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It has been stated by nice theologians — in a technique or one other — that to really know your self, you could first be taught to know God.
The nice Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel stated, “There is no self-understanding without God-understanding.”
God made us. He is aware of how every thing suits collectively. And extra importantly, He holds the important thing to our function in life. That is the underlying present of a new feature-length film about three younger seminarians, the closest of mates, as they set out on what the film says is “an extraordinary odyssey to answer the highest of calls.”
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In “Trinity’s Triumph,” two of the seminarians are composite characters — young men who represent the variations of personalities in seminary. But one is not.
Father Joe is the avatar of Father Stephen Fichter, pastor of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Wyckoff, New Jersey.
The film “Trinity’s Triumph” could be the first movie about priests actually written by a priest. (iStock)
He developed the story and wrote the screenplay based on his journey to his ordination.
The film could be the first movie about priests actually written by a priest.
Says Fichter, “I felt very strongly in my own vocation to the priesthood that God was calling more young people to serve him.”
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He stated he needed to “make a movie that would be attractive to the modern generation.”
“He said, ‘I see what you’re trying to do. I think it’s wonderful.'”
Film is definitely a good option to appeal to a youthful technology, evidenced by the media consideration given to the Catholic conversion of actor Shia LaBeouf.
But Fichter’s film was a 25-year journey that began whereas he was finding out in Rome. He talked concerning the sojourn on a current episode of “Lighthouse Faith” podcast.
Instead of one seminarian’s journey, Zeffirelli thought the film would make a higher film if advised the story of three younger males. (iStock)
“The original title was ‘Daring to Be Different,’ and it was the story of this one young man, and his journey … trying to respond to the call, trying to be generous to God and the sacrifice they had to make along the way.”
Along the journey, Fichter obtained some exceptional assist. While within the everlasting metropolis, a buddy of his was in a position to get the beginner screenplay in entrance of award-winning Italian director Franco Zeffirelli.
Fichter says, “I thought, you know, why not give it a try? Well, he loved it!”
Zeffirelli, stated Fichter, “really thought I had a great idea. And he invited me to his villa on the outskirts of Rome, and we were there. It was a Sunday afternoon. And he was just absolutely delightful. He said, ‘I see what you’re trying to do. I think it’s wonderful.'”
Italian director Franco Zeffirelli is proven in 1970. He mentored Fichter and helped him form his film “Trinity’s Triumph.” (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content)
Zeffirelli — who died in 2019 at age 96 — mentored Fichter and advised a main change to the story.
Instead of one seminarian’s journey, he thought it would make a higher film if have been about about three younger males.
The subsequent big-name contribution got here whereas Fichter was serving as pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Haworth, New Jersey. A parishioner who wrote books requested him about a Scripture she was searching for so as to add to a story (this was earlier than on-line engines like google turned the norm). He fortunately helped her.
Turns out the parishioner was the bestselling creator Mary Higgins Clark, the very best paid girl novelist.
Before her demise in 2020, she wrote 51 books, every one a bestseller.
Said Fichter, “When I first met her, I had no idea who she was. She was at daily Mass during Lent … She was just another parishioner in the pews.”
Fichter was in a position to cross that hurdle of “Is this good enough?” and then needed to take care of the issue of getting it produced.
Higgins Clark additionally helped form the screenplay and gave it little extra character.
She and others additionally suggested these engaged on it to not keep away from the elephant within the room, which was the sexual abuse disaster burgeoning in Boston and what we now know as a worldwide subject.
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But Fichter was in a position to cross that hurdle of “Is this good enough?” and then needed to take care of the issue of getting it produced.
He advised “Lighthouse Faith,” “Once I felt like I had that affirmation and that approval and that support and encouragement from, you know, two really amazing storytellers in our world, I decided, How can I get this made?”
Hollywood is a unusual animal. To get a good actor to play your lead, the potential artist normally desires to know who the director is. To get a good director, she or he desires to know who your lead actor is. To get financing, folks need to know who the actor and director are.
As tough as it was for Fichter to get his film made, he had mates who have been keen to speculate. (Joshua Comins/Fox News)
This merry-go-round might be countless.
Luckily, Fichter had mates who have been keen to speculate. It was low price range, simply half a million {dollars} — hardly the catering invoice for a blockbuster film.
Then, by extra connections, he was in a position to snag A-list actor Joe Morton (“Speed,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”) to play the lead character, Monsignor Heck, round whom the whole film just about revolves.
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Heck is the veteran seminary professor who challenges every of his college students to transcend realizing about God and make the leap to truly realizing God.
He challenges the seminarians within the actual space the place they’re blind to their very own weaknesses. One seminarian’s superior mind and theological information put him far above his different classmates. But his failings got here as he ignored the longings of his coronary heart, believing that information about God can be a talisman in opposition to temptation. It was not.
It is Heck who should take care of the fallout of an abusive priest.
It is Heck who should take care of the fallout of an abusive priest.
It is Heck who should debate a younger priest struggling to know why the Catholic Church would not enable them to marry and have youngsters as within the Eastern ceremony or Orthodox church buildings allow.
“What we’re trying to show in the movie is the human side to the priesthood,” stated Father Stephen Fichter of New Jersey. (iStock)
It is Heck who, ultimately, makes the viewers really feel honor and respect towards the priesthood; one thing that Hollywood hasn’t completed because the days when Bing Crosby performed Father O’Malley in 1945’s “The Bells of St. Mary.”
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Says Fichter, “What we’re trying to show in the movie is the human side to the priesthood. Yes, it’s a calling from God. And it’s something that the church discerns as a community and then the individual discerns … and we try to show those sacrifices of not having a wife and a family and, you know, some of that loneliness that sets in.”
Each discovered that God’s grace, reality and mercy would at all times be their energy.
To know God is experiential. Sometimes it’s the weeping within the evening, the falling to the knees from the load of life’s struggles.
It is coming to the tip of your human energy and solely then realizing the one actual factor you’ve gotten on this life is the God who created you.
A priest is taught this. A superb priest is aware of it and lives it out every day.
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At the tip of “Trinity’s Triumph,” every seminarian is on a completely different path. One drops out earlier than being ordained. One leaves after taking his vows. And just one, Father Joe (Fichter), is a priest.
But all triumphed, although, as a result of of their pursuit of this “highest of callings,” every discovered that God’s grace, reality and mercy would at all times be their energy.
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