As with many Christmas-celebrators, one of the standards for every holiday season (almost as if it may not quite be Christmas without it?) would be watching Home Alone and Home Alone 2, the films that somehow made a heart-felt and laugh-out-loud comedy about a child being left at home or lost in the biggest city in the world, respectively. Unfortunately, the one who played the mother in both movies that have managed to stand the test of time for over three decades, died last week in Catherine O’Hara.
Of course, her acting career spanned much further than the ones that seem to continuously run on cable during the last several weeks each year. Granted, I only saw her in Beetlejuice and a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek, but like most of the general public, she was Kate McCallister from the 1990’s Hollywood holiday blockbusters. It seems to happen quite often for some actors, as we “typecast” them into one role that is a favorite of ours, no matter how much time and effort they put into any other big screen or television successes. And I wonder if there’s something to be said for such a mindset in the church.
Perhaps it starts with a mistake made, and that we can never look at another sibling in Christ the same, no matter how many times we speak a Confession & Forgiveness together, or share the Peace, and not just any peace, but the Peace of Christ himself, or partake of the Meal that was once served to doubters and betrayers and deniers by that same Jesus Christ.
Perhaps it is because a certain someone always does this or that around the church, and we can’t imagine anyone else fulfilling that role. Or maybe we don’t recognize the other gifts that individual is blessed with that can impact the overall ministry of their faith community and beyond.
And although Catherine O’Hara may not have had an active presence in a faith community herself, in a interview even several years before Home Alone captivated a nation and beyond, she said, “I’m pretty much a good Catholic girl at heart. And I believe in family. I also have a basic belief that God takes care of me. I believe in prayer, even though I’m not that religious. I just have that foundation from my family.”
We tend to “typecast” such individuals, who, from some die-hard church-goers’ perspectives, seemingly take advantage of God and God’s grace and the wideness of Christ’s mercy, by saying they believe, but don’t put into action (of course, at least not to the “Give Me That Old-Time Religion” sort of action). Except, I wonder if such pitting churchy-us verses non-churchy them mindsets only further nudges us to needing a few more opportunities for Confessing and Peace-exchanging and Meal-embracing-and-resulting-in-new-perspective-ing.
And then I’m led back to Catherine O’Hara’s reasons for stardom that maybe she could never avoid the rest of her career. In both cinematic instances, she’s almost pitted as the culprit for her child being left home alone or lost in the biggest city in the world, a mistake that may be viewed as one of the worst for a parent. And yet, both times, the love from her son never wanes in the end. Each time, in the end, after fear and worry galore, there is the warmest embrace as if that love cannot be shattered. Perhaps in those heart-warming moments on a movie or television screen, the very Gospel of God was proclaimed as well. Thanks be to God, indeed!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad