When I was a kid I loved watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents, known in its last four years as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. His sardonic wit and macabre sense of humor I found vastly appealing and no doubt had an impact on my own developing quirky sense of humor. Hitchcock was a Catholic, although some have claimed that he became estranged from the Faith later in life. Father Mark Henninger in The Wall Street Journal relates his own encounter with Hitchcock shortly before his death.
Tom said, “Hitch, this is Mark Henninger, a young priest from Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?” Hitchcock said. “Disgraceful!”
Go here to read the rest. Any priest can relate hundreds of similar stories about people nearing death who embrace, or return to, the Faith. During life most of us adopt many poses and masks as we proceed through all the helter-skelter activities that make up a life. At the end however we are confronted with the stark reality of death and the time for illusion ceases as we prepare to stand before the Ultimate Reality. Rest in peace Mr. Hitchcock and I hope the angels are laughing at your jokes!
Amen! Alleluia!!
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See Luke 15:7.
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Repent. It is never too late.
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Finally (Thank God!), it would be such gracious articles that convinced me that the Wall Street Journal subscription price was worth the money.
“At the end however we are confronted with the stark reality of death and the time for illusion ceases…” I think it would be more appropriate, indeed correct, to say that the time for “self-delusion” not “illusion” ceases.
I know that Hitchcock had a well-formed Catholic upbringing in his school years, studying for a time at St Ignatius School (prep) in Stamford Hill, in London. (He had to leave, according to his biographers, about age 15, because his father died and the family was left in tight circumstances.)
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Of course, Jesuit training, especially by the English Jesuits in the then-pre WWI era, was something substantial and to be proud of,…then. That era of spiritual formation apparently stayed with him quite well and brought him home at the end.
Many of his television shows, both the half hour and later full hour, were morality plays of a sort that most viewers rather easily understood. Quite a contrast with todays offerings which pretty much concentrate on means and plot lines, leaving out moral considerations.
“During life most of us adopt many poses and masks as we proceed through all the helter-skelter activities that make up a life.”
Yes. Most of us don’t need any encouragement from the pope to “make a mess.”
Donald Link-
You say they are concentrating on plot lines and not morality.
I think you were right a couple decades ago, but now it is worse.
Most stories are written in accordance with the morality of the Woke. Many are out and out “morality plays” for that foul religion.