The Da Vinci Hoax (2004)

When Michael Moore's documentary came out a few years ago criticizing the American health care system while extolling the virtues of the Cuban socialist health system, I got into an interesting discussion about the topic with a co-worker. At the end of the debate about the validity of Moore's work I asked my co-worker a simple question...

"Which is easier, making a film that shows American health system as vastly better than Cuba's or the other way around?"

My co-worker responded "That's easy, America's."

"Then you have to wonder the true intent of someone who does the opposite," I replied.

The same basic scrutiny can be used when looking at Dan Brown's work in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons with his attack on Christianity as a whole and the Catholic Church specifically.

My mother was scanning books at a bookstore up in Georgia and spied one of which she thought would have an interest to me. She was right.

The book is called The Da Vinci Hoax. It's a wonderful book that expertly dissects the massive misinformation abounding in the pages of Brown's work and, more importantly, discusses the drivers behind the author's attempts to undermine the world's greatest religion.

How much garbage is in Brown's book? Well, it takes almost 300 pages in Hoax to cover all of the areas of misinformation. That means there sure is a lot of garbage to clean up!

Brown states that his material is thoroughly researched and historically accurate. He also states that history is written by winners and can't be trusted. So... what, Dan? Are you saying I shouldn't trust your version of history either????

That's just one of the basic red lights that flash about his work.

While raising my children I have tried to instill in them the idea that they should take all of their family responsibility seriously, even the small tasks. I would say to them, "if I can't trust you to take out the garbage when you're supposed to, how can I trust you with something more important?"

The same holds true for researchers claiming to uncovered some hidden truth. Case and point... Brown repeatedly states that "the Vatican" was doing this and that in various parts of history. Unfortunately, many of these events occured prior to "the Vatican" even existing. He should have said "the Church" or "the Catholic Church." But he didn't. Not a big deal, perhaps, but I go back to the phrase, "if you can't get the simple things right, why should I trust you on the big things?" How hard is it to understand that the Church is an entity and the Vatican is a place?

Look Dan, I already understand it after writing one sentence. How did it slip through that enlightened mind of your's? Probably because you were uncovering the whole conspiracy behind the Church/Vatican trying to weed Mary Magdelene out of Church history by refusing to ackowlege her as the "true" Holy Grail.

There's a lot of simple problems with that theory, Dan. If the Church/Vatican wanted to eliminate MM from Church history they simple DON'T HAVE TO MENTION HER IN THEIR STORIES/GOSPELS! I don't believe MM was mentioned by non-Gospel writers, so if the apostles were so intimidated by her place in Church history, all they had to do was simply NOT TALK ABOUT HER.

Second point, Danny boy... you say MM and JC were married and had kids and that JC survived the crucifixion and the apostles covered it up, blah, blah, blah, I have to ask you another simple question... WHY?

Why would the apostles sacrifice their life so JC and MM could have children? What did they possibly have to gain? The Church was not a powerful empire, it was a group of a couple of hundred people who were at odds with the Romans, the Jews and the Gentiles. So, why would they do that? Please, inspire me with a simple, logical answer, Mr. Brown. Well, while you're mulling that over, I have a few more questions...

You really think JC survived the crucifixion? Did you not do ANY research on Roman crucifixions? Or Roman law? Or health care back then?

Lastly, Brown goes on and on about how Da Vinci's painting shows the true meaning of the "Holy Grail" claiming that John sitting next to Jesus in the Last Supper painting was actually MM. And that Peter's depiction of a knife near John's/MM's throat shows that the church wanted to "decpitate" MM's power.


Ugh... Dan, Dan, Dan. I go back to my America/Cuba example. Every credible art and church historian explains the imagery... John, the youngest, would not have a beard. Peter's knife is a visual precursor to his use of the sword in the Garden later in the evening. And the picture itself is supposed to be the moment after Jesus told them there was a betrayer in their midst.

But what about this missing "Grail" Dan would ask? Well, Dan, if you were to simply LOOK at the painting you would see that EVERYONE has a cup in front of them. There is no need for a Grail to be passed around. The Grail isn't missing. It isn't necessary!

That's just some of the "Hello, Danny B., time to get your head out of your anti-Christian buttocks!" you'll find in the many detailed pages of The Da Vinci Hoax.

So why would DB take material from sketchy sources to compile a "historically accurate" alternative view of Christianity?

Because it appears that Dan Brown is all about the Sacred Feminine. And that the masculine Church has apparently been suppressing it all of these centuries. It's all very new-ageish and uses extreme feminist wishlists and imaginary tales to convey the glory that is the Sacred Feminine.

So that's his intent. He tells us to ignore history while presenting his own version of it. He ignores long-standing credible research and embraces Gnostic and feminists views of deity and muddles it all together into a mishmash of elaborate poppycock called The Da Vinci Code. Ignore it at all costs.

I do, however, strongly suggest everyone read The Da Vinci Hoax. There is so much more information on the misinformation Brown spins about the Templars, the Priory of Sion, Constantine, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, Da Vinci's volume of work, his relationship with the Church, etc., etc.

The short of it is this... Brown is a very bad historian with an anti-Christian axe to grind, period. He should be mocked or ignored, but never taken seriously.

Interview with an Exorcist (2006)

I've always been intrigued by the spiritual realm.

I remember hearing an interview with Father Malachi Martin who, when speaking about the real exorcism from which the movie The Exorcist was based, stated that our sins are on the "public record," so to speak, in the spiritual realm. He spoke about how they are available to the demons to use against the priest. And how, at the end of that one particular difficult exorcism that spawned a movie franchise, a small group of people in a small church nearby all saw the image of St. Michael the Arc Angel lifting his sword in victory after the mighty demon was finally purged from the child.

Stories like that have fascinated me. I've always figured the spiritual realm was much greater, much more complex and far more intricate than we could ever imagine in our small little brains.

And, personally, I have felt the tinge of harassment from an unwelcomed entity at one point in my life.

So, picking up the book Interview with an Exorcist, by Father Jose Antonio Fortea of Spain, was a really interesting and a sometimes disturbing read about the nature of demonic forces, their goals, how best to combat them and the limits of what they can and cannot do. The book is fashioned in the standard and efficient answer/question format where, over the course of 110 questions, Father Fortea gives real world insight into what's up the Devil's sleeve and ways in which we can avoid or combat the work of the evil minions.

Some of that information was quite surprising.

Father warns that Satan would like nothing better than to make us all non-believers in him. Some religions have actually disbanded exorcists completely. Nothing makes Satan happier. Fortunately, Pope Benedict XVI has recently requested that more exorcist be made available to confront evil within our society.

Reading this book was also therapeutic for me, as it forced me to face the disturbing memories of when I felt attacked by an evil presence. Thankfully, the mercy of God is great and through pure living and frequent prayer Satan is unable to beat us.

God will be victorious in the end. And if we can remain by His side we will always be protected.

Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (2006)

What is Islam? Who was Muhammad? When was Islam created? Is the Koran like the Bible? What does Islam share with Judaism and Christianity and what separates them?

Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, by Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer, is a quick read consisting of 100 common questions and answers regarding Islam, its impact in history, the world and other faiths. Ali and Spencer do a nice job of explaining the beliefs of Muslims and how they are either similar or different from Judaism and Christianity.

Did you know that Muslims believe Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and that his second coming is part of the end times? Did you know that the Koran includes stories of Adam and Eve, Moses and Abraham? Yes, Islam shares the names and the stories, but the details and interpretations are sometimes very different.

According to the book, Muslims believe the Koran to be the direct word from Allah as dictated by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad. These words are not up for interpretation, merely obedience.

According to the book:

• Where Christians see God as a father figure, Muslims see Allah as a master.
• Where Christians believe heaven means spending eternity in God's presence, Muslims believe heaven means spending eternity in paradise, but not in Allah's presence.
• Where the Bible is consistent in it's messages and truths, the Koran allows for Allah to contradict previous statements or change his mind on various teachings.
• Where Christians believe in the Trinity, Muslims believe in Allah alone.
• Where Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God, Muslims believe he was only a prophet.

The book also states that Muslims believe that the original Old and New Testaments were in line with the Koran at their inception, but have since been altered to meet various devious goals, thereby nullifying their value as they are considered fiction.

Ali and Stevens go into greater detail into the history of the creation of the Koran, the holy traditions, Mecca, the role of women in Muslim society and so on. It is an informative and enlightening book. It gives me a much greater appreciation as to why some Muslims take their religion and wage war with the sword against unbelievers.

This is all new territory for me and this book is a great starting point for Catholics who want to begin to understand the Muslim faith and how it varies from our own teachings. I strongly recommend it for those of you interested in the subject matter.

Medjugorje: The Message (1989)

When I was in high-school I remember hearing about a small Yugoslavian village called Medjugorje where some kids my age were having visions of Mary. Soon there were videos being shown and scientific studies that showed it wasn't a hoax. Then there were pilgrims and more stories and it all created a great sense of something magical, heavenly actually occurring in our lifetime.

Sure, I had heard of Fatima and Lourdes and other Marian apparitions, but the Mother of Jesus appearing in my lifetime? Amazing.

So, here it is some twenty years later and I'm going to Mass at my mother's church in North Carolina and meet a guy named Wayne Weible who has been kind enough to donate some of his books on Medjugorje to the small church library. It turns out Wayne and his wife are parishioners there and are very nice people.

After heading back to my Mom's cabin and as I was packing my bags to head back home my Mom gives me a copy of Wayne's book. I cracked it open two days ago and found myself unable to put the book down.

The book is about Wayne's personal journey to discover the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, his calling and its impact on his life. A Lutheran, Wayne watched a video tape on the goings on in Yugoslavia and was immediately called to investigate and tell the story of Mary's visions and messages there. Over the years the Lord leads Wayne to Medjugorje, then in a Communist country where atheism was the official religion and where religious items were confiscated at the border, where he investigated, met and was touched by the Marian apparitions. Over the years and subsequent returns to the small village Wayne became more and more involved with the key players there such as the local priests and even the visionaries themselves.

Wayne's story is compelling on it's own. But, what makes Wayne's book extraordinary are all of the stories that he relays from people he had met and were impacted by the events going on over there. His small, intimate story evolves into a worldwide spiritual tsunami that washes over the entire world with a reinvigorated faith in Jesus. Amazingly, by the end of the book you can actually comprehend the massive and uplifting impact this event and the messages relayed by the visionaries has effected Wayne, the people of the village and, eventually, the entire world.

During the reading of this book I felt myself changed as well.

I've always felt that the truth of Christ and the flame of the Holy Spirit is in us all and that, given the quiet and the focus, we would naturally be drawn to it. And, on some deep spiritual level, that truth is recognizable to us. We know it when we hear it or see it. We just know.

That book touched that inner truth within me. Mary's messages, in their simplistic beauty and divine effectiveness, make complete sense to me. I felt like my eyes had somehow been opened to some great, holy mystery to find the message so simple that I had looked passed it all this time.

Through the book Mary repeatedly puts our focus on her Son, Jesus and talks about peace, about inner peace and peace between brothers and sisters. As I read the book I realized that there is a big difference between contentment and peace. I believe we spend most of our time confusing the two, believing we are at peace when we are merely content.

By the end of this book I feel I had found an inner peace that I had not felt in a very long time. A peace that is deeper and real. A peace that derives from the truth.

It inspired me to check the web for the latest events on Medjugorje. It amazes me that the visions have continued for over 25 years now. Never has Marian visions lasted this long. There are videos online that can be seen here and various other websites such as www.medjugorje.org and www.medjugorje.net.

Interviews with the visionaries also put it all into a greater perspective. As one visionary says, "Never ask for what you want. Mary (and Jesus) knows this. Always pray for unbelievers." This is a great example of the simplistic, but important message. Jesus has already told us he will provide for our needs. So praying for that is redundant. But if all of the unbelievers become believers, well then there would be true and lasting peace.

This turns our prayers from being selfish to being selfless, which is the essence of following Jesus' example.

In the end, reading Medjugorje: The Message has filled a gap that had been in my spiritual life for quite some time. It's a great, inspiring and potentially life-altering read.

The Devil's Final Battle (2002)

The Third Secret of Fatima. Did we get the whole story?

That's the question The Devil's Final Battle by Father Paul Kramer tries to ask. The Fatima story is an amazing one. In 1917, just before the unleashing of World War I, three children in Portugal see a vision of Mary. They are told to tell the people to honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Tens of thousands hear of the children's visions and go to Portugal, seeing the miracle of the dancing sun.

The church responds favorably to the visions and messages. They institute the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Two of the children die very young. The third, their cousin Lucy, becomes a nun and continues to get visits from the Virgin Mary on occasion. Mary gives her insight into future events. About upcoming chastisements and apostasy in the church. She is given secrets to divulge to the church hierarchy. Secrets about the need to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart in order to avoid a great chastisement. She tells them that God is unhappy with us and He will use Russia as a force of chastisement and the outcome will include the annihilation of entire nations.

The church does not consecrate Russia. The Russian revolution ensues. The official belief is in Russia now atheism. Russia takes over countries in the coming decades, changing borders, erasing nations.

And still the Church does nothing.

The Third Secret, the one that deals with attacks on the dogma of the Catholic Church and apostasy within its ranks are held, under orders of Mary, until 1960, when she wants them read to all the people.

But the Church does nothing.

Jacinta Marto (age 7), Lucias Santos (10)
and Francisco Marto (9) in Portugal, 1917.

Soon after 1960, Vatican II is instituted. The Church is impacted by new liberalism. Liberalism previous Popes had warned about. Apostasy creeps into the church structure. As foretold in Revelations, the dragon sweeps down a third of the stars from the sky... i.e., Satan effects a third of the priests in the church. Sister Lucy herself warned that the Devil will attach clergy specifically because corrupting a clergy's soul has the effect of corruption hundreds more.

Later, in 1981 Pope John Paul II "releases" the contents of Third Secret, explaining the symbolism and describes the slain "bishop in white" laying dead among the faithful as the attempted assassination on his life. And with that statement, the mysteries of the Third Secret are closed.

Or are they?

What about the contents related to the dogma that Sister Lucy started and revealed early on, but withheld the rest of the contents until later. She apparently delivered two items to the Church, a letter in a sealed envelope approximately 25 lines long that seems to be the words from Mary herself. And she also gave them a notebook of her visions, the including visions specific to the Third Secret that is four pages, about 60 or so lines, describing the vision, but not the Marian message behind it.

Thousands watch the Miracle of the Sun
at Fatima

It is concluded, in The Devil's Final Battle, that the Vatican released the information related to the four page visionary description, but has never released the Marian words itself, because none of the Vatican released information has to do with the attack on the dogma of the Catholic Church. And because numerous priests, bishops and cardinals who had seen the single page within the once-sealed envelope mentioned its contents and none of their comments are in line with an assassination attempt on a Pope.

The book is an intriguing read and meticulously researched. It offers numerous well documented and disturbing attempts, specifically by European Masons and later Communists, to infiltrate and corrupt the Catholic Church from within.

It was written before Pope John Paul II's death and is very hard on a guy named Cardinal Ratzinger... who happens now to be Pope Benedict XVI. It contends that Mary came to those three children to keep us from our own weaknesses, to avoid liberal reinterpretation of the faith and which would eventually move up the Vatican food chain until major church changes would be put into place in contradiction to the Church's dogma.

When one thinks that the Church's action could have prevented the atheistic Marxist revolution in Russia... How would the world be different if Russia was, in 1917, instead converted to Catholicism?

How would the world be different if in the 1960s Vatican II had not been instituted?

What would the Church be like now if it had, as requested by Mary, read aloud the contents all of the secrets of Fatima, owning up to its own human frailty instead of protecting itself from its flaws, thereby leading to the current state of diminished vocations and the priest sex-abuse scandals.

How much better of a place would that world be like to live in?

The Devil's Final Battle is a thoroughly investigated book, but, to be honest, I don't have the knowledge to know if the assumptions put forth in the book are accurate or simply just a conspiracy theorist's interpretation. Taking it at face value, however, the book does make numerous valid and prayer-provoking points.

Above all it makes me wonder how things would have been different if the Church would have listened to the Mother of God through the voice of those three little children.

After Life (1997)

What's the one thing that every human being have in common, no matter of race or creed, of financial status or influence?

Death.

We all die. It is as natural to our existence as is our birth.

The book After Life, by Michael H. Brown uses in-depth research of near death experiences as well as visions from various religious to try and get his hands about what we can expect after we die. Inclusive in this short book are visions of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.

Non-Catholics struggle with the concept of Purgatory. The short of it is, God is perfection. If we die with any sin or having committed grave sins in our lifetime, we are far from perfect and to assume we are worthy of immediate entry into the presence of the Creator simply because we were a good person... well, that doesn't really make sense.

Perfection cannot coexist with imperfection.

So how do we become perfect? The same way we grow here on Earth... through struggle. Through purification. In a place called Purgatory.

Purgatory fulfills two purposes... to cleanse us from our sin and to break us from attraction to sin... you know, those same sins we do over and over again. What makes us attracted to that sin? Well, whatever draws us toward sin also draws us away from God, so that attraction must be broken and we must be cleansed.

Only saints... extremely holy people, who have so little sin and history of sin to keep them from a near immediate presence into Heaven and allowed in the same room with the Almighty.

For the rest of us... there's Purgatory.

In After Life, Brown, using as many sources and resources as he could find, tries to piece together what our eventual and eternal location is like, whether that be Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. Hell, of course, is a dark and sad place, full of people who refuse to love God, to acknowledge him, those who have abused the sacraments and those who have pulled people away from God. It is dark and sinister and perverse. His descriptions are very disturbing.

Purgatory contains various levels from darkness to light. The more purified we become, the lighter it gets, until we are escorted into Heaven by the Virgin Mary or Michael, the Arc Angel.

Heaven is beyond our comprehension... as if all of our senses were magnified a million times. It is as if we are swimming in a bright and luminous love.

Brown also uses Marian messages from various apparitions where Mary talks about these three places and the work we must do to avoid damnation. One thing in particular stuck out in my mind... it is very simple, but very profound.

As Brown puts it, "every second here counts."

Every second, what are our thoughts, our feelings, our generosity, our focus... Jesus and God will judge us on every second of our lives. We are held responsible for every moment here, not just the big events.

He also mentions that our judgment is immediate and, once in the celestial arena, you fully agree with the outcome because you finally "get it." You understand the big picture. What it all means. And what your life meant in regards to it.

After Life is a very quick read... just over 100 pages, but it is a very interesting read.

How can we really know what is next after our soul is released from our bodies? No one can truly ever know until we die. But Brown's After Life does an admiral job trying to use what little information that is available to give us a possible hint at what is to come and what we can expect.

Someday I'll see you all on the other side.

Four Witnesses (2002)

Four Witnesses is a great, great book! Period. I read all 340 pages in less than two days. For a "non-reader" like myself, that's saying something.

As a Catholic, I have often wondered how the church got where it is today. What were the catalysts for certain beliefs, traditions and rituals? And how close is it now to what the original Apostles instituted?

The Roman Catholic church is an apostolic church, meaning it is based solely on the teachings and examples of the Apostles. But, some 2000 years later, how do we know what the Apostles truly meant? Since the Luther schism, reinterpretations of what it means to be a Christian has generated numerous versions and denominations of the faith.

So, how can we know the Apostle's intent? And under what historical context were such decisions decided... decisions which helped form the Catholic church today?

It's wise and logical to turn to the immediate followers of the Apostles to get a glimpse into how the Apostles intended the faith to be lived and grown. After all, these followers would pattern their lives after the Apostles and these Apostles would have been the first to have converted a belief in Jesus Christ into a day-to-day existence.

Four Witnesses examines the lives and the writings of the early church fathers who were either followers of the Apostles or the Apostles' apprentices: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons.

The author, Rod Bennett, was surprised to find that these early days of the church formation were well documented... over 1000 pages are available for reading and study. Pages written in the first 100 years or so after the resurrection of Christ. And he has taken that information and consolidated it, along with his own personal journey of faith, into a format easily digestible to today's reader.

A couple of broad-stroke differences culturally that both helped define the creation and growth of the church are the Mentor/Apprentice structure of the society and the importance of oral tradition at the time.

In Christ's day, one learned a craft or skill or knowledge from a master. There were no vocational schools or grand university system available at the time. The validity of the apprentice was based almost solely on the validity of the master. Jesus learned to be a carpenter from his father, Joseph. If Jesus were to say "I'm a carpenter," the first question to follow was "who was your master?" "Joseph." If they liked Joseph's work, they trusted Jesus' carpenter skills.

So, when the Apostles set forth in their ministry, their master was Jesus. And as their ministries grew, the Apostles took on apprentices to pass along all that they knew and how to live as this new thing called a "Christian." By analyzing the writings and rituals used by these apprentices, you can immediately understand what they were handed down from their masters, the Apostles.

Secondly, oral tradition was critical. Most people couldn't read or write, so having the written word did not reach the majority of the Christian church at that time. Tradition and how to live as a Christian was passed on using a "listen to what I say and do what I do" philosophy.

I was amazed to find out that the majority of what we call the Catholic Mass and Catholic Church had already been instituted before most of the New Testament had even been written!

Also critical to the Church at the time was the importance of following and obeying your spiritual "masters." Peter was the greatest of the Apostles. Everyone agreed on this. But, to avoid heresy, churches had to completely submit to the skill and knowledge of the Apostle's apprentices, meaning the bishops, priests and deacons. Heresy always started when the lineage, the direct line back to the Apostles, was broken.

The same occurs today.

The book is so rich and full of wonderful information that I could write about it for hours. But, some of the highlights that surprised me were that the first catechesis of the Christian faith (called the Didache), written between 60 and 90 A.D., tells Christians how to live their faith and includes "do not kill a fetus by abortion." That means such a belief must have come from the Apostles themselves. By 200 A.D. the church stated "we acknowledge that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul begins at conception. Life begins when the soul begins."

So, if you wonder why the Catholic church is so adamantly against abortion, you can rest assured its because the men who walked with Jesus Christ himself believed it to be murder.

The second amazing aspect of the early church is that it was attacked, via heresy, immediately upon Jesus' resurrection. I'm sure Satan felt the best time to kill the faith is in its infancy. The leader of the heretical movement, which later became known as the Gnosticism, was led by Simon the Magician (or Simon Magus). How confusing it must have been for pagans to hear similar, but very different versions of Christianity from two men called Simon. And how effectively evil of Satan to devise such a simple attack.

For the next 500 years, the church would fight various forms of Gnosticism, which basically believed that Jesus was never human, only a ghost or spirit. This means his suffering is invalidated. Which means his sacrifice for sins is invalidated. Which leads to undermining the true need for salvation from sin and avoiding a sinful life. Which leads to a whole lot of un-Christian behavior. But the message preached by both Simons sounded a lot alike.

The thing that separated Simon Peter from Simon Magus is the same thing that caused Simon Peter to deny Christ three times... people recognized him as a follower of Christ. They saw him with Jesus. They understood him to be the apprentice to Jesus, his master.

That's just the tip of of the iceberg. There is so much more in this book. I could write a hundred more paragraphs... but then, that would be plagiarism.

Find this book. Get it, read it, love it. It's an amazing, enlightening experience!

A Biblical Defense of Catholicism (2003)

I don't just watch movies. Sure, I watch a lot of movies, but I also read books. The latest book I've finished is called A Biblical Defense of Catholicism by Dave Armstrong.

The book is chalk full of biblical references to the traditions and tenets of the Catholic faith, including faith and works, purgatory and so on.

Armstrong does a good job of showing both Old and New Testament connections to the subject matter... not an easy job. The book itself is a very good reference piece, but not an easy read. It makes consistent and repeated examples from various books in the bible that validate various Catholic beliefs, but it is little more than that. It lacks a personal story to make it enticing, however it doesn't lessen its overall effectiveness when it comes to fulfilling the title of the book.

I would strongly recommend this book for those of you looking for biblical connections to certain Catholic beliefs. If you want to simply scan quoted bible references or, instead, use each chapter to propel you into deeper study, the book will provide you the directions to such a journey.

The DV Rebels Guide (2006)

There is one book that has gotten continuous acclaim among low-budget filmmakers. That book is The DV Rebels Guide An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap written by Stu Maschwitz. Yes, it is a very long title, but it is extremely accurate. As I am planning on shooting a low budget action movie in the next three years (Sonlight Pictures' Severed) I thought I would take a look at this unique approach.

The book is excellent on so many levels. First, its very well written, complete with a Rebel with a Camera attitude and style.

Second, Maschwitz, who worked at ILM and helped created the video effects company called The Orphanage, knows his stuff when it comes to low budget effects. More importantly, he knows what is actually needed for an effect or stunt to work and what is not needed. Many times, the perception of an effect is much more important than the reality of the effect.

Third, Maschwitz gives step-by-step processes for making your own special effects. Included with the book is a DVD that includes his short film exemplifying his low-budget effects work along with tutorial examples, samples and freebies that we can use to help make our film high-quality production value.

For anyone who wants to make a low-budget movie, action or not, this book is an excellent resource. For those of you wanting to make a low-budget action film, this book is indispensable. A quick, great read that is both inspiring and educational.

It is a great compendium to Robert Rodriguez's A Rebel Without a Crew. They make for a solid and complete one-two punch.

The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1821)

Mel Gibson got a lot of flack about his interpretation of the passion of Jesus in his movie The Passion of the Christ. Many people were unaware that most of that movie was indeed inspired by the visionary book of the venerated (pre-Saint) nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, called The Dolorous (or Sorrowful) Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Emmerich, herself, was illiterate. But a well known poet of the time, Clemens Brentano, was brought into her life and wrote down her visions as she had them. He would re-write and edit the visions with her so she would approve his wording.

The process of having the visions was extremely painful for Emmerich, who welcomed the suffering as she had a life-long yearning to participate in the passion of Jesus. This dedication and selflessness was rewarded with the vision of Jesus' passion, crucifixion and resurrection in complete and amazing detail. However, with each vision she also experienced the emotions involved.

The visions are so detailed and exact that one cannot help but believe them as true. The book relates such detail from descriptions of the simple bridges crossed when walking near the Garden, to Pilate's house, Herod's palace, neighborhoods and how all of the people in the bible intertwine with this blessed event. She states that the Ark of the Convenant was, at one time, housed in the same building as was held the Last Supper. She states that the same cave used to hide after the Garden of Gethsemane was the same cave used by Adam and Eve to hide after the fall. She mentions the chalice used at The Last Supper was an antique that was stored on Noah's Ark and survived the flood. The visions encompass and expound the stories in the bible, but never contradict them.

It is an amazing book, plain and simple.

I have often believed that a human's ability to understand the spiritual realm is equivalent to an ant trying to understand the subtly of human existence. An ant may know we are there and that we have some power over them when we want, but they know nothing nor can they comprehend human emotion, relationships, goals, dreams, etc.

Sister Anne & Clemens Brentano

The same ignorance, I believe, is what humans have when we try to understand the divine. I always go back to my favorite quote from Thomas A Kempis', which states "There is nothing more insignificant to God than human wisdom." After all, we, in our own arrogance and ignorance believe that God works as we do, that because we are created in His image that He, therefore, must approach life the way we do. We feel we know so much when, in reality, we know so very little.

I've always believed that, if you could imagine God as an artist, His pallet is full of wonderful colors and, by comparison, the human palette merely contains various shades of gray. God can use all of His existence to express Himself... nature, angels, weather, free will, His will, comets, galaxies, the universe itself are all individual colors available to Him in His palette. We can barely understand the complexities of human existence and are incapable of God's options. The simple constraint of time means we struggle to understand actions, consequences and events that occur over multiple generations. But, for God, our centuries are but a second.

What is beautiful about The Dolorous Passion is that it feels like we're getting a glimpse into this big picture. Since time has no meaning to God, when we see tying of Adam to Jesus, from Noah to the Last Supper, from David to Nicodemus, of Roman soldiers to Jesus infancy and his very birth, etc., it all makes sense in some much larger level... like by reading the bible we have understood the players in the story, but not the grandeur and the connections of the story itself... it's the difference between understanding a movie trailer and understanding the movie in its entirety.

Emmerich's visions of Jesus visiting Purgatory, Limbo and Hell after his crucifixion and before his resurrection are riveting, daunting, scary and, on some level, familiar and true.

Reading this book has been a wonderful experience and I strongly suggest anyone looking for a better, fuller understanding of their faith to take the time to visit the wonderful visions of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich.

You will never forget it.