Faith Filled Friday: St. Catherine of Siena as a “Pivotal Player”

Bishop Robert Barron’s video series are spectacular.  I bought the Catholicism series and it was well worth it.  When he came out his The Pivotal Players was very tempted to buy it, but it was very expensive.  Volume 1, which I think is the only volume put out so far, might have been around $199 when it first came out.  The Pivotal Players is a series of videos on the people in the history of Catholicism who have been instrumental in shaping its thought and culture.  Volume 1 consists of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bl. John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton, Michelangelo, and St. Catherine of Siena.  Now, of course if you knew my love for St. Catherine of Siena, you quickly see how tempted I was.  However, at that time I figured, what could Bishop Barron say about St. Catherine that I didn’t already know? 

So I didn’t buy it, but I had hoped there would one day be a means of buying only one of the series and not the whole volume.  There wasn’t but recently I got an email where Bishop Barron put Volume 1 on sale for $99, which amounts to just over $16 per video, each video being about an hour long.  Now that I figured was a sale and worth getting.  As soon as I got the shipment I went and put on the episode on St. Catherine.  Goodness, it’s beautiful.  Yes, I probably already knew 90% of the information given, the video images of the locations and visuals of the paintings and statutes of St. Catherine was breathtaking.  Bishop Barron’s company, Word on Fire, does such a wonderful job on these videos.  But what really moved me was the love and admiration the video had for my beloved patroness.  More than once did it bring tears to my eyes.

Here is a trailer for the Catherine of Siena episode.

And I also found an interview Bishop Barron had on St. Catherine shortly after completing filming the episode on her.  He makes these points in the episode, but the episode is so much more.

If you want to learn a little bit about the patron saint of this blog and why I love her so without having to read books about her, get the Pivotal Player episode on her life and teachings.  It’s well worth it.

Cool Video: Heartwarming Christmas Ad

I’ve been so delinquent with my blog lately.  I used to have filler posts between posts with more substance, but I’ve gotten out of the habit.  I’m not sure if the handful of people who read my blogs care, but I do feel I should post something every so often.  Here’s a nice occasion for one.  This is a Christmas advertisement.  I’m not even sure what it’s for, but it’s really cute and heartwarming.  I hope you enjoy it.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, and try to put Christ into the Christmas season.  Actually, don’t just try; do it.

Matthew Monday: Ten Things to Love About Italy

I was sent this video, and I showed Matthew and he found it fascinating.  I told him Nonna, his Italian grandmother, my mother, still makes pasta and pizza just like that from scratch. 







I hope you enjoy the video.  Of the ten, the two things my family has never been big on is truffles and balsamic vinegar. 

Cool Video: How Wolves Changed Rivers

This is a new feature for my blog, a means of presenting interesting videos I come across.  They probably won’t be very literary, but such is the nature of videos.

I’ve mentioned a number of times how I love wolves, and I even posted a photo essay a few months ago on my trip to a wolf sanctuary.  This first posted “Cool Video” shows the effects of re-introducing wolves back to Yellowstone Park.  I don’t remember what year my wife and I vacationed at Yellowstone, but it had to be shortly after 1995 when wolves started being re-introduced.  You can read about it here and here.  I remember on the trip trying to locate the one wolf pack there.  We never found it.  Wolves are extremely shy.

I came across this video on the ecological impact of  re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone.  I hope you enjoy it, and you see just how beautiful Yellowstone Park is.  The narrator keeps saying how wolves kept the deer population down, but the video shows elk not deer.  The reality is wolves probably kept both populations down, but there’s a disconnect between the narrator and the film, and it comes across as the narrator being a bit obtuse.  Still it’s an excellent and educational video.

If you’ve never been to Yellowstone national Park, I highly recommend it if you enjoy the outdoors.