Schindler’s List and The Sacred Heart

Steven Spielberg produced a strong dramatized documentary film on the holocaust of the Jews in Germany during World War II. It was the story of a German civilian who was ambitious, selfish, greedy, unfaithful to his wife, using the Jews and the German Army to his own advantage. He had no virtues. . . . . except one. . . . compassion.

Spielberg went out of his way to establish that Schindler had no virtues. The brief scenes in the film, that were obscene, he would not remove. He wanted his story to be seen and heard as he produced it, complete and entire, every minute of it. He wanted Schindler’s faults and failures vividly portrayed, to heighten the presentation of his lone virtue. . . . .compassion.

A poor old Jew, with only one arm, comes into his office, unannounced, almost forcing his way, to thank Schindler for using him as one of the workers in Schindler’s munition factory. This released the one armed Jew from the concentration camp, saving his life. Schindler was irritated at being thanked. But it touched him to the soul.

When the poor old one armed Jew was finally killed by a German guard, who felt that he was useless, Schindler protested this killing with the commanding officer.

Then a young Jewish girl came to him, begging him to get her parents out of the concentration camp and place them in his factory. Again he was upset by this - the implication that he was something of a saviour. He drove the girl out of his office. . . . . But after thinking about it, he gave his watch to the Junior Officer in charge of the concentration camp, and brought the ageing man and woman into his factory.

Virtue is like a bunch of grapes. When you have one virtue, gradually you acquire all the others. Little by little, he gave all his money to the officers in charge of the concentration camps, to rescue Jew after Jew after Jew.

Finally he gave all his diamonds to a German Officer, to save a trainload of Jewish women and children who were being sent to Auschwitz, to the gas chambers, and to death. The Officer agreed to send the women and children to Auschwitz, so that he could not be accused of disobeying orders. But then to release them to be workers in the munitions plant of Schindler.

Schindler went to Auschwitz himself, to make sure that every woman and child was released. When a German guard dragged a little nine year old girl out of the line of those being released, Schindler fought for the child, passionately.

He held up the tiny finger of the little girl, and said to the guard: "Where else would you find a finger like this – small enough to clean the inside of a .45 caliber shell? Let her go! She’s a worker! She is mine! I need her!" Schindler was so strong in his anger, that the guard let her go, at once.

When he walked with the women and children into his plant, head and shoulders taller than them all, the Jewish men who were already in the factory watched them through the window. And they wept.

Schindler made a list of all the Jews whom he could possibly save, and then gave all that he had to buy them away from the extermination camps. At the end of the film, when he was leaving the factory, because he knew that the war was over and the Allies were coming in, he was filled with remorse for all the good he could have done, and did not do.

Looking at his car, he said: "If only I had sold that car, I could have saved four people!. . . . .Four people!" He looked at his ring and said: "If I had sold this ring, I could have saved two people!. . . . . Two people!" He looked at the pin which gave him entry everywhere, and said: "If I had sold this pin, I could have saved one person!. . . .One person!" And he wept.

The Jewish workers in his factory were so grateful to him that they took the gold from their teeth and fashioned a ring for him. Within the ring they carved an inscription: "Whoever saves one life, saves the world!"

Very recently His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales organized a whole day of recollection for all the priests of Metro Manila. It was held in the large auditorium of San Carlos Seminary on Edsa in Makati. Two of the speakers were Bishop Chito Tagle and Father Catalino Arevalo, both excellent theologians.

They were explaining to us that the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection were really one thing. And, taken all together, they were the finest portrayal of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Bishop Chito Tagle was making a distinction between the Tagalog words: "Puso", which means "Heart", and "Loob", which means the whole interior spirit of a person. He felt that "Puso" emphasized the physical heart, and was associated with emotion. If you want someone to be sensitive and considerate, you say: "Have a heart!" If someone runs roughshod over the feelings of another, you say that he is "heartless."

But "Loob" is deeper. It means not only emotion but mind, will, the driving force of action in any man. He felt that "Loob" was a better expression for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Better than "Puso".

Both gave beautiful explanations of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection as the best portrayal of the Love of God.

At the Last Supper, Our Lord gave us his body and blood, his life. This is love. Loyola says that love should be shown in deeds, not in words. And it consists in giving, sharing. In the one who loves giving, sharing, all that he has, and all that he is, with the one he loves. That is what Christ our Lord did. From the moment that he was conceived in his mother’s womb, he was giving himself to us. It becomes crystal clear in the Passion.

The blood he offered for us at the last supper was actually shed, drop by drop, in the scourging. Until his body was one open wound. It continued in the thorns, in the carrying of the cross, in the nails, in the lance. There on Calvary the last drops of his blood flowed out, through the open wound. Blood and water. Water to cleanse us from all our sins. Dying, he gave his life to us.

And he rose from the dead in the fullness of that life, as a pledge of our resurrection and our life with him, forever. That is why he could say: "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will never die". Even when the soul leaves the body, we will go on living forever, with the life that he gave to us.

The Passion is a love story. Not our love for God, but God’s love for us.

Sitting there in the auditorium of San Carlos, I was thinking of Schindler and the Jews. He gave all that he had. Not his life, but everything else. Christ Our Lord gave us all he had, and all he was; he gave us himself, his life, his eternal life.

We are like the Jews, rescued from Auschwitz, from the extermination camp, from death. He gives us not only life in this world, but forever, for all eternity.

The Jews took the gold from their teeth to make a ring for Schindler. We can not give God anything. Only our love. And we show our love by accepting his gift of life.

It goes right back to Margaret Mary Alacoque. She had a vision of Christ Our Lord lying in a pool of his own blood, after the scourging. He looked at her, and suddenly she knew that this man needed her! She felt a fierce desire to mother God. It was a real love affair. A passionate love affair.

That is what we celebrate in Holy Week. God reaching out to us, needing us, dying for us. . . . . . . Love.