Letter to a Priest

A Film by Clayton Richard Long

Film Study Guide and
Group Discussion Questions

Letter to a Priest is a short film inspired by Lettre à un Religieux,
a famous book by French philosopher Simone Weil.

 

Now available!   BUY or RENT the film: "LETTER TO PRIEST"

Description: A university student who takes Simone Weil as the model for her life
comes into conflict with her former boyfriend when she finds out
that he is planning to marry his new fiancée in the Catholic Church.

 

World Premiere on July 25 at 2:30p.m.
at World Youth Day 2013 in Rio:

Press Coverage: "Local film portrays the struggles of the faithful" [PDF] [Blog]

"Letter to a Priest" on Facebook

"Letter to a Priest" on IMDB

Screenplay by C. S. Morrissey:
"A university student who, in refusing to be baptized,
takes Simone Weil as the model for her life,
comes into conflict with her former boyfriend when she finds out
that he, a formerly lapsed Catholic, is now planning
to get married in the Catholic Church with his new fiancée,
an Evangelical now converting to Catholicism."

 

Letter to a Priest: The Film

The Study Guide

In the film, Jenny discovers
that Drake and Danielle are
getting their marriage convalidated.
What is a convalidation?

Do you know
what the Catholic Church
teaches about marriage?
(Catechism 1601–1666)

Ed

In the film, Jenny talks about
Simone Weil's Letter to a Priest.
You can read this book of reflections in
the new translation by Brad Jersak
.

Jersak

How would you explain to someone
the reasons why Simone Weil was not baptized?
What do you think of the claim that Breitling Replica
Simone Weil was in fact finally baptized?

Do you know
what the Catholic Church
teaches about baptism?
(Catechism 1213–1284)

How important to the Church is
the Rite of Eucharistic
Exposition and Benediction?

 

 

Letter to a Priest: The Film

Group Discussion Questions

MARRIAGE

1. What is the plan of God regarding man and woman?

2. For what ends has God instituted Matrimony?

3. How does sin threaten marriage?

4. What does the Old Testament teach about marriage?

5. What new element did Christ give to Matrimony?

6. Are all obliged to get married?

7. How is the sacrament of Matrimony celebrated?

8. What is matrimonial consent?

9. What is required when one of the spouses is not a Catholic?

10. What are the effects of the sacrament of Matrimony?

11. What sins are gravely opposed to the sacrament of Matrimony?

12. When does the Church allow the physical separation of spouses?

13. What is the attitude of the Church toward those people who are divorced and then remarried?

14. Why is the Christian family called a domestic church?

BAPTISM

15. What names are given to the first sacrament of Christian initiation?

16. How is Baptism prefigured in the Old Covenant?

17. Who brought to fulfillment those prefigurations?

18. Starting when and to whom has the Church administered Baptism?

19. In what does the essential rite of Baptism consist?

20. Who can receive Baptism?

21. Why does the Church baptize infants?

22. What is required of one who is to be baptized?

23. Who can baptize?

24. Is Baptism necessary for salvation?

25. Is it possible to be saved without Baptism?

26. What are the effects of Baptism?

27. What is the meaning of the Christian name received at Baptism?

ADORATION

28. How important is Eucharistic Adoration?

29. "The point of school studies in developing the intellect is not for competence, comprehension and control,
it is for the development of attention, the ability to open oneself to reality.
Intellectual exercise develops a habit of readiness, openness and availability to reality (disponibilité.)
Whether we actually succeed or not in comprehending a problem does not really matter;
it is our respect for it on its own terms that is most salutary in the learning process.
Thus school studies and intellectual work are a preparation for prayer and the love of God" (Eric O. Springstead):
What do you think of Simone Weil's argument along these lines in
"The Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"?

30. Discuss the signficance of baptism,
marriage, and adoration within the plot of
Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited:

Waugh