SACRED HEART PARISH
Waterlooville 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Among other eccentricities, I am a devotee of Iranian films – as Fr. Dominic once found to his cost when forced to sit through one ‘little gem’. The other day I saw "Homework", not a production which will be coming to Port Solent, it must be admitted. It is a study of what happens in a boys’ primary school in Teheran in the early 1980’s when the government of the time introduced a fundamentalist religious-based education programme.

Apart from a few outside shots, including a ‘candid camera’ look at an ill-digested playground assembly which dissolved into unexpected scenes of indiscipline, everything was done by the simple expedient of making a series of boys stand in front of a table and be interviewed by the film’s director, Abbas Kiarostami, looking rather Inquisition-like, it must be said, in dark glasses.

Many of the children gave not very convincing ‘official’ answers, such as how much they preferred doing their homework to watching cartoons, but the star performer was one youngster who burst into floods of tears on being placed before the table, obviously convinced he was going to be punished for some misdemeanour, and pleading with hand in the air for his friend to be allowed to join him. He was also frightened he was going to be late for his RE exam. It was just getting to the point where it looked like cruelty to children when the director told him to recite part of his RE exam. Whereupon the blubbering child’s face was transformed as if he was fuelled by some illicit substance, his eyes blazed fiercely and he started rattling off unstoppable quantities of obscure text. The soundtrack here broke in with ironic triumphal music and the film ended.

I suppose many of us half-wish children were still all taught their catechism by rote, and I do sometimes feel that our children know too little about their faith, but that one film scene certainly set great alarm bells ringing. In our primary school this week we celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The children had prepared illustrated cards listing their sins, and had been assured that their cards were confidential and would be destroyed. They brought them solemnly to the altar for them to be read. Not a word was said, apart from ‘thank you’, the children were marked with the sign of the cross, and afterwards absolution was given. They all took the exercise very seriously, were dignified without being alarmed, and patient as a long queue wound its way slowly to the priest. I feel this was true catechesis – a shared experience of God forgiving his people.