20th anniversary of Act One: Writing for Hollywood

Today (January 25, 2019) marks the 20th anniversary of the Act One program.

Below, I’m linking to a fascinating interview with Barbara Nicolosi Harrington about the origins of Act One, in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of its founding.

Act One became an important part of my own story when I participated in the 30-day Chicago Act One writing program in the summer of 2002. I’m so grateful to Barbara and everyone else who made it possible for the program to exist, and for me to attend. (For example, my boss at the time not only gave me 30 days off to attend the program, but also covered my tuition). I’m also grateful for all of the extraordinary friends I made via the program and the subsequent move to Hollywood.

It seems fitting that Act One was launched on January 25, the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. It also falls during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. As Barbara describes in the interview, Act One has become a beautiful example of inter-denominational cooperation and common mission.

Also, I know that Saint Paul is one of Barbara’s patron saints. She was a member of the Daughters of Saint Paul for nine years. As a result, there’s certainly a bit of the ardor of Saint Paul in her. Check out this prayer she once wrote: Christians and Media: A Prayer for Forgiveness.

Please consider making a donation to Act One by clicking here.

 

Juan de la Cruz

It’s the feast day of St. John of the Cross, one of my favorite spiritual writers of all time. (Doesn’t sound very detached, does it? Still working on that nada doctrine.)

I’ve created a multimedia retreat with Saint John of the Cross — and his Sayings of Light and Love — here. It works well on mobile devices… such as tablets and smartphones.

Also, I did a series of posts on John of the Cross during Lent of 2004. Here are the links:

Lenten retreat starts

Prologue to The Dark Night

Why is the dark night necessary?

pride

avarice

lust

anger

gluttony

envy and sloth

one dark night…

discernment of the night of the senses

how to respond to being placed in the dark night

fired with love’s urgent longings

Father Mike Schmitz on the crisis in the Church

A long time ago, I made a decision not to use my blog for news / topical subjects. But with recent events, I’ve decided to make an exception.

This video by Fr Mike Schmitz is raw, candid, insightful, and hopeful.

Divine Mercy novena

The Divine Mercy novena begins on Good Friday and ends on Divine Mercy Sunday (the Sunday after Easter).

The devotion to Divine Mercy is a powerful one, and it has spread like wildfire through the Church in a very short time.

I once visited the convent in Krakow, Poland where Saint Faustina Kowalska lived and prayed. St. Kowalska is the nun who received the devotion to the Divine Mercy in a series of private revelations from Jesus in the early part of the 20th century.

Wishing you a blessed Triduum and a happy and holy Easter!

via crucis

I remember seeing Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ for the first time at the Arclight Hollywood on Ash Wednesday of 2004. Father Willy Raymond, CSC, had offered to take the staff of Family Theater Productions after the celebration of Mass. So we all processed into the theater with ashes on our foreheads, to the bewildered stares of some. (You could see them working it out in their minds: oh, those must be the Passion groupies. People dress up like Frodo Baggins before a Lord of the Rings premiere, so this must be what the Christians do before seeing their movie…)

At any rate, the film made such an impression on me that I decided to use it as my Lenten meditation: I went and saw the film every Friday of Lent that year, just as I would ordinarily pray the stations of the cross.

I had already planned to host a stations of the cross hike for young adults in the Verdugo Mountains on Palm Sunday. The day before the hike, I realized that I had no text to share with others as we prayed along the way. However, the images from Gibson’s film were etched clearly in my mind and suggested many points of meditation, so I decided to compose my own via crucis based upon the film.

I supplemented my meditations with some of my favorite quotes from various spiritual writers: Dietrich von Hildebrand, St. Josemaria Escriva, St. Ambrose of Milan, (then) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, St. Leo the Great, Karol Wojytla, St. John of the Cross, Pope John Paul II, an ancient homily on Holy Saturday, and a closing prayer from (then venerable, now blessed) John Henry Cardinal Newman.

I’ve made the resulting text available on my website in multiple formats:

• PDF 
• MP3 audio
• HTML5 (mobile-friendly, interactive, with video clips from the film)

PS – Another multimedia stations of the cross — much more brief (around 4 minutes long, in Flash format) — is still available on my site here. I used some music from Schindler’s List for this one, which somehow seemed appropriate. I am reminded of a quote from Hildegard Brem which the Pope includes in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Part II: “The Jews themselves are a living homily to which the Church must draw attention, since they call to mind the Lord’s suffering.”