Sometimes the greatest gift is a second chance...
Father Keene is an obedient but troubled young man who has buried himself in religion as a way to cover past guilt. He arrives at a snowy Cape Cod fishing village as a “hit man” for the local archdiocese, to shut down a dying church with nary a care for its oddball assortment of parishioners or their lovable but seemingly inept pastor. It turns out, however, that someone has a better idea. For Keene is haunted by visions of a little girl – “Noëlle”- a Dickens-like reminder of his unwanted child from a past relationship, the very reason he turned to the priesthood in the first place. She pursues him relentlessly, longing only to deliver a simple message, “All is forgiven.” As he finally comes to embrace these words, it changes not only himself but the entire community.
This powerful film is not simply festive and humorous, but because it’s set at Christmas, it becomes an allegory of Christ himself coming to us as a child, sent to a world running from God in guilt and shame, to deliver the very same message… “All is forgiven.”
Father Keene is an obedient but troubled young man who has buried himself in religion as a way to cover past guilt. He arrives at a snowy Cape Cod fishing village as a “hit man” for the local archdiocese, to shut down a dying church with nary a care for its oddball assortment of parishioners or their lovable but seemingly inept pastor. It turns out, however, that someone has a better idea. For Keene is haunted by visions of a little girl – “Noëlle”- a Dickens-like reminder of his unwanted child from a past relationship, the very reason he turned to the priesthood in the first place. She pursues him relentlessly, longing only to deliver a simple message, “All is forgiven.” As he finally comes to embrace these words, it changes not only himself but the entire community.
This powerful film is not simply festive and humorous, but because it’s set at Christmas, it becomes an allegory of Christ himself coming to us as a child, sent to a world running from God in guilt and shame, to deliver the very same message… “All is forgiven.”
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