At the movies …

Saw Calvary today, the new film out of Ireland. I could identify completely with the mood of Catholicism it depicts. The innocent is sacrificed on behalf of the guilty. In the meantime, things happen, and are sometimes heartbreaking. So virtues deserve more time in the pulpit than sins. Of the virtues, one in particular, forgiveness, tends to be under-appreciated, and not spoken of enough, let alone practiced.

It has been said that there can be no Christian tragedy. But that is because the redemptive dimension of tragedy tends to be overlooked. The Oresteia ends with the Furies transformed into the Eumenides, the Happy Ones, and Oedipus, in the end, is led into heaven, redeemed through suffering. 

The film's epigraph is attributed to St. Augustine: "Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume, one of the thieves was damned." It is true, no matter who said it. Presumption and despair are the two unforgivable sins. Despair, of course, means thinking God can't forgive you. Presumption means thinking that he has to. In neither case do you think to ask for forgiveness. To be religious means to inhabit the ambiguous region in between, armed only with a hunch called faith.