The One Movie You Need to Watch

Welcome back to the Extra Edition newsletter! I’m excited to bring you bonus content each month with a special inside look at my novels and the history behind them.

What’s in this Edition:

Priests Who Paint – The real-life priest who inspired my fictional one

Triumph of the Heart – The one movie you need to watch

Priests Who Paint – Blessed Fra Angelico

In my next book, Astonished, you’ll meet the fictional Father Angelico. While his name was originally chosen because Blessed Fra Angelico is one of the patron saints of my daughter’s school, his back story is actually pretty cool. Fra Angelico, or Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (1395-1455) was an Italian Dominican friar and known as the Angelic Painter of the Renaissance. He started out illustrating manuscripts and choir books and eventually moved on to painting interiors of convents, churches, and other religious buildings. This included commissions from both Pope Eugenius IV and Pope Nicholas.

Fra Angelico was beatified (the last step before sainthood) by Pope St. John Paul II in 1982 and made the patron saint of artists in 1984. When the Pope was asked which miracles were attributed to the beatification, he pointed at Fra Angelico’s artwork and said, “These are his miracles.”

What started out as just a character’s name in my book has now begun to transform the character himself. After learning about Fra Angelico’s work, I’ve given my fictional Father Angelico more of an artistic background himself. He may even play a role in future books; who knows?

Fra Angelico’s painting of The Last Judgment (shown below) has special meaning for by book, Astonished, as much of the story involves a woman with a near-death experience. This painting shows Christ at the center surrounded by angels and saints with heaven on his right and hell on his left.

Triumph of the Heart: The one movie you need to watch

I recently had the opportunity to attend a screening of the new movie, Triumph of the Heart, about St. Maximilian Kolbe’s heroic decision to take the place of a man sentenced to a starvation bunker at Auschwitz. While this movie isn’t related to my books, it is an inspiring story for people of all faiths or no faith at all.

Simply put, this was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It made me think about our choices in life and how we relate to others, even when they don’t share our beliefs. In the bunker with Maximilian Kolbe were nine other men, all randomly chosen to die because another prisoner from their area had escaped. While no one knows the full backgrounds of these men, the movie does an excellent job of creating characters who represent a diverse range of professional and religious backgrounds. Within their interactions over their 14 days without food or water (yes, 14), these men show the darkest parts of humanity, but also that the beauty of human dignity, compassion, and faith cannot be defeated. It is a hard movie to watch and yet, one essential to the times we’re living in where martyrdom is still a regular occurrence yet rarely discussed.

I won’t give an age recommendation as parents know their children best. Although there is some violence, it is not gratuitous and is certainly tamer than many PG-13 movies I’ve seen. My husband and I took our middle schooler and high schooler to see it and it led to some wonderful discussions.

Triumph of the Heart is available to stream on their website: https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/streaming

Also, check out Cimorelli’s song, The Race is Run, which was written for the movie’s closing credits.

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Until next time, happy reading!

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Kelsey

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