Cathedral of the Human Heart Best Place to Be

Even with the darkness and coldness closing in, today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent 2014 begins in an era where wrong is right, up is down and where the Pop Culture is out playing in the gutter.

Dog-tired from the thousands of dictates of people-control-seeking-governments, people say they are ready to give up. They’re saying that there is no place to which they can run any more. Many welcome the peace that true Christmas brings. But at Christmas time the Entertainment Industry recognizes Christmas as a time when Christian hearts are at their most vulnerable. Just in time for Christmas 2014, comes Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. “2014 marks the resurgence of the Old Testament at the movies. After Darren Aronofsky turned to Genesis to unleash Noah, Ridley Scott moves forward to the Book of Exodus to revisit the story of Moses. Exodus: Gods and Kings is this century’s answer to Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, but it already looks to be more controversial than that pious 1956 opus. Spectacularly filmed, intermittently well acted though not quite as much campy fun as the DeMille version, the picture looks likely to attract a substantial audience even if some religious leaders voice protests. (Hollywood Reporter, Nov. 29, 2014)

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“From 'Noah' to 'Son of God,' 2014 Is Jam-Packed With Bible-Based Movies." In Exodus: Gods and Kings, God appears to Moses as a fierce child. In real life, the 11-year-old son of Ridley Scott. The Hollywood Reporter describes it thus:

“Here is the film’s most controversial choice, for God appears to Moses as a fierce child. Although this may offend some devout viewers, it’s actually far more interesting than the booming offscreen voice that DeMille used in his version of the story. This divine child seems angry and vengeful rather than a benign Buddha figure, but one could argue that this is in keeping with the Old Testament God of wrath.”

It’s Christmas but even as you’re lighting the first candle on your Advent wreath, God screams at Moses in the voice of an 11-year-old child. Double rainbows and cross-shaped clouds appear above the set of A.D. a 12-part miniseries set to premiere on NBC on Easter Sunday. There is a place to run to from the gimmickry of all those who exploit the Bible: It’s called The Cathedral of the Human Heart. Light the Advent candle. Start beating a path to The Cathredal of The Human Heart this Christmas and go there next Christmas and all Christmases ever after. Meanwhile, it is not only cold and dark where we are as proven in the eloquent words of St. Andrew’s Christmas Novena:

“Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of his Blessed Mother. Amen.”