Third Sunday of Lent

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Do you have a spare $13 million? If so you can buy the house in which the movie Moonstruck was filmed. The brownstone, which sits on the corner of Cranberry and Hicks in Brooklyn Heights, just a short walk from SFC, is for sale.

Have you seen the movie? Moonstruck is a 1987 Italian-American romantic comedy that won multiple academy awards (including best screen play by John Patrick Shanley who lived for a long time on Livingston Street behind the college).

The movie is full of quotable scenes. Cher won Best Actress for her stellar performance. But the scene I want to highlight involves Rose, Olympia Dukakis in her Best Supporting Actress performance. Rose is walking home after meeting a younger man, a professor, (Perry, played by John Mahoney) in a local dinner. Rose is eating alone because her husband is having an affair with a younger woman. They strike up an engaging conversation. The professor “sees” her. She feels noticed in a way she no longer does in her marriage. At the foot of the stoop of the house on the corner of Cranberry and Hicks, Perry invites himself in. Rose says no. He asks, is it because someone is inside? If so they can go to his apartment. She says, no. “I can’t invite you in because I am married and because I know who I am.”

“Because I know who I am.” Rose knows her identity. She knows her identity is established by her behavior. This scene came to my attention when I read todays’ (the Third Sunday of Lent) first reading from the book of Exodus. The reading records that God had delivered the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel. The Decalogue has become a catalyst for fierce debate in recent years. How it is treated, where it is displayed and taught, and to whom, has become a flashpoint in the cultural wars of our times. In that battle it would be easy to miss that the Ten Commandments are a codification of a people’s identity. That they arose as a way to articulate how the people of Israel saw themselves, and as a means to preserve that identity. Identity comes before rules.

Rose says she cannot be with Perry because she knows who she is, and how she maintains that identity. She is not saying, I keep the rule because it is a rule. She says it because the behavior the rule codifies helps her maintain her identity.

Rose articulates the whole point of why we venture on the yearly journey of Lent. Why do I fast? Why do I pray? Why do I give alms and do charity? Because they are the rules of Lent? Or because these “rules” help me to be the better part of me? Help me to become who I am? Help me to remain faithful to who I am and want to be?

We become what we eat. We create ourselves by the behavior we practice. We will become the attitudes we hang on to. If I constantly harbor bitter thoughts I will become bitter. If I am charitable I will be a charitable person.

If I – the person that I am and want to be - really had that $13million what would I do with it?

Father Mark J. Lane, c.o.

Pastor

The Brooklyn Oratory Parish of St. Boniface