Tag: Saint Hildegard

  • What good movies are about Saints?

    What good movies are about Saints?

    What good movies are about Saints? When you fall in love with a Saint, there is a spiritual thirst that can’t be quenched, and you want to learn as much as you can about your chosen saint. Some of these movies about things or acts that people have done that would be considered saintly. Some are canonized while others are still waiting like Dorothy Day. Even Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179) was only just canonized in 2012 into a full-fledged saint based upon the Catholic tradition. Some subjects will be familiar to you while others might be more obscure. There is no order of saintly preference on the list. What good movies about Saints would you recommend?

    Saint Movies

    Please share in the comments below.

    The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927)

    In 1431, Jeanne d’Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.

    Entertaining Angels (1996)

    Entertaining Angels – The Dorothy Day Story is a 1996 independent film about the life of Dorothy Day, the journalist turned social activist and founder of the Catholic Worker newspaper. Trailer only.

    Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

    This film deals with the conflicts of Michelangelo and Pope Julius II during the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

    Boys Town (1938)

    Boys Town is based on Father Edward J. Flanagan‘s work with a group of underprivileged and delinquent boys in a home that he founded and named “Boys Town”.

    Claire of Assisi

    She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition, and wrote their Rule of Life — the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman.

    Francesco (1989)

    Francesco is a 1989 docu-drama relating in flashback St. Francis of Assisi‘s evolution from rich man’s son to religious humanitarian and finally to full-fledged saint.

    The Hiding Place (1975)

    The Hiding Place is a 1975 film based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Corrie ten Boom that recounts her and her family’s experiences before and during their imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust in World War II.

    Hildegard of Bingen (2012)

    In this one-woman film, international mezzo soprano Linn Maxwell embodies the extraordinary life of 12th century German prophetess, healer and composer, Hildegard of Bingen, who was canonized in 2012 and named a Doctor of the Church.

    Jesus Of Nazareth (1977)

    A 1977 British-Italian television miniseries directed by Franco Zeffirelli that dramatizes the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

    Maximilian: Saint Of Auschwitz (Live drama)

    A Polish Catholic priest and Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the German death camp of Auschwitz during World War II.

    Faustina (1995)

    Throughout her life, Faustina Kowalska reported having visions of Jesus and conversations with him, which she noted in her diary, later published as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul.

    The Night of the Prophet (1996)

    The first full-length drama on the life of Padre Pio, who had such great spiritual gifts as mystical prayer, bilocation, reading souls, and suffered the five wounds of Christ for fifty years.

    The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952)

    Set in 1917, three shepherd children living just outside Fatima, Portugal have visions of a lovely lady in a cloud.

    John of the Cross (Live drama)

    John of the Cross is known especially for his writings. Both his poetry and his studies on the development of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and among the greatest works of all Spanish literature.

    Miracle of Marcelino (1955)

    Marcelino is an orphan who grows up in a monastery. One day he gives a piece of his bread to an old wooden Jesus figure — and it takes the bread and eats it. His wish granted, Marcelino asks to see his mother.

    Thérèse (Live drama)

    St. Thérèse is best known today for her spiritual memoir, L’histoire d’une âme (The Story of a Soul).

    Saint Patrick – The Irish Legend (2000)

    A young Christian boy is taken captive by invading Irish tribes and enslaved. Enduring many hardships, he finds salvation in his faith, escapes back to England, and ultimately fulfills his greatest desire — to return to Ireland as a missionary.

    The Reluctant Saint (1962)

    In 17th century Italy, a simple and clumsy young man joins a Franciscan order, pursues full priesthood, and performs a miracle that eventually ensures his sainthood.

    A Time for Miracles (1980)

    Miracle at Moreaux (1985)

    A French Catholic boarding school allows three Jewish children to take refuge at Christmas during the Nazi occupation.

    Pope John Paul II (2005)

    Thanks to his unshakable tenacity, Pope John Paul II helps change the course of history, including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He remains the voice of Christ even amid the injustices of the modern world.

    The Jewelers Shop (1988)

    Based on a play written by Pope John Paul II, The Jeweler (Burt Lancaster) sells wedding rings to couples and teaches precious truths about the meaning of love and marriage.

    The Fourth Wise Man (1985)

    The story of Artaban, the fourth Magi, who spends his life searching for Jesus his King.

    Ocean of Mercy (2011)

    Tells the story of Maximilian Kolbe, Sister Faustina, and Pope John Paul II — how they devoted their lives to God and navigated adversity with the conviction that they were never alone.

    Brother Sun – Sister Moon (1972)

    Dramatization of events in the life of St. Francis of Assisi from before his conversion through his audience with the pope, including his friendship with St. Clare.

    Vision – From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen (2011)

    A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist, and ecological activist.

    Please let me know in the comments below what other movies about saints or saintly behavior should be listed here. This list is primarily Catholic-leaning, but the saint and mystic tradition is widespread within many other religions.

  • Living saints today? Have you met any?

    Living saints today? Have you met any?

    Where have all the saints gone?

    living saints
    St. Francis Hiding in the Garden

    Living saints?  Have you met any?  Not a Hindu or Catholic Saint, placed on candle-lit altar or in rose garden.  But a living saint today.  Someone who projects a oneness with the world, is filled with loving compassion, who has a purpose of being in service to others?  A humble person who is truly awake?

    I have been asking these questions, not as a religious person, but as a filmmaker who has made several films on past saints, the visionaries who woke us up like Naturalist John Muir and Mystic Saint Hildegard of Bingen; my own patron saint of creativity, has lead me to the idea who wouldn’t appreciate more saints?

    What would they look like?  Where would you meet them?  At a volunteer or charity event?  A yoga studio?  A meditation retreat?  At the office?  I bet you haven’t met a lot, if any at all.  So where have all the saints gone?  We should have more.  We have a greater population now than when historical saints lived.  We are more educated.  We have the internet of all things amazing.  So, why don’t we have more saints?  Is organized religion turning them away?  Are we treating them with antipsychotics?  Are they self-medicating with recreational drugs?

    Obviously I am not alone if you google “Where have all the saints gone?”  The question generally gets turned to who are the living saints today?  With wonderful answers from people that have meet Mother Teresa or other Sainted modern religious figures that were only officially canonized after their deaths.

    Living Saints?

    I like this comment I found:  “There are many living saints amongst us right now that we do not know of, simply because it wasn’t part of God’s will for them to be revealed to us. So it’s always good to love your neighbor, not only because we are called to do so, but also because you never know when you are talking to a saint!”

    That is so true.

    When I set out to make my films, I didn’t know at the time, that I would also be exploring that question in a more timely perspective as my subject material was historical figures that had personally inspired me and others into our live’s purposes.   “Early Christian communities venerated hundreds of saints, but historical research by 17th- and 18th-century Catholic scholars determined that very few of these saints’ stories were backed by solid historical evidence. Lives of such well-known figures as St. George, St. Valentine, and St. Christopher were based either on a legend that often predated Christianity or were entirely made up. Other saints had local followings. In rural France, St. Guinefort was venerated as the protector of infants after he saved his master’s baby from a snakebite. Saint Guinefort was a dog!” (Appeared in the November 2013 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 78, No. 11, page 46).

    If you want to learn more about saints, here is a list of recommended movies about saints that I have compiled. It is primarily Catholic Saints, but obviously that isn’t the only religion that has mystics and saints walking among them.

  • Saint Hildegard and the usefulness of Hops – Cheers!

    Saint Hildegard and the usefulness of Hops – Cheers!

    A Time Before Hops

    Hops weren’t always used in beer brewing—in the earliest days, brewers used all kinds of plants to flavor beer.   Generally, a beer created without the use of hops is called a ‘gruit’ or ‘grut’. ‘Gruit’ (or ‘grut’) can also be the term used for the mixture of spices working as a bittering agent in the beer.

    Some herbs commonly used in gruit:

    • sweet gale
    • mugwort
    • yarrow
    • ivy
    • horehound
    • heather
    • juniper
    • ginger
    • aniseed
    • carraway

    and really, anything else a gruit producer thought would taste good in their brew. Gruit fell out of common usage in the last century or two, but is seeing a bit of a revival these days, so there are lots of resources available like Gruit Ale and Unhopped beers website.

    But this article is about hops, not gruit,  so according to this excellent Short History of Hops by beer historian Martyn Cornell, one early mention of the usefulness of hops comes from a surprising source: Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, the German mystic whose latin texts inform some of what we know about Medieval Europe.  I

    Historical Perspective

    About 1150, Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), mystical philosopher and healer, published a book called Physica Sacra, which translates best as “The Natural World”. Book I, Chapter 61, “De Hoppho”, or “Concerning the hop”, says of the plant:

    “It is warm and dry, and has a moderate moisture, and is not very useful in benefiting man, because it makes melancholy grow in man and makes the soul of man sad, and weighs down his inner organs. But yet as a result of its own bitterness it keeps some putrefactions from drinks, to which it may be added, so that they may last so much longer.”

    In Physica, Hildegard described the preservative qualities of hops when added to a beverage like beer. In the same book, she also mentioned that hop increases melancholy or “back bile,” one of Hippocrates’ “four humors” of physiology; the others are man’s choleric, phlegmatic, and sanguine dispositions. Today we know that hops can relax the nervous system and thus have a calming, sedative effect, which promotes sleep. This insight made Hildegard a progressive in her time, given that her contemporaries recommended hops as a treatment for exactly the opposite affliction, depression. Hildegard also wrote extensively about barley, which she considered beneficial for the stomach and intestines; she recommended a drink made from barley as a restorative after a cold or stomach flu.

    Modern thinking

    Jay. R. Brooks of Brookston Beer Bulletin in his researched article on chasing down the origins of Hildegard being consider the patron saint of beer,  comments “If you made it through all of the accounts of her life, including her Wikipedia page, one thing you’ll notice is that none of them mention her contribution to the brewing sciences, or indeed anything about her mention of hops. That appears to be a more modern interpretation, though I’m not sure of its origin. One thing seems clear, however, and that it’s an association that here to stay.”

    German farmers were doing good business selling hops to breweries across Northern Europe by the 13th century.

    While I like the idea that Hildegard has something to do with the idea of the homeopathic benefits of using hops in beer,  her way of thinking about things continues to support the idea that she is the patron saint of creativity.   Who doesn’t want a beer after finishing their creative pursuit?  Especially one called Naughty Hildegard (tongue in cheek)?

    Naughty Hildegard ESB from the Driftwood Brewery in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    The Health Benefits of Beer and Hops

    Research continues to support the health benefits of beer and the moderate consumption of alcohol, including wine. Many of these health benefits are associated with hops, though some are also linked to trace elements like silicon or the affect of low-levels of alcohol.

    Healthy Hildegard gathered a few of the most well-documented health benefits of beer to help you feel better about your nightly pint.

    Hildegard von Bingen receives a vision (maybe about hops, who knows?).

    More on hops here.