As I filmed in slums around the world, I slowly saw and felt the power the Gospel had to transform lives. I began to see, ever so dimly, that the ethos of seeking security and comfort for oneself and one’s family in the midst of widespread poverty and suffering around the world had caused a spiritual crisis. Like so many Christians I was guilty of ignoring the spiritual values Christ taught. I still ignore them. Truly following Christ is very, very hard…which is why so few do.

The Gospel requires us to turn our backs on the dominant culture of our time and follow a whole new way of life which frees us from the constraints of the pressure of conformity to the consumer culture and the constant preoccupation with the appearance of success and security. The Lord became flesh among the poor, and so what better place to be in order to prepare for the coming of the Lord at Christmas than among the poor.

Catholic Worker co-founder Peter Maurin wrote: “In the first centuries of Christianity the hungry were fed at a personal sacrifice, the naked were clothed at a personal sacrifice, the homeless were sheltered at a person sacrifice. And because the poor were fed, clothed and sheltered at a personal sacrifice, the pagans used to say about the Christians, ‘See how they love each other.’”

We tend to look to governmental policies to create social change. Perhaps we should be looking to the corporal works of mercy whose roots can be traced to the 25th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. You don’t change the world by trying to change the world; you change the world by changing yourself. Change comes from within, moving from internal to external. Slowly, I’m learning that change is constant. Moreover, the task of transformation is infinitely difficult, requiring endless time and dedication. Every day I must surrender more. When surrender becomes a way of life, and every day graces you with many opportunities to die to yourself so others may live.

In making my poverty films, I was graced with the chance to be around so many people who give without measure and without hope of reward, which forced me to look at love in an entirely different way. In their presence, I learned that each of us has a far greater and more generous heart with which to love God than we realize. It takes time, but we can learn to see that everyone, especially the poor, has value because each and every person is made in the image and likeness of God. When you spend time in place of chronic impoverishment, you are eventually shaken out of your sense of self-assurance, your destructive habits, and – most important – your egocentric torpor.

In time St. Francis came to see the poor and the outcasts of his society as icons or manifestations of God’s goodness. The growing awareness of God’s presence within all creation and especially within all humanity reached its apex when the saint embraced and kissed a leper. The self-humbling kiss symbolized God’s union with humanity in Christ when the Word became flesh. For Francis, the Incarnation gave birth to compassion which enabled him to see in the rotting flesh of a leper the self-giving love of God.

As I made my humble little films on global and domestic poverty, I learned to see the poor and the marginalized, the alcoholic and the drug addict, the mentally ill and the homeless not as objects of pity and charity but as brothers and sisters with whom I’m intimately related. The longer I walk with the poor – and with Jesus – the more I see the need to put to death the idea of my own self-sufficiency. To think of myself as separate from God and all of creation, including the poor, is an illusion.

But this freedom requires taking a risk and being exposed to tragedy. As followers of Christ we need to look to the cross and find a spirit of joy. For Calvary does not mean death – it is a sign of freedom. The cross of Jesus transformed darkness into the light of resurrection. Christ’s torturous suffering and death on the cross is a gateway into beauty, into eternity.

“Take up your cross and follow me,” Christ says. To do so means to accept the suffering your life will encounter, to surrender to God. Instead, we avoid suffering, turn away from it. When you come to the Inn you can’t avoid suffering. It slaps you in the face. At the Inn, you can’t turn away from the suffering. You simply embrace it…theirs and your own. You give your life to another. The witness of love lived in voluntary poverty has the peaceful power to change hearts. It is changing mine…and what a wonderful Christmas gift that is.

Recently, a man from Australia ordered The Fragrant Spirit of Life. After receiving it he wrote us asking about payment in US funds. We answered his question and he wrote back saying he would get a check issued in US funds and send it immediately. He then wrote, “You guys changed my life. Thank you.” A staff member wrote back, asking him how we changed his life. This was his response:

This film [the Uganda film] touched me on so many levels. I was first introduced to your films via a clip that was sent to me on Facebook, “Sam and Esther.” Never in my life has something moved me so deeply I was an absolute mess. I was on a half hour lunch break, I stayed home for about two hours trying to gather myself. Further more the thought of going back to work to install some new lighting after seeing the clip Sam and Esther was gut wrenching. I have never felt so small and useless in my life. Suddenly my future was uncertain. All my plans meant nothing. I spent a couple of weeks getting my head around this and finally went to your site. Since watching the first disc, my faith which I have struggled with for a number of years now has been rekindled. I hear something speaking in my soul, telling me “There is no going back.” The God I have been looking so hard for is alive, and in the hearts of those who are helping and in those who need help more than ever. The documentary allowed me to make a journey while watching. Normally, when watching stories or documentaries that move me, I can remove myself from the equation because it’s in Africa (for instance) and I’m here. I can’t do that now, a part of me is not letting go. I have heard God speaking to me through your film, and my family and I will never be the same.
Thank you so much,
Joe P.

This says it all. Pax et Bonum Communications doesn’t just make documentaries on poverty. My dream and driving motivation is to have a film be able to have a transformative impact on the viewer. The films had to tell a story in a deeply emotional manner. It has been my firm conviction that it takes time for a viewer to enter into the world we create on film and be carried along through the touching stories and the spiritual reflections to a place where the seeds of transformation can take root. The Haiti film, for instance, runs three hours and twenty minutes and is divided into two parts.

I think Joe from Australia entered into the flow of the story I told in Uganda and he was so profoundly moved it changed his life and connected him to God and, subsequently, to the poor. This is Pax et Bonum Communications does. It takes time, it takes hard work, and it takes commitment and dedication. We are serving the poor through the power of film…and in the process, we are helping change the lives of some of the poor and also changing the lives of some who view our films. Clips from the films are also shown at presentations in churches and schools across the nation and around the world. In the last six year I have given over 125 presentations at churches, high schools and universities. And films formed the basis for six day-long retreats. I have even given presentations at a Jewish Synagogue and to the Trappist monks at Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. And this year’s calendar is filling up quickly. Two weeks after my return from Africa I will give a presentation to 1,500 kids at a high school in Los Angeles.

Please contact us if you wish to schedule a presentation at your church or school. I am grateful for any support you can offer to help continue this unique and powerful ministry to the poor.

I will be in Kenya for two weeks, returning on February 1st. While in Africa I will have extremely limited access to the internet and hence will not be posting blogs while I am away. However, I have scheduled in advance a few blogs to posted in while I am away. When I get back I will post a summary of my trip.

In time St. Francis came to see the poor and the outcasts of his society as icons or manifestations of God’s goodness. The growing awareness of God’s presence within all creation and especially within all humanity reached its apex when the saint embraced and kissed a leper. The self-humbling kiss symbolized God’s union with humanity in Christ when the Word became flesh. For Francis, the Incarnation gave birth to compassion which enabled him to see in the rotting flesh of a leper the self-giving love of God.

As I made my humble little films on global and domestic poverty, I learned to see the poor and the marginalized, the alcoholic and the drug addict, the mentally ill and the homeless not as objects of pity and charity but as brothers and sisters with whom I’m intimately related. The longer I walk with the poor – and with Jesus – the more I see the need to put to death the idea of my own self-sufficiency. To think of myself as separate from God and all of creation, including the poor, is an illusion.

Peter Maurin, co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker, said: “On the Cross of Calvary Christ gave His life to redeem the world. The life of Christ was a life of sacrifice. We cannot imitate the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary by trying to get all we can. We can only imitate the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary by trying to give all we can. What we give to the poor for Christ’s sake is what we carry with us when we die.”

Of course, the story of the Magi never happened. While the story is not literally true, it is symbolically true because, as William J. O’Malley, SJ points out in his book Help My Unbelief, the underlying message being conveyed by Matthew, whose is the only Gospel to mention the story, is that “Jesus came not just for poor, illiterate, Jewish shepherds but also for rich, learned Gentiles of all races.”

The message for us today is that we must become the light that leads others to Christ by our love for all, rejecting no one because of race, creed or ethnicity. To become the light of Christ requires us to stay focused, as the Magi did, on the Light of Christ. But sadly, it is easy for us to only see the darkness that surrounds us. At times that darkness is so overwhelming it pushes us to think that God does not exist. Even such a saintly person as Mother Teresa succumbed to those deep doubts. Some people were shocked to read these words from her: “So many unanswered questions life within me, afraid to uncover them – because of the blasphemy. If there be a God – please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven – there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my soul.” As I typed those dire words from a real saint, I felt myself on the verge of tears because I understood her agony and doubts. There are days my doubts seem close to crushing my faith to death. Yet Mother Teresa’s honesty gives me the hope and courage to continue to move toward the Light and not allow the darkness to consume me.

I do not know why I’m writing books or this blog. Who am I to write about spiritual things? I am just another sinner struggling to find my way to Jesus. In his Gospel story of the Magi, Matthew writes: “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” I think he is hidden, not in the stars only, but in the less spectacular events of our daily life, in our mundane struggles to just get through the day, to earn a living and care for our families. He is also hidden on the margins of society where the poor, the lonely, the depressed, the abandoned and the victims of violence in all forms struggle for the daily bread of kindness and hope. We don’t see the “newborn king” because we are not looking for the Light or are distracted by the garish and often tawdry distractions of our consumer-crazed society. In a Christmas-New Year-Epiphany Letter to his friends last year, Fr. Bob Bonnot, who at 70-years-old pastors two parishes in Ohio, writes: “At other times we don’t see because we don’t want the intrusion of Light lest he call us out of darkness. We’d rather live with our illusions and half-truths than struggle with the Truth. Half-truths and illusions, reinforced by whatever tendentious reinforcements we select to surround us, imprison. Only Truth, Light, makes us free. But we have to be willing to look, see and respond honestly to what we see.”

If Christ’s Light shines through us and we become transmitters of that Light, our little corner of the world will be transformed and the darkness will be overcome. In his letter to the Colossians, St Paul says that as followers of Christ we need to be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, in gentleness and patience, and that we need to bear with each and forgive each other. And over all these “clothes” we need to put on love and always be thankful. If in this New Year, we made a sincere effort to follow Paul’s advice, we would slowly change the world that surrounds each of us as we make the Light of Christ more visible to those living in darkness.

“If the whole world were only capable of grasping this principle that true happiness consists only in the freedom of disinterested love – the ability to get away from ourselves, and our limited sphere of interests and appetites and needs, and rejoice in the good that is in others, not because it is also ours, but formally in so far as it is theirs!”
-Thomas Merton
Raids on the Unspeakable