INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

“Kindness – the Fruit of Love and Sacrifice”
Coming through the pandemic, through fear into hope, we are confirmed by the promise of our God who raised Jesus through death into Life. This is why God became human. Only the God who enters history can conquer fear. “Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety before the emptiness of life.” – Pope Benedict XVI. Human kindness assumes a deeper meaning through the past year. Artists are our compass reminding us that death and life – despair and hope can bring us closer together:

“Kindness”
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment…Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing…You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows…Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
– Naomi Shihab Nye. Words Under the Words: Selected Poems, 1995.

Films will be introduced and followed by a brief discussion facilitated by a Maryknoll missioner. Come, enjoy and reflect on our faith through the art of film.