what possible motive does this serve? The controversial line in question does not mention that Yoda will train “the balancer,” or, “one who will bring the Force back into balance” — as many people mistakenly quote Serenity Priestess. The Force has destined Anakin to become Vader in order to destroy the corruption within both the Jedi Order and the Republic — the third chapter of Mortisdemonstrates this fact, as his path still leads to the Dark Lord’s visage while in the well of the Dark Side. But, in order to complete the cycle, prior to his descent into the proverbial valley, in an act of rebellion against Jedi dogma, Anakin creates a key to his own redemption: a son conceived of love, who will revive the former Self within his consciousness at the opportune moment in which the Sith must be destroyed. Yoda, of course, is the key to that fail-safe opportunity, as he is destined to train the instrument, “who will save the galaxy [not necessarily the Force] from the great imbalance.”

In Part III, I’ll explore the motive behind why Yoda would need to be tricked into thinking Anakin was not the Chosen One, and also the significance of Anakin’s virgin birth in the greater mythology of the hero’s journey.

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What kind of man is this? Even the winds and waves obey Him.

Matthew 6:27 (via randytemple)

eternal-echoes

Emptiness as regards the self, is balanced by compassion for others. The less stress on the ego, the more care there is for neighbor. At the moment St. Francis emptied himself of his possessions, he made himself free for compassion.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Those Mysterious Priests (via hislittleflower-throughconcrete)

nerdycatholic

Y'all Moana is the most Catholic Disney movie ever made I will fight you about that

nerdycatholic

Ok friends looks like I have some work to do brb

nerdycatholic

Alright Friends, I present, “WHY MOANA IS THE CATHOLIC-EST”

To be completely honest I didn’t think anybody would care about this! But alright, you want to know why Moana is the most Catholic Disney movie? I’ll tell you why Moana is the most Catholic Disney movie!

I started thinking a lot about this because one of my friends has a spiritual director who told her not to watch Moana because it has ~pagan themes~. I think that’s terrible advice, because it essentially cuts an entire culture off from our religion, which is supposed to be universal. While Moana is set in a pagan culture, with characters from South Pacific mythology, the movie has a distinctively Catholic flavor, as a narrative of the way God calls us out of ourselves into a divinely given vocation.

1. Moana is about vocation.

Moana sings multiple times about following the call inside her. She even speaks of it as being a “voice”; a vocation is comprised of a call and a response, God’s voice and ours. The call within Moana isn’t there haphazardly, she experiences it because the Ocean chooses her from the beginning. And this isn’t about a vocation to some type of ministry, or even one of the big vocations (priesthood, marriage, religious life, etc.). This is even bigger. This is the ultimate vocation of everyone. We are all destined for heaven. She sings, “See that line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me!” The ultimate “line where the sky meets the sea” is Jesus Christ, in whom humanity was united to divinity, in whom “the sky met the sea” in Incarnation. We seek him with all our hearts, we desire him and his truth even if we don’t know who he is, because God has placed this longing within us. In Moana’s world, she knows that the small island of Motonui cannot possibly satisfy the longing within her to experience the ocean in its fullness. Similarly, we all know in some part of us that all the wonders the world has to offer are small and insignificant compared to the awesomeness of the glory of God!

She sings again, “I’ll be satisfied if I play along/But the voice inside sings a different song!” Discernment means to make a choice, and Moana has the choice between following the plan she’s always had for herself or following the desires of her heart. Our vocation is not something we create for ourselves but something the voice of God whispers to us in prayer. If we rejected that voice to follow the safe path we have mapped out for ourselves, we could satisfy ourselves, maybe even manufacture our own happiness, but we won’t gain true joy unless we’re following God’s will for our lives. Moana senses that there is something beyond her, something divine, which calls her beyond the narrow expectations she had for herself on her own island.

Then again, she sings, “And it seems like it’s calling out to me so come find me, and let me know what’s beyond that line!” All of us are beggars before the throne of God, asking him to reveal himself to us, to show us what he made us for, why he’s loved us since before the beginning of time. All of our hearts are singing “Come find me, God!” We want to know what he looks like, what heaven is like; we’re all longing for our true home.

One of the main villians of the Story is a Giant Crab named Tamatoa, who represents those trying to hold us back from God’s will. He sings, “Did your Granny say listen to your heart? Be who you are on the inside? I need three words to tear her argument apart: Your Granny lied! I’d rather by Shiny!” Tamatoa represents the world that tries to pull us away from the call placed in us by God. We can chase after all the glitter and glamour that the world has to offer, but in the end it fails to satisfy.

Tamatoa, who arguably has the largest collection of treasure in the seven seas, is ultimately unfulfilled. He’s always craving more wealth, a desire that the world can’t fill. Meanwhile, Moana, who listens to her heart, leaves everything behind to pursue her vocation. Jesus calls us to leave “Houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, and lands” for His sake and for the sake of the gospel. Moana turns away from the world which tells her to pursue everything shiny to instead pursue the desire God has placed in her heart, and finds fulfillment from it.

“The Ocean chose me!” Moana says defiantly. We all know we’re chosen, even if, like Moana, we don’t know why.

2. Moana is about the communion of Saints.

Every culture in the world that looks up to/worships/prays to its ancestors testifies to the truth that we humans exist as community. There is a communion of saints in heaven looking out for us to help us on our way.

“We tell the stories of our Elders in a never ending chain”, don’t we? Moana looks up to and connects with her voyager ancestors, who successfully navigated the sea that so calls her now. (Remember, the ocean = God in this metaphor). And while those ancestors (saints) guide her, ultimately there is one who leads her to all of them, one who is there for her no matter what and who helps her the most to believe that the ocean chose her.

Gramma Tala is a Marian figure in this movie. She appears when Moana believes in herself the least and with her comes this ghostly stingray. In my Catholic worldview, that stingray looks awfully Holy Spirit-y, and I think it’s a perfect metaphor for one of my favorite Marian titles, “Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit”.

The Holy Spirit always comes through Mary, often when we need him the most. In one of the most poingnat moments of the movie, Gramma Tala, in a hongi with Moana, says, “there is no where you could go where I would not be with you”. Mary says the same thing to each one of us every day as she covers us with her mantle and sends us the grace to hear the call of God in our lives and respond to it.

3. Moana is about rememption.

Redemption is shown in three different people in this movie, Te Fiti, Maui, and Moana.

First, the redemption of creation. Te Fiti demonstrates this, as her own physical form transforming from a lava-monster to a tropical island goddess is a physical representation of a fallen creation being restored to paradise. When Jesus redeemed humanity from sin, he made all things new, and that includes creation. When Moana restores Te Fiti’s heart, all of creation that has fallen into ashes becomes bright and beautiful and vibrant again. All is made new with her act of redemption.

Maui is tossed in the ocean as a baby, unwanted, found by the gods and given a second chance. Every single one of us, in our sinful state, were in the same condition, condemned to death. Jesus took one look at us in all our ugliness and decided we were worth saving. In a lot of the movie, Maui is a pretty big jerk too. The gods didn’t save him because he was particularly virtuous or lovable. But the gods saved him out of their own mercy, just as Jesus Christ died for us while we were still sinners. He loves us even when we don’t deserve it. (Also in this is a pretty distinctive pro-life message. No life should be thrown away, we are all precious in the eyes of God.)

Finally, I want to look at the whole of the song “Know Who You Are” in the context of redemption for Moana. Moana may be singing this song to Te Fiti, but she can only sing it because the song is also about her. Throughout the movie, Moana has no idea who she is, just as in all of us, sin keeps us from seeing ourselves for who we really are, Children of God. But with her redemption, she can sing this song, and it tells perfectly the story of how Christ restores holiness in each one of us:

“I have crossed the horizon to find you” – Jesus crosses the horizon to find us. God wants us in heaven so desperately that he did not spare his only Son. He sent him to earth, and he met us where we were at, in all of our sin and unworthiness.

“I know your name” – Only God knows who we really are. Satan calls us by our sin, by God calls us by our name. God forgives and forgets so that he can open his arms wide to all of his prodigal sons and daughters.

“They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you” – God knows we have been broken and beat down by our own sin and weakness. But he also knows that he created us for heaven. In our weakness we are made strong, because it is not our sin that defines us, but God’s grace.

“This is not who you are. You know who you are” – God calls us at every moment to conversion. He calls us to come back to his mercy. We are not meant to be slaves of sin, he did not create us for hell. Deep inside every one of us longs for God, and he tells us, “You know who you are, my beloved son, my beautiful daughter. You are good.”

Essentially, Moana testifies to the fact that there is something transcendent in this world, something worth leaving everything to pursue. That something is God. Whether we know it or not, we thirst to know him. How far are we willing to go to satiate that thirst?

TL;DR:

· Moana has a vocation

· Gramma Tala is Mary

· THE STINGRAY IS THE HOLY SPIRIT

· Maui’s got issues but he’s a good guy

· Lin Manuel Miranda is a pencil in Jesus’ hands

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BLESS

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@saadoesthecatholic

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@mortifying-mischief

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I would like someone to Catholic-ify every Disney movie now. Thank you.

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Beloved father and grandfather Robert Godwin Sr. was senselessly murdered over the Easter weekend after a deranged man, who would later broadcast his actions to the internet, announced he was looking to randomly kill someone.

“The thing I would take away most from my father is he taught us about God, how to fear God, how to love God and how to forgive. Each one of us forgive the killer, the murderer, we want to wrap our arms around him.”

“You do?” Cooper interjected, appearing to be a bit taken aback by the sentiment. Tonya’s sister continued:

“We absolutely do. I honestly can say right now I hold no animosity towards this man because I know that he’s a sick individual… I promise you I could not do that (forgive) if I didn’t know God, if I didn’t know him as my God and my Savior. I could not forgive that man. And I feel no animosity against him at all. I actually feel sadness in my heart for this man.”

Tonya then turned away from their own grief and talked about the other family involved, the killer’s family, and lamented the loss they will be going through.

“We lost our dad but this mother lost her son, his children lost their dad–”

Again, Cooper was stunned. “That’s incredible that you’re thinking about them, even in your time of grief,” he said.

Tonya again provided a window into their dad’s beautiful soul:

“It’s just what our parents taught us. It wasn’t that they just taught it, they didn’t just talk it, they lived it. People would do things to us and we would say ‘Dad, are you really going to forgive them, really?’ and he would say ‘yes, we have to.’ My dad would be really proud of us, and he would want this from us. He would say, Tonya, forgive them, because they know not what they do.”

asplendidbeginning

#mercy

jspark3000

Romance is wonderful, but it’s one of the many things that actually points to the Creator of everything, just as a strand of sunlight points back to the author of the sun. The heat of romantic emotion is a window into the Eternal Romance that you were made for.Before thinking about relationships, we’re designed to have relational intimacy with God. It’s not merely that Adam and Eve “disobeyed” God in the Garden, but they were disconnected from Him too. They severed their true source of love and goodness and glory. Our significance and validation comes from Him. Without this, we’ll merely pursue our latest loudest feelings to accumulate more feelings, which is a bottomless perpetuity that will crush others and crush ourselves. You know what I mean. If you finally land that relationship you so badly wanted, your initial illusions always go out the window, and suddenly this person isn’t fulfilling you like you’d hoped. It hurts that person and hurts you, too. We must first know ourselves before we get to know anyone else, and our one irrevocable identity is found in Him.

J.S. from The Christianese Dating Culture (via jspark3000)

signum-crucis

Your vocation is not about you. It will not be the answer to the question of your being; it is only a part of God’s pledge that the answer will be given in the end. Nor will your vocation heal the deep sense of incompleteness and longing that you feel.

A vocation – any vocation – is a school of charity and a means of crucifixion. Your vocation is the means by which your self-serving ego will die in order to be resurrected as the servant and lover of God. This is all that we can expect; but this is everything – the meaning of life, all there really is.

…

I am not choosing between makes and models in a store, looking for the perfect fit or the best value. One is faced, rather, with the question: How I should lose my life, in order to save it? (Luke 9:24)

that-classic-book-junkie

Very important ^^^ for every person to read

patdraws

Didn’t any girls have a crush on Jesus?

A little comic I made yesterday. Jesus fangirls are a different thing.

Sorry for the itsy bitsy handwriting.

aubs-of-steel-deactivated201708

I cried.

autunnosempre

Beautiful…

corporation-cats

hushhatake

their girl group choreography is amazing… how do i hire them

nonnisite

Let us run to Mary, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence. —Saint Francis de Sales

the-life-of-a-nomad

Solomon ends this whole thing by saying this, “If you do these things, maybe you’ll walk out of the desert, but in the end, maybe you won’t. In the end, God is the one you must fear.” Now look at me because I want to say something that’s wildly unpopular, but in the end it’s beautiful. Sometimes, God ordains the desert. Sometimes, it’s not because of sin and it’s not because of disobedience, but because God put you out there. In New Mexico, for some reason, I began reading through the book of Hosea, a real family friendly book in the middle of the Old Testament. Hosea was a normal man who God came to, and He said, “Listen, I want you to marry a hooker.” And Hosea said, “Did you say hooker? Or did you say ‘Read a booker?’ Alright, I lost it there.” And He goes, “No, I said prostitute. I want you to marry a woman of ill repute. And here’s the thing, Hosea. She’s going to be horrible to you. She’s going to cheat on you over and over and over again. She’s going to betray you. And each time she does, I’m going to increase your love for her so that you can’t wash your hands of it and walk away. And you’re going grieve and you’re going to hurt and you’re going to sob and you’re going to wail, but I’m not going to let you walk away from her.” And you know, the first thing that struck me is that God told Hosea up front. But here’s the thing He says to Hosea in chapter 2, and for me, this left an unbelievable mark on me that I haven’t been able to get away from. Here’s what He says to Hosea. He says, “Here’s what I’m going to do with Gomer, your cheating wife. I’m going to take her out to the desert, I’m going to allure her, and out in the desert, she’ll finally get tired of herself. And when she finally gets tired of herself…” You want to know the character of God? Listen to what’s next. “…there I will speak tenderly to her.” So, He doesn’t take her out into the desert and go, “Shame on you, woman of ill repute.” He doesn’t take her out into the desert to berate her for her sins or to pile on for her poor decisions, He says, “I’m going to take her out into the desert, and when she’s gasping for water, when she’s exhausted of herself, there I will speak tenderly to her and I will increase her vineyards.” In the Old Testament, wine and joy are this parallel, they’re equal. Like, if you see wine mentioned, they’re talking about the increase in joy. In fact, even king David said, “You fill me with greater joy than when grain and new wine abound.” Because wine is kind of this symbol of fruit and life and joy. And He says, “I’ve got to take her out into the desert. I’ve got to take her out there, because the only way to kill certain things is to deprive it of water. And so, I’m going to walk her out into the desert, and I’m going to starve this thing out. And when she’s almost dying, I’m going to speak tenderly to her, and I’m going to increase her joy.” And then, look at me, because the next line to me was so heartbreaking and encouraging. He says, “And out there, out where it’s dry, she’ll finally learn to quit calling me master and start calling me husband.” And so, for some of you, please hear me, because I’ve been there. Please hear me. Tonight, your in a dry time not because God’s angry with you, but because He desperately loves you. That’s why. Right now, for some of you, the reason you can’t find Him is because He desperately wants you to really find Him. Are you tracking with that idea? Like, for some of you, He feels far so that you might as Acts 17 says, you might, “grope for Him although He is not far from any of us.” So, maybe you’ve been allured out there. Maybe it’s not sin, maybe it’s not disobedience, maybe God just said, “Okay, I’ve got to kill some stuff in you. Let’s go.” “Well, what stuff do You want to kill?” “Well, I could explain it to you now, but you wouldn’t actually believe that it’s actually in your heart, because it’s really, really deep down. I mean, I’ve got to take the plow to you. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go to the desert.” “Well, I don’t like the desert.” “Well, I know you don’t, but let’s get out there. Because out there, I can really do a work in you, a work that will make you quit coming to church and quit doing Christiany stuff. Because you think in the end, I can kill you or that I wish you harm. It’s out here, it’s out in the struggle, it’s out in the fight that you’re finally going to learn that I love you.” So, sometimes the desert, it’s here for awhile, man. Because I think that’s the question when God goes, “Come on, let’s go to the desert.” “Well, how much water do I need to pack?” Maybe six weeks, maybe six months. Listen to me, maybe six years. This ain’t no Rubix Cube, man. This isn’t math. Some times with God, 2 + 2 doesn’t equal 4. “Come on.” He says, “Come on, let’s go. Out to the desert, come on. It’s dry, it hurts, but pay attention to your feet. Draw near and listen. I have not abandoned you. Pray for real to Me. Don’t the game with Me. I know you’re hiding in the closet. Let’s not play this game. Be honest. It’s where we have to begin. And when I whisper to you, follow Me because I’m trying to get you out of here.

Matt Chandler, Approaching the Divine

[just dripping tears into my mug of cider don’t mind me…]

(via takecaretiredsouls)

cultureshift

The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm.

cultureshift

This study has discovered the existence of unborn children’s cells living within their mother’s bodies long after their birth. This implies that even after a mother aborts her son or daughter, parts of them still remain within her body - literally.

You may be able to have your unborn child mercilessly ripped from your womb, but you cannot fully extract them from your mind and your body. They will always be a part of you.

Abandon the idea that unborn human beings should be destroyed ‘on demand and without apology’. Science is proving their humanity more and more with each passing day. If you stand for the slaughter of unborn little boys and girls, you stand on the wrong side of history, and it will not be kind to you.

Abortion kills innocent living children. Stand for Life.