“Lord, take me where You what me to go. Let me meet who You want me to meet. Tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way.”–Father Mychal Judge
This DVD is rated 5/5 Communion Wafers
I’ve always wondered how my church can reach out to people who’d rather not set foot inside. What programs should we introduce? What types of music should we play? How can we be relevant in a post-9/11 world? But after much thought, I realized all of this was futile and meaningless. People just don’t want to be “marketed” to. If the tables were turned, I’d ignore the noise, too. Jesus never advertised during the Superbowl just to get new followers! As I pondered this during the early stages of my discernment process, I discovered this gem of a documentary on Netflix.
Saint of 9/11 is a touching remembrance of Fr. Mychal Judge, the first recorded fatality of the September 11 attacks at the World Trade Center. Through interviews of people whose lives he’s touched and archival video, a multi-layered tapestry is unveiled, revealing the rich life of the openly gay Fransciscan friar and beloved fire chaplain for the FDNY. He was an inspiration to many–everyone from street dweller to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (She was a senator of New York at the time of Judge’s death.) He was someone who you could easily pal around with, before consciously remembering that he was a man of the cloth. He was a man who took his ministry more seriously than himself. Fr. Mychal was once quoted as saying that “he was a human being that became a priest in order to serve.”
Fr. Mychal is universally seen as a “living saint” and Brooklyn’s favorite son: a protector of the city’s disenfranchised and spiritual guide for the average Joe. You get the impression that it was his humanness–the Mychal that God created–that made him seem to have a direct connection with God. The story of the aftermath of another airline tragedy–the explosion of Flight 800 in 1996–is a good example. Here, Fr. Mychal frequented the crash site, being an open ear to who just couldn’t believe something tragic could happen. After days of reaching out to people, Fr. Mychal decided to hold an impromptu service open to everyone there–Christian and non-Christian, Muslim, agnostic–to help them grieve.
Through a series of anecdotes that director Glenn Holsten smoothly gels into one another, you get to know about the Franciscan priest with “the wild laugh” whose passion was to simply serve others. In one scene, an interviewee recalls Fr. Mychal’s love for the station’s fire truck, simply because it was large enough to store things for the needy while he drove it, sirens blaring, throughout the city!
While Fr. Mychal was a superhuman dynamo, he was admittedly not perfect. He struggled with alcholism for years, before ending up at AA. He considered himself “one of the worst sinners”, despite how others viewed him. But despite all this, you get the impression that he’s looked into his soul, judged himself accordingly and moved onward with his life.
While Saint is not an overtly gay film, Fr. Mychal’s sexuality cannot be ignored in this review. In fact there are two scenes that touch upon the subject: one portraying him as an advocate for gay and lesbian Catholics wanting the Catholic Church to change its views on homosexuality, before the Vatican ultimately declared homosexuality to be a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil”; the other, a quieter encounter while at seminary.
But what makes Holsten’s direction so powerful is that he doesn’t ignore the topic nor treat it with heavy-handed diatribe. Rather he represents Fr. Mychal’s homosexuality as an integral part of who he was as a human being. In Holsten’s hands, the film finds commonground for dialog. Saint even suggests a possible third way of challenging the rift within the Episcopal Church: perhaps God is powerful enough to use a gay man to bring people back to God.
(Of note: the director’s filmography itself (Gay Pioneers (2004), Jim in Bold (2003)) covers gay/lesbian themes. The narrator Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings trilogy, X-men trilogy) is himself homosexual and active in the gay rights movement. And the film was produced by Equality Forum, a non-profit organization founded for the purpose of supporting gay/lesbian rights.)
In the end, viewers are left in awe, wishing that they’ve known a “Fr. Mychal” in their lives. At the same time, they are left open to the audacious possiblity that they could be a “Fr. Mychal”! This movie is a call-to-arms and a compelling example to clergy who seek to reach out to people in an authentic and meaningful way.
Title: Saint of 9/11 (2006)
Rated: Not rated
Length: 91 minutes
Director: Glenn Holsten
Cast: Ian McKellen (Narrator)
Netflix Genres:
Documentary
Inspirational Biographies
Biographical Documentaries
Faith & Spirituality Documentaries
Faith & Spirituality
Gay & Lesbian
Gay
