buffalo journeys

  image from Amazon So what does it mean when someone mentioned that they MacGyvered something? Well, watch an episode of MacGyver, and you’ll find out. If not, keep reading. Actually, it means coming up with a contraption just by using parts laying around to get yourself out of a problem. Of course, the contraption is even cooler when you use a Swiss Army Knife to make it, like MacGyver does. We’ve been watching MacGyver this year, and we’ve been enjoying it immensely. In several of the episodes, the influence of the Catholic Church is also mentioned prominently in the story, and in a good way. The adventures and dilemmas that MacGyver finds himself in, is quite amusing and entertaining.  Towards the end, the stories became inconsistent, a sign that the show was coming to a close. All good things must come to an end, but it was great while it lasted. It’s one of those shows that once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it, but if you have never heard of MacGyver nor seen an episode, ...

image credit: Amazon.com According to Scott Hahn, he mentioned in one of his podcasts that this movie is one of the better Catholic movies out there about St. Paul. When I heard this, I made a mental note to check this movie out sometimes, and I'm glad that I did. I really enjoyed this movie. I still think about this movie from time to time whenever I hear the readings of St Timothy, a letter from St Paul to St Timothy. This movie takes place towards the end of St. Paul's life when he was in prison at Rome. Jim Caviezel plays the part of St. Luke, who visits Paul in prison. The conversations between Paul and Luke during those visits captures the steadfastness of Paul's faith in Jesus Christ. It also gave the audience a little bit of insight about Luke and his conversion.  In addition, the movie provided a glimpse into the lives of the persecuted Christians and Paul's captors through Luke's interactions with them. Luke stayed with these Christians in hiding, while vi...

  image credit: Amazon.com This movie is based on John Bunyan's book of the same name. There have been many adaptations of this book from Bunyan over the years. Some only provided excerpts of it, while others attempted to summarize the book but in the process left out the essence of what Bunyan was trying to convey. I have read the book many, many years ago and have found the original text to be very difficult to read. Although I understood the concepts within the book, I still struggled with it. Let's just put it this way; it was not a easy read.  Later in life, as I was reading the various excerpts and adaptations of it with my children, I felt like these versions were not doing the original justice. Finally, this movie struck the right balance of keeping as true to the original as possible and still capturing the essence of the story. Hence, the length of the movie is longer than what you'd except for children shows, but it was absolutely worth it in my opinion. The youn...

  image credit: amazon.com * spoiler alert This movie has been on my mind a lot since I watched it a while back. The movie is about Franz Jagerstatter's journey as a conscientious objector during World War I. He refused to swear an oath to Hitler. This seems like an obvious thing to do in hind sight, but it wasn't the case during that time in Austria, in his tiny village.  His fellow neighbors and at times even his own family wasn't very kind, to say the least, regarding his choice. His choice landed him in prison, subjected him to torture, and ultimately beheading. If you think Christian persecutions, particularly Catholics, only happened during the early church days, you are sorely mistaken, open your eyes and pay attention to what is going on around you and around the world. Christian persecutions are still happening in this age and have increased. As he was transported from the jail in Austria and finally the prison in Germany, people along the way attempted to coerce h...