Amazing testimony and words of Jim Caviezel, the actor who played Jesus
in The Passion of the Christ film, which is the highest grossing R-rated
film in history (and rightly so) just like the Holy Bible is the
world’s best-selling book (and rightly so). Jim Caviezel is being
interviewed by Dave Cooper.
This interview is highly inspiring.
He talks about how God's Providence allowed him to suffer several very
painful injuries and illnesses when filming which allowed him to
participate in and portray Christ's Passion in a deep and real way. He
tells about the shocking fact that he was struck by lightning at one
point in the production. He gives advice to all Catholics about the
seriousness of living the Faith, not trying to "fit in" with our
neo-pagan society, and the necessity, joy, and honor of suffering for
Jesus Crucified for the salvation of souls. His testimony is amazing and
real.
The first commenter for the above video wrote: “Truly profound and breathtaking!”
Please
Note: At one point in his talk, Jim said, “You are all going to
Heaven.” A critic might object, “What if there was someone in the
audience who hates Christ and will never repent. So is Jim saying that
he is going to Heaven too?” Of course such an unrepentant person who
hates God chooses Hell with their free will (as Jim said in his talk,
“God doesn’t send anyone to Hell, they choose that place”) and Jim’s
statement cannot apply to them. So how are we to understand Jim’s
sentence? First off, it is obvious from the context that Jim was
addressing those among the audience who are of good will who desire to
repent, live a virtuous life, and to take the necessary actions to reach
Heaven. Furthermore, Jim expanded or qualified this statement later in
his talk where he said that “God is asking for more conversion” and he
reminded the audience that Heaven or Hell is a choice (on a related
topic, he said that those in the production of the movie who were
“fence-sitters” with regards to God who claimed they hadn’t made a
choice were in reality making a choice by the mere fact that they were
fence-sitting). A person chooses Heaven or Hell with their free will and
manifests their choice by the way they lead their life and by their
actions, words, thoughts, and prayers. One must want Heaven to reach
there and to reach it requires effort just like anything worthwhile in
the natural world. Our Lord told us in the Gospels that arriving at
Heaven requires the person to receive sanctifying grace through baptism
(which of course is ordinarily sacramental baptism by water, but in rare
cases can include baptism of blood or authentic baptism of desire),
repenting of their sins, and living a virtuous life where they preserve
this grace. Hence, Jim’s statement must be understood with these
qualifiers for his statement to be correct.
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