Well, this blog will demonstrate two different opinions of mine. Please allow me to explain.
This past Friday night, when Marc was staying in a cabin at Kanopolis State Park before his 50-mile run, I watched a movie that I had received via "Netflix."
The movie was....
If you can't see on the photo, it's called "The Magdalene Sisters."
Here are my two opinions.
Opinion #1: I actually do NOT recommend it. Here's a synopsis, straight off of "Netflix."
This unflinching drama charts several years in the young lives of four "fallen women" who were rejected by their families and abandoned to the mercy of the Catholic Church in 1960s Ireland. While women's liberation sweeps the globe, these women are stripped of their liberty and dignity and condemned to indefinite servitude in The Magdalene Laundries, so that they may atone for their "sins."
It's very disturbing in many parts. It was hard to watch in parts. I actually can't believe it's based on a true story. At the end of the movie, it said that the last "asylum" (as they're called in the movie) actually didn't even close until 1996. These women were beaten, worked as slave labor, made to stand naked in front of all the other women in the asylum for comparison of body parts, etc. All of this went on because these women committed what we would call moral sins. They were rejected by their families. They were made (as the description of the movie says) to atone for their sins by living in these asylums.
Opinion #2 (remember, complete opposite opinion as #1): It was a good thing to watch in that it was a FANTASTIC reminder of Easter and the meaning of Easter.
The Easter holiday is FUNDAMENTAL to Christianity. It's when Christ died on the cross for our sins and then rose again -- in human form.
This movie is a display of how even if our families reject us because of a sin committed, if society rejects us because of a sin committed, or if anybody else rejects us because of a sin committed, we're ultimately, 100% forgiven by God the Father. He gave His one and only son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. Then, Jesus rose again.
Isn't that what Easter is all about?
It's so interesting that while many businesses shut down for Easter, many others stay open as if life moves on. Easter, because it is so fundamental to the Christian faith, is, in my opinion, the most important day of the year. But, so many "move on" as if Easter wasn't important or what it stands for (Christ rising) didn't happen.
If you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, won't you do so today? Jesus is so very patient with us, but He so very much wants us to trust Him.
Here are a few great verses that are a part of this weekend and ultimately all year.
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left hte sins committed beforehand unpunished. Romans 3:23-25
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
3 comments:
Very true Sarah...I was really disappointed this year when I asked my students if they knew what Easter was about. Every year I ask and every year I have students that know the true meaning. This year...nothing. It was all about the Easter bunny. So, I probably shouldn't have (b/c of working in the public schools), but I told them to go home and ask their parents the true meaning of Easter! I have SERVERAL students that attend church and I was SO surprised that all they were answering with was the Easter bunny! So...they came back the next day and were telling me the true meaning of Easter. Then we shared about it as a whole class! I love hearing 5 year olds talking about Jesus!!
"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel" Way to go Shannon and Sarah. What if Christ had stayed dead in the tomb? It is easy to be flippant about the resurrection but He WAS dead and He came back to life!! Could you imagine how people would be freaked out if that happened to someone today?
Debby
This is, in fact, based on a true story. Depending on the DVD version you watched, 'Magdalene Sisters' comes with a bonus -- the 1997 RTE documentary 'Sex in a Cold Climate,' which focused on the experienced of four women who survived the Laundries. Mullan's movie was based upon the stories of those four women. The last laundry did, indeed, close in 1996 (High Park Convent, Dublin). The main building of this convent was gutted by fire in 2000 and the actual laundries converted to upscale housing shortly after.
They were referred to as 'asylums' based upon the original Protestant 'rescue movement' model, where Magdalene Asylums took in prostitutes, cured their venereal diseases and taught them a working trade (they also received a stipend for their work). The Catholic Irish asylums took a much broader approach -- the women incarcerated were not paid for the commercial laundry they did, were often not 'sinners' at all and if they tried to escape, they were typically dragged back by the Gardai (police). Makes one wonder why the Irish government ommitted the Laundry survivors from the 2002 victim redress bill, calling their placement in the Laundries
'voluntary'. For more information on the laundries visit http://www.magdalenelaundries.com or http://www.netreach.net/~steed/magdalen.html
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