Yet there is also a tinge of guilt because I know that my carbon footprint is roughly the size of Wisconsin. But it isn’t Kyle making me feel that way. It’s my own Irish Catholic guilt rearing its ugly head. Mr. Kramer doesn’t lecture. He doesn’t write with a judgmental hand. “At Home on Earth” is a favorite of ours because it questions our actions and our policies, but it also speaks to our potential as stewards of the planet.

Earth Day is the 22nd of this month—a day for us to celebrate our shared home. Head to page 20 of this issue, in which Kyle writes about Easter and how our “cultural, political, and economic realities must die so that we might have a new and more peaceable way of living on this planet.”

We’re grateful to have him in our pages. And we hope his words inspire you this Easter and beyond.

According to many sources, Genesius was a comedic actor living during the third century, a time when the Church was undergoing persecution from an emperor named Diocletian. Genesius was part of a troupe putting on a play mocking Christians, and he went through a “mock” Baptism on stage.

Regardless of its mocking intent, the Holy Spirit was at work. Genesius emerged from the ritual, claiming that he was now a real Christian, and began testifying to the lordship of Jesus Christ. At first amused, Diocletian realized he was serious and sent him to be tortured. Genesius maintained his newfound faith to the end, and the emperor had him beheaded.

From method actor to Christian martyr, Genesius fascinated me from the moment I learned his story. For much longer than I was looking for him, however, Genesius had his eye on me.

Work in Progress

Back when I was an undergraduate philosophy major, one of the first books I was assigned to read was Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. It’s an ancient text about how to live a good life. For Aristotle, this goodness does not begin with our desires, but with our actions. We become virtuous if, over time, we act in virtuous ways.

In other words, “Fake it till you make it.”

Years later, I encountered this wisdom again when I started attending a 12-Step meeting as part of my journey of recovery from the family dynamics of alcoholism. Like Aristotle, the literature encouraged us to “act as if” we were sane, self-reliant, and patient—in the hope that we might, over time, come to embody these things.

Time after time, each step toward healing for me has followed this route: I start from the outside and work the balm inside. Because I believe anything worth doing is worth doing badly, I go through the motions until I figure out how to “be” the better, more grounded version of me.

Faith was like that. Having been raised an atheist, I felt every hymn and every act of worship as alien. It took time and repetition to work the habits of prayer and praise into my body. As the habits deepened, so did my faith.

A Perfect Pairing

When I was reconciling to the Catholic Church in my mid-30s, I was in the same position as my friend on Twitter. I was looking for a patron, with no idea how to find one. So, one day I went to a Catholic bookstore and found a book about a bunch of saints. I closed my eyes, said a prayer, and opened to a random page.

There he was. As I read the description, I realized I would not have even known how to find so perfect a fit on my own.

Having a patron saint is a kind of relationship. My walk with Genesius these years has reaffirmed that my imperfect initial attempts at faith and virtue will be rewarded over time if I “keep coming back.” The habits of goodness grow from the outside in when you “act as if.”

Genesius of Rome and all the saints, pray for us!

Abby (Ashley Bratcher) is a junior at Texas A&M University in 2001 when she attends a volunteer fair. She signs up to help women in crisis at Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, because she knows what women go through. When Abby was a freshman, she was seeing Mark (Alexander Kane) and became pregnant. He suggested she get an abortion, though she was conflicted because she was raised a Christian. Nevertheless, she went through with it. About a year later, she marries Mark, but it’s a mistake. When she discovers she is pregnant during divorce proceedings, she has another abortion. She tells herself that getting rid of the pregnancy is better for everyone, which is how she validates her volunteer work at Planned Parenthood. She wants to keep abortions safe and rare.

Meanwhile, on Saturdays, when all the abortions for the week are scheduled, Abby and two members of the Coalition for Life, Shawn (Jared Lotz) and Marilisa (Emma Elle Roberts), strike up a friendship. Marilisa and Abby bond over fashion, while Shawn’s calm demeanor and kindness appeal to her.

After six years of volunteering, Cheryl (Robia Scott), the director of the Planned Parenthood facility, gets a promotion and hires Abby to be the new director. Abby marries Doug (Brooks Ryan), and she becomes pregnant. Abby does so well as the director that she receives the Employee of the Year Award. She attends an in-service day where Cheryl, now at the main office in Houston, tells employees that they must raise their abortion quotas and, thus, increase profits. Abby questions Cheryl about profits when Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization. Abby is reprimanded by management for asking probing questions about Planned Parenthood in front of employees.

In 2009, Abby is asked to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion due to a staff shortage. In all her years at Planned Parenthood, she has avoided seeing a single abortion procedure, even if she was in the room. On that day, she watches the ultrasound procedure and sees a 13-week-old fetus struggle for life as it dies and is suctioned out. After presiding over 22,000 abortions and seeing one up close, it changes her life forever.

The first several minutes of Unplanned are very difficult to watch because we see, through a graphic CGI flashback, what Abby sees. Her journey through denial, to uncovering lies, to the realization of what really happens in an abortion, is presented with emotional power that builds throughout the narrative. When Planned Parenthood seeks to obtain a gag order for Abby when she quits, she hires a contingency lawyer (Kaiser Johnson), whose spot-on performance saves the film from despair and lifts it through unexpected laughter. Bratcher’s performance is quite good, but Scott’s Cheryl comes off as a stereotypical “bad guy.”

This deeply moving film is based on Abby’s best-selling book Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line.

Not yet rated, R, Graphic images of blood, abortion violence.

Alita: Battle Angel

In the year 2563, Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) hunts through junkyards for discarded cyborg pieces to restore them or create new ones from the pieces. There has been a terrible war; an uneasy peace prevails between humans and cyborgs, good and bad. Ido finds a cyborg torso of a young female and is surprised that her human brain still functions. He surgically and mechanically mends her and names her Alita (Rosa Salazar), after his little girl who died.

Alita has no memory of her identity or her past. Ido gives her a curfew because there is danger after dark in an already dark world. A mysterious “city” named Zalem hovers above that holds some kind of power over the earth and its creatures.

Alita: Battle Angel is a 3-D science-fiction drama based on Yukito Kishiro’s series of graphic novels published in the 1990s. It’s very difficult to say what the film is actually about. I wish the characters had been more developed—they are difficult to relate to or care about. James Cameron (Avatar) coproduced and cowrote the script, and Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids) directs.

A-3, PG-13, Video game violence, peril.

Isn’t It Romantic?

Natalie (Rebel Wilson) is an architect who works in New York City. She lacks self-confidence and mocks the clich és of romantic comedies (rom-coms). Whitney (Betty Gilpin) is her assistant and best friend, who watches rom-coms on her computer all day at the office. Josh (Adam Devine) is sweet on Natalie. While he looks at her longingly, Natalie assumes he’s looking out the window at an ad of a sexy model.

Blake (Liam Hemsworth) is a client who thinks she is the coffee girl. When Natalie is mugged in the subway, she wakes up in a PG-13 rom-com of her own with all these characters in new roles. Her salty language is bleeped out (except in one instance), which elicits some of the best laughs in this otherwise predictable parody. Still, there is a solid message for audiences in this otherwise mediocre film: Natalie comes to realize that in order to love another person, she must first love herself.

A-3, PG-13, Some suggestive sexual material, language.

This wife and mother wanted to model her life on Dorothy Day’s. But she quickly learned that hospitality begins in the heart, not the home.

I wanted to be Dorothy Day long before I’d ever heard of her.

As a teenager, I was volunteering in an assisted-living home while my peers were hanging out in shopping malls; as a college student I was doing internships in African orphanages and mentoring at-risk kids in my community. For as long as I can remember, my heartbeat has sounded like impact, impact, impact—whether from pure altruism or my own pride, I have often debated. But whatever the motivation, I’ve long bristled at the idea of wasting my time on earth.

Around the time I married my husband at a green 23 years old, he introduced me to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement—both of which I heartily approved, as though the world were anxiously awaiting my assessment. But I didn’t give her much further thought until we began researching Catholic social teaching before our Confirmation into the Church years later. As most who have done so can tell you, you can’t dig far into the social doctrine of the Catholic Church without clinking your spade against this stalwart woman. Our involvement with a local Catholic Worker only solidified my admiration, and Day’s lens of solidarity and hospitality began to deeply form my emerging worldview.

A Reality Check

When Kate Hennessy’s book Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty came out last year, I snatched up the chance to explore the more intimate world of Day’s, certain that her granddaughter could provide me with the keys to unlocking the predicament of how to live the radical life I felt called to, even as a mother of young children. Alas, I found no magic formulas or mystical insights: Dorothy Day, it seems, struggled to balance her dual vocations of mother and justice advocate as much as anyone. Sometimes she got the balance right; often she got it wrong.

The book evoked a bit of controversy among Day devotees, some disappointed by their heroine’s maternal shortcomings and others dismayed by the perceived agenda of the non-Catholic author. I thought it was more or less both a tender and fair portrait. People are complex, and saints are no exception.

But the real intrigue of the story was Tamar, Day’s only daughter from her common-law marriage to Forster Batterham. Tamar and her husband, David Hennessy, had nine children and struggled to make ends meet. For reasons that remained a bit mystifying, Day discouraged Tamar from making her home at the Catholic Worker, despite Tamar’s apparent desire to do so.

At the time of my reading of The World Will Be Saved by Beauty, my husband and I were preparing to move our family of five (with one on the way, I was surprised to find out) to start a house of hospitality with a friend. Although reading about the ideals of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and the Catholic Worker Movement at that particular time in my life was inspiring, the effect on Day and Tamar’s family life was sobering—not least of all because I so fiercely wanted to protect the well-being of my own children.

When a Dream Dies

A few months in, it became clear that our family wasn’t well suited for the Catholic Worker life. For the second time that summer, we packed up our children and all our belongings. We went home. The grief I felt was tremendous; a grieving not just of one failed house of hospitality, but of everything I had thought my life would be. The past decade had been one disillusionment after another, and with this final nail in the coffin I mourned the woman I once thought I was.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Tamar.

Her life, I feel certain, did not turn out the way she had once imagined as a child swept up in the love and kinship of the Worker. The Hennessy family struggled through poverty, unfruitful farming, hyperfertility, loss of faith, and a strained marriage; and while the Catholic Worker network provided Tamar with lifelong friends and support, most of her days were spent alone in her home.

“You have a house of hospitality,” Day would remind her adult daughter, pointing to Tamar’s nine children as well as the neighborhood kids and other visitors she routinely welcomed into her surely cramped home. While author Kate Hennessy’s documentation of her granny’s encouragement comes across as a brusque write-off of Tamar’s desire to reintegrate into the Worker, I can’t help but read the words differently.

When we moved back home after the debacle of a house of hospitality attempt, there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right thing to do. Yet it felt like a death to me—a necessary one, sure, but a death all the same. Weeks after returning, I wept to my spiritual director about the pain of such dying. She looked at me, bemused, and gently asked, “Why do you call it a death?”

Maybe she hadn’t understood the part about crucifying my dreams for the sake of my family. Maybe she hadn’t been listening as I’d detailed the image of what my former 20-something self had imagined her life to be; maybe she wasn’t clear on how far from that ideal I was destined to live. It was the death of a dream. Wasn’t it?

Rising from the Ashes

I left that appointment and drove straight to a spiritual retreat, where one of our assigned exercises was to read the story of Lazarus and pray over what God wanted to tell us through it. Angry at the Holy Spirit for having the gall to make such an assignment, I huffed my way through John 11 until I heard the still, small voice like a punch in the gut: “What looks like death is not the end. What looks like death is a chance for truer life.”

As I write these words, it has now been nine months since our hopes burned down and we began rebuilding from the ashes—nine months, the gestation of human life. We moved back to a different house in the same city—this one serendipitously placed in a small collision of socioeconomic structures.

Here at the literal corner between daffodil window boxes and subsidized housing, we sit as bridge builders and peacemakers. We didn’t choose this house; this house chose us. It bade me walk across its creaky floors with a cup of coffee to contemplate hospitality.

Day had a house of hospitality; we all know that. And we rightly revere her for it. But Tamar had one too, even if her mother was the only soul to recognize it. Tamar welcomed children as Jesus himself once did—her own, yes, but also those of other women, their lanky limbs running through her kitchen on hot summer days. She welcomed the lonely when she herself was so dreadfully lonesome. Tamar didn’t feed hundreds, but she fed a few. Her doubting heart may not have believed she was offering the bread of life, but the few ate and were nourished. Where is Christ if not in that?

I admit I still idolize Dorothy Day; part of me still wishes I were more like her. I doubt that will ever change. But as the days roll by, I find myself thinking more about Tamar. I think about the sacrifices she made for her husband and children, how dutifully and silently she tried to do the right thing. I think about how she wrestled with God and doubt, how she suffered interpersonally without the temperament to express her needs. I admire her strength and I pity her frailty, just as I do my own.

Children of all ages, races, and wealth are jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. I can hear their squeals of delight as I type. I’ll talk with mothers later on in the heat of the day—we’ll talk about the garden, we’ll talk about racial injustice, we’ll eat cantaloupe, and we’ll live this fruitful, painful, mundane life together, side by side.

I don’t think this kind of house of hospitality—Tamar’s kind—will ever look or feel important. But I do think it will matter. And I think Dorothy Day would say it does too.

The Little Way of Dorothy Day

by Joel Schorn

Dorothy Day looked to St. Therese of Lisieux for guidance in her day-to-day life with the Catholic Worker. She even invoked Therese as a kind of patron saint of their work: “We should look to St. Therese, the Little Flower, to walk her little way, her way of love.” Dorothy also believed that the answer to violence and the destruction of modern war lay with little Therese, whose tuberculosis-wracked body had been resting in its grave for half a century when Dorothy wrote, “On the frail battleground of her flesh was fought the wars of today.”

The little way is the way of peace, Dorothy believed. “Paperwork, cleaning the house, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all that happens—these things, too, are the works of peace, and often seem like a very little way.” We can see the importance of finding meaning in everything that happens, of seeing the presence of God in all people and things, but how could Dorothy describe these tasks as “works of peace”? How could such a huge problem as the violence in the world find itself laid at the door of a house of hospitality? What did she mean when she said, “In these days of fear and trembling of what man has wrought on earth in destructiveness and hate, Therese is the saint we need”?

For Dorothy Day, the small acts of mercy the Catholic Worker practiced opened the road to peace, for the way of peace is a little way. “Year upon year of serving meals, making beds, cleaning, and conversing with destitute, outcast people,” Catholic Worker historian James Allaire wrote, “provided Dorothy with ‘schooling’ in the Little Way. Added to this daily routine were her writing and publishing the Catholic Worker newspaper, speaking around the country, praying, fasting, protesting, and enduring jail on behalf of peace and justice.

“The Little Way is the way of Gospel nonviolence because it invites us to love one another as Jesus loved us (Jn 13:34), an unrestricted love that brings mercy and compassion to all people. Jesus’ nonviolent love extended even to giving his life in redemptive suffering on the cross.”

Easter lasts more than one day. Follow these creative ideas to keep the spirit of the season vibrant in your heart and home.

Why is it so hard for some people to maintain a spirit of celebration? I ask this knowing that I am one such person. I find the struggles of everyday life and the penitence of the Lenten season easier than seven weeks of Easter celebration. As a lay minister, I have spent hours focused on programs and activities for Lent, then collapsed the day after Easter. One day of celebration was all I could handle.

Who can keep up a party atmosphere that long? Who can keep up the Easter spirit for seven weeks? And yet that is what the Church asks of us each year. We spend six weeks of Lent getting ready for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Then we are to spend seven weeks celebrating this important season. Many, like me, fail miserably.

That is why I gave myself the challenge to focus on how to keep the Easter spirit all seven weeks until Pentecost. It was hard not to fall back into Lenten struggles or shift ahead into Ordinary Time. I struggled to come up with ideas but eventually thought of seven ways to keep focused on Easter, one for each week of the season.

Week One: Decorate for the Season

Eggs are symbols of new life. As a child, I loved the tradition of coloring Easter eggs. However, with four siblings, if Mom hard-boiled two dozen eggs, that only gave us each four or five eggs to decorate. I would take time trying to create the most amazing designs and colors, only to have my masterpieces cracked and gone in a day or two as Mom made egg salad and came up with other ways to use the eggs.

Then Mom heard about blowing out the inside of the egg, leaving the shell to be decorated. Throughout Lent, whenever she made cookies or cake or anything requiring eggs, she would enlist our aid to blow out the whites and yellows inside. Using a needle, she poked a hole in the top and bottom, trying to break the yolk to make it come out easier. We would blow until our cheeks hurt and all that was left was an empty shell. By Holy Saturday we had several dozen eggs to decorate.

Mom sent us outside to get a small tree branch with lots of twigs; then we threaded the eggs and hung them on the branches, creating an Easter-egg tree. As our collection of Easter eggs grew, Mom would use the extras to fill a glass basket and place it on the table as a centerpiece, thus filling our house with new life. At the end of Easter, the eggs were carefully packed away until the next year.

I didn’t continue this tradition with my children, and I continue to be lax in my decorations. Easter comes and goes before I know it each year, despite my good intentions. However, if this one fails, there are other ways to celebrate the Easter season.

Week Two: Read the Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles is full of adventure and fearless heroes of the faith! During the Easter season, readings from the Old Testament are replaced by the Acts of the Apostles as we focus on the early Church.

The early years of Christianity were a roller-coaster ride. First, there were those post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, as he slipped in and out, going through closed doors, walking with apostles on the road to Emmaus, and showing up while they were fishing. Then there was Pentecost with the coming of the Spirit in wind and tongues of fire. After Pentecost, the apostles had adventures of their own. They were fearless in proclaiming the faith, which consequently led to them spending time in jail.

Read through the Acts of the Apostles. Feel free to skip over the speeches, including Peter’s, to get to the fun stuff. One man fell three stories from a window after falling asleep while Paul was speaking (Acts 20:9); Paul healed him and went on talking until dawn. There were miraculous healings, multiple Baptisms, times in jail and jailbreaks (Acts 5:17‚v 26; 12:6‚ 11), the story of Stephen, the first martyr (Acts 7), and the story of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9) and ensuing adventures spreading the Gospel. You need look no further for fun stories to share with your children. It’s better than the X-Men and gives them real-life heroes to emulate!

Week Three: Spring Cleaning

When I was growing up, the Easter Bunny hid candy in our basement. This meant we kids had to clean the basement because the bunny wouldn’t leave candy in a dirty basement. Thus, my mom got her basement cleaned and a jump on her spring cleaning.

I was not as successful as my mom at getting my kids to clean the house each year. I’m not a fan of cleaning, but I do enjoy that first cleaning that comes with warm weather. I throw open the windows and breathe in God’s good air, cleansing my mind, reinvigorating my spirit, redecorating my soul.

It’s never too early or too late to open the windows of our soul and allow the wind of God’s spirit to blow through. It’s never too early or too late to allow God to clean or redecorate our conscience. So, celebrate the season by allowing God to blow through the dark and cluttered spaces of your spirit.

Week Four: Remember Mom

It didn’t really hit me that I was a mother until that Mother’s Day after my twin daughters were born. I was now a mom with a capital M. My son didn’t bring the total disruption that two additional babies brought into my life. That was my apprenticeship. One baby had been too easy, so I needed the three to bring the reality home. Having three in diapers at the same time was the real deal.

As a child, I remember homemade cards and trying to come up with new ways to surprise my mom on Mother’s Day. As a mother, I received them with delight, but also as my right. I had earned them! As a grandmother, I watch my daughters adjust to the world with a baby in tow, entering their own apprenticeship.

You don’t have to be a mother to appreciate the mothers in your life. Spend time remembering those alive and deceased, our biological mothers as well as adoptive mothers, spiritual mothers, aunts, or teachers. Even if the memories are sad if your mother is no longer alive, there is a reason to pause, celebrate, and reflect on how God is mother to us as well as father.

Week Five: Plant a Garden

Getting your hands dirty in God’s good earth is beneficial for your spirit! I attempted a garden when my children were young. I had visions of them assisting me in this endeavor, providing our table with fresh vegetables. However, they never took to the idea, leaving me alone in the hot sun, pulling weeds while they retreated to the shade and played. And then, when the vegetables were ready for harvest, I had more than we could eat so I had to seek out neighbors willing to take the excess off my hands. I finally decided it was not worth the effort. I gave up my garden and waited for neighbors to share their bounty with me!

May 15 is the feast day of St. Isidore, patron saint of farmers. We can learn a lot from farmers; they know their need for God. They plant seeds, pull weeds, then depend on the vagaries of the weather to grow their crops. They are aware of the importance of work: A garden doesn’t grow in a day but is the result of hard work, inch by inch, day by day. They do their work then wait for God to do the rest, a lesson for all of us.

Besides the benefit of producing food and flowers, there are physical and psychological benefits associated with gardening. Being out in nature and digging in dirt are healing to the mind, body, and spirit. You don’t have to have a large garden to benefit from gardening. A small herb garden will suffice, or plant some flowers. I always look for the hardiest flowers and shrubs for my yard and home, ones that thrive despite neglect, for I’m not the best gardener.

In addition, you can start a spiritual garden during any season. Tend and nurture with prayer, kind words, and good deeds. Pull out the weeds of jealousy, greed, envy, pride, vanity, gluttony, and unchecked anger. Ask God to water your garden with the blessings God so freely bestows.

Week Six: Pray for Unity and Peace

Before Jesus went to his death, he prayed at the Last Supper that they may be one, as we are one‚ (Jn 17:11b). He prayed for his Church, for all of us who would come after him in faith a great prayer for unity. When Jesus appeared to the apostles after the resurrection, his first words were, Peace be with you.

The early Church at first experienced a time of peace and unity: The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common (Acts 4:32). This was a unity we can only dream about in our country so divided by partisan politics.

When Jesus appeared to the apostles after the resurrection, his first words were, “Peace be with you.’‚”

The unity of that early community was short-lived, as we read shortly after this passage about Ananias, who sold a piece of property and gave only part of the proceeds to the apostles. Perhaps this is only a unity to be dreamed about, not realistic in light of our human tendencies. But if so, it is worth praying and yearning for.

Perhaps the peace we are searching for is as elusive as that unity that Jesus prayed for, which is all the more reason to spend time in prayer for both. So, as we await the celebration of Pentecost, it is fitting that we, too, pray for unity and peace.

Week Seven: Look Up

There’s a story I read about a grandfather giving his troubled grandson a kite. The grandson asked him years later why he had given him the kite. I wanted you to have a reason to look up the grandfather responded. Amid all of his troubles‚ amid all of our troubles it can help to look up to the sky and remember there is more to this world than what we are experiencing.

I never was good at flying kites as a kid. As an adult I tried to help my children in this venture but failed miserably. But you don’t have to fly a kite to enjoy being outside on a windy day. You don’t have to know how to sail a boat to enjoy riding in one under someone else’s competent hands. You could float a small sailboat on a pond, just sit and enjoy the breeze against your face, or listen to the wind as spring thunderstorms break out, disturbing the quiet and electrifying the air.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles were left looking up into the sky. It’s hard to feel down when looking up. Jesus didn’t leave them alone. He left them with each other and the promise of God’s spirit.

With seven weeks to Pentecost, these are seven ways to maintain the spirit of Easter. And so we are left gazing at the sky, gazing upon God’s creation as we await the outpouring of God’s spirit at Pentecost.

This new movie tells the true story of a teen’s near drowning and miraculous recovery.

For 16 days in January 2015, a teenage boy lay in the pediatric ICU in St. Louis, Missouri. He struggled to survive a catastrophic accident and, along the way, experienced a series of miracles.

John Smith, 14, and two friends had decided to skate around on the thin ice of Lake Sainte Louise in St. Charles, Missouri, just northwest of St. Louis. The day was warm because of an early thaw, and the boys wore shorts and tank tops. Although warned by the manager of the lake’s clubhouse to get off the ice, they didn’t, and the worst happened.

They suddenly fell through the thin ice. It was 11:33 a.m. One of the trio, Josh Sander, swam to shore. But John struggled as he tried to help the other skater, Josh Rieger, onto the ice. He yelled to Rieger’s sister, Jamie, on the shore, “Call 911! I don’t want to die!” Then he disappeared beneath the surface.

Local police and first responders were on the scene within minutes. The Wentzville fire truck arrived, and, using poles, firefighter Tommy Shine and another rescuer prodded the rocky bottom for the softness of a human body. Divers were already in the murky water looking for John. At 11:51 a.m., almost 20 minutes after John had fallen into the water, Shine found him.

He was not breathing. Although dirty lake water spewed out of his mouth and nose, he had no pulse and no heartbeat. The EMTs rushed the teen to St. Joseph’s Hospital West (now called SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital Lake St. Louis), just six minutes away.

Trauma doctor Kent Sutterer was sure that, after 43 minutes without breathing, John would not survive. As John’s mother, Joyce, sat anxiously in the waiting room, a tiny nun in her 60s, dressed in a gray and white habit, sat down and took her hand.

Ten minutes later, Joyce was allowed in the trauma room where John lay surrounded by medical personnel. All she could see of her son were his colorless feet as a doctor continued doing CPR. Joyce sat on a chair and the nun stood behind her and placed her hands on the worried mother’s shoulders. Dr. Sutterer squatted near Joyce and introduced himself. Then he told her she could go and talk to her son.

A doctor was still trying to pump air into John’s lungs. Tubes and wires snaked everywhere. Joyce grasped her son’s cold feet and quietly prayed. But later she learned that it came out as a roar that everyone, even down the hallway, could hear: “I believe in a God who can do miracles! Holy Spirit, I need you right now to come and breathe life back into my son!”

At that moment, John’s heart monitor began to beep.

Family Ties

When Joyce was only 17 years old she became pregnant and chose adoption for her son. She later married the father and had two more sons before the marriage ended in divorce. Sometime later she met Brian, who also had a son, and they married. Brian was a videographer who often traveled with their church group on mission trips to Central America. There, Brian became aware of many babies who needed adoptive parents. Even though he and Joyce were in their late 40s, they decided to adopt a baby from Guatemala.

John was a tiny 5-month-old baby who weighed only 10 pounds and had a turned-in foot. But they fell in love with him immediately and brought him home to Missouri. There, John flourished; even though he stood only 5-foot-3, he was the captain of his school’s basketball team.

Two years after her son’s miraculous recovery, Joyce Smith’s book was released, cowritten with Ginger Kolbaba: The Impossible: The Miraculous Story of a Mother’s Faith and Her Child’s Resurrection. It describes her journey from worried mom to a mother bear who rarely left her son’s side during his ordeal. At one point, when medical personnel in his room were saying that John was not likely to make it, Joyce demanded loudly: “We will only speak life in this room!”

‘A Love Letter’

This month, just in time for Easter, producer DeVon Franklin is releasing Breakthrough. This young producer already has an impressive Hollywood r ésum é with a penchant for true stories about God’s unexpected action in our lives, including the 2014 film Heaven Is for Real and 2016’s Miracles from Heaven. Franklin’s latest film details the story of John Smith’s accident and, as his doctors attest, his medically and scientifically inexplicable recovery from catastrophic injuries.

The story also includes Joyce’s heroic journey of faith and the support of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, where John was airlifted right after his heart started beating. The nonstop prayer and presence of the Smith family; their senior pastor, Jason Noble; their church; the school; and the extended faith community of greater St. Louis are also portrayed.

Franklin, 40, is a joyful force of nature bursting with enthusiasm. He discovered the therapeutic value of films after the death of his father when he was only 18. He says: “Entertainment was pretty much my therapy. My mom didn’t have money to send us to a therapist or anything to help me and my two brothers through this devastating loss. It was the combination of church and entertainment that really helped me process the grief of losing my father.” The future film producer realized that if entertainment could have this influence for healing and good on him, “maybe I could use it to impact the world in a positive way. It was my intention then and it is now.”

He sees Breakthrough as a “love letter to human dignity. You just want to hug Joyce and have her hug you! The doctors in the story wanted to preserve both John and Joyce’s dignity by letting her in the trauma room to say a final goodbye to John, but that was not in Joyce’s script. She was not going to say goodbye to John; she was going to say hello to her son because he was coming back! Sometimes, like Joyce, we have to tune out other people’s narratives rather than internalize their perspectives. We have to go for what we believe God is telling us. Joyce did that.”

He continues: “We live in a time where things are so divisive politically, racially, and spiritually. What I love about this story is that John, who is from Guatemala, was raised in a predominantly white environment. Yet Joyce and Brian, their family, church, school, and community didn’t treat John like he was a kid from another country, or of a different ethnicity. . . . They said, from first responders on, ‘He’s our kid. We are going to pray for him. We’re going to intercede for him. We’re going to sacrifice for him because we believe God can bring him back.’

“I believe this story has the ability to bring people together as a community around things that matter, especially love, care, and prayer. I think this film can do this.”

The Cast

Chrissy Metz, who plays Joyce Smith, has taken television audiences by the heart in the hit NBC series This Is Us. In that series, she plays Kate, a woman who struggles with her family, her relationships, her career, and her weight. She says: “Kate feels like a second fiddle; she’s not as successful as her brothers. She feels like she never fit in. Much like John in the film, she is trying to figure out her place in life.”

Metz explains her role as a mom in Breakthrough: “Moms want what is best for their children, but kids might not understand or agree with what is best for them. In the film, John is an adolescent with a bit of an attitude, and hasn’t yet come into his own, a phase we all go through.”

The film is about love, she says. “I think love is one of the most—if not the most—powerful emotions you can have. Love is something that is reciprocal; the more you love, the more you receive. The most miraculous thing is when love is blended with hope and your faith. When you get off balance, you can return to the love that you have for your faith or the love that God has for you and know that it is limitless.”

Josh Lucas, who plays John’s dad, Brian, knew of the national news story about John’s incredible recovery before he read the book and the script. “It is a profoundly miraculous and inspiring story,” he says. “Each time I read the story I get goosebumps, even though parts of it are painful and challenging. I had to think about doing this movie because I have a 5-year-old son and we are very close. I don’t like leaving him at all. But as I was driving him to school, I told him the story. When I got to the part of how everyone—all John’s family and friends from church and school—came together outside the hospital to hold hands, pray, and sing hymns for John, my son really liked that part of the story.

“I realized I wanted my son to be there when we filmed this because it was the part of the story that moved us the most. There’s also something in this mother’s will that really touches me, Joyce’s incredible faith and conviction to keep believing.”

John himself is played by Marcel Ruiz, who says that for him it’s important to be thankful for every moment in life and our everyday privileges. “It’s an inspiring story. We see that John is adopted, but you don’t realize it because they are just a real family; family does not have to be a blood family. I think it’s exciting that the entire community came out for him and prayed for him even if they didn’t know him. That’s pretty cool.”

A Life-Changing Movie

Breakthrough explores the interaction of mystery and grace. Elizabeth Gabler, president of Fox 2000 Pictures (a division of 21st Century Fox), explains: “Life often throws you a big challenge when you least expect it. This is why I think people are looking for stories today that show them characters who have experienced that kind of challenge, people who have reached beyond even their own limits of knowledge and faith to find power and an inner strength that leads them to believe in a higher power, to know that they will be protected, and that there is a bigger universe out there.

“I hope that this story will open channels of communication between different family members and give them a sense of humility about the blessings they have received. I hope it will encourage them to look for the good in people because there is always good in people.”

Metz agrees. “I hope that families and parents and the younger audience will leave with the idea that having a belief in something greater than yourself can change your life. It changed my life; that’s the reason why I’m . . . telling the story of Joyce Smith and John.

“I believe we are here for service, and that the more you give, the more you receive—whether it is adopting a child from another country or something else. We’re all in this together. It’s a beautiful, cyclical thing.”

Heroes and Miracles

“Patient’s dead. Mother prayed. Patient came back to life,” is how Dr. Kent Sutterer (played by Sam Trammell) described what happened at a gathering of thanksgiving held at the church following John’s release from the hospital. Dr. Jeremy Garrett (played by Dennis Haysbert), the drowning and hypothermia expert who treated John at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, agrees that John’s recovery cannot be explained, and that he as a doctor has been criticized for calling it a miracle.

Joyce says in her book that “John had been in the water for close to 30 minutes, under the water for more than 20 minutes, had received CPR for about 43 minutes, and had been dead for more than an hour. My son was dead and then . . . he wasn’t dead!”

John himself believes that God saved him for a special purpose. He says he plans to “study for the ministry as well as to major in mathematics.”

Another hero was the nun who held Joyce’s hand in the emergency room. Sister Donna Olson, a Sister of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon, Missouri, has worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital in pastoral care since 1999 and remembers that day well. “I sat beside her and held her hand. I told her, ‘God is with us, God hears us, and he’s not going anywhere.’

“When they took Joyce into the trauma room, I stood behind her and placed my hands on her shoulders. She prayed very loudly, and I was stunned when her son’s heart began to beat.”

A nursing school professor told his students the story of John’s miraculous recovery, saying, “There’s science and there’s God. This is God.”