Transitions

By Brother Daniel Leckman

Many things have taken place in my life during the past month that I wanted to blog about:

• The call I received one night after my Vatican II class (in the midst of all my business during the last few weeks of class no less) to begin a new blog on Pope Francis’ exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: Praying with Papal Documents. Almost two weeks later, I’ve slowly made my way through the introduction of the exhortation, taking two paragraphs every second day or so, and giving my own analysis of what I think the Pope is inviting us to with this document!

Les Misérables: A Cry for Justice

By Brother Daniel Leckman, S.J.

http://wtfoosh.blogspot.ca

I’d like to follow up on Santiago’s analysis of Les Misérables as a story, and focus on the musical and movie. Les Mis is a musical I have loved deeply since the early 1990’s. I have basically been waiting 20 years for it to be made into a movie – they had been talking about the movie since the mid 90’s, so my screening of it was probably the highlight of my year, if not my decade.

As many of you know, much of my vocation as a Jesuit Brother is rooted in a desire to bring justice to our world, to be close to the poor, to help fight against the injustices in our society and to restore right relationship with the earth. However, unlike many other people that are social justice activists, I have no personal history that inspired my desire to live justice. I was raised in a very normal middle class family that always had more than enough to survive. One may say I was rather sheltered from the injustices of our world. Over the years, my faith is what has inspired me to live justice and raise my voice against the wrongs of our world. However, the roots of my concern for justice came from this musical.

Les Misérables: Love, Revolution and Our Hope For the Face of God

By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Credit: www.kernelscorner.com

I recently watched the film Les Misérables, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It reminded me of my first experience of this story. In the summer of 2003, I travelled to New York City to visit friends. While in town, I was invited to see the longest running musical in the world on Broadway. It was a magical production; I delighted in this story of love and revolution, of redemption and conversion. I was smitten by this tale about the misery of the human condition, this story about sacrifice and oblation. Les Misérables conveys the wretchedness of post-Revolution France, but it also relates the meaning and effects of love and forgiveness.