PHOTOS: COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF LA
“You should realize that the community with which you deal is not the one of 42nd Street and Broadway, or Hollywood and Vine. These are the crusts on the great American sandwich. The meat is in between.” – Blessed Fulton J. Sheen
Many years ago a dear friend asked me if we could consecrate Hollywood to Fulton Sheen. He invited me out to LA and was very serious about putting together a Mass, consecration and group of actors and filmmakers who intentionally wanted to commit their work and Hollywood at large under the mantle of Bishop Sheen and his charism-a charism that used the most powerful forms of media of his era to proclaim the Gospel.
This friend was well placed in the world of filmmaking and just participated in an event that I set up in Texas where he was able to learn about the growing cause for Sheen’s canonization. I worked in movies on the PR side, but had only been to LA twice in my life – once as a teenager and again for the premiere of For Greater Glory. The idea of men and women in Hollywood putting their work under the mission of Christ through Sheen felt legit. I wanted to do it and be a part of it. I wanted more of Sheen and the Gospel in the way he presented it to impact men and women in the film and media space. If they are changed and transformed, the entire center of influence is transformed.
In case you haven’t noticed, Satan hates Sheen, and for the first time the budding cause under the direction of Monsignor Stanley Deptula was suspended so we could not formally do a consecration in Hollywood. No one could speak of the cause or continue evangelizing about his soon-to-be-sainthood. It would not be the last time the cause would be suspended. With anything worthwhile, there is a battle. And when there is battle, there is general delay. We can learn to embrace the delay or we can rage against it. We can see that through battle, delay and seeming defeat, that God always is Victor and always brings about a good and holy result through the worst most evil situations. (Rom. 8:28)
It’s a spiritual reality that whenever you are about to step out in faith for Christ, the enemy is on the prowl and you become a target. Be careful who you tell your plans to because the enemy lurks and is ready to strike and take down anything of value to the Kingdom of God. That Hollywood consecration ship seemed to sail and I was too busy to be discouraged. Media by its very nature can be used for great good or great evil. Lucifer would love to take over Hollywood and the medium that has the capacity to illuminate storytelling. A question a person of faith should always have before their conscience: “Is my work flowing from the light of Christ or from the kingdom of darkness disguised as light?”
Who do you work for? Who do you glorify? Whose message do you carry? In a growing media-centered culture with digital natives never known to exist without iPhones, everyone can be a star these days. The temptation to self-promote and turn absolutely everything into a media moment exists. Are we using these mediums for the glory of God or for self-glorification?
Several years later after the fleeting idea to consecrate Hollywood to Sheen and through Sheen’s intercessory hand in my own life, I moved to Los Angeles in 2015. I started my PR and producing business from LA, developed a book on Sheen and evolved in ways unimaginable. My time in Hollywood would not be a one and done moment but of semi permanence where my work would flourish. Flying right into the film and media capital of the world attracted a lot of criticism from people in my circle questioning whether that was a good idea. Because it seemed so sinful, vainglorious and worldly. My move was God’s move and it really didn’t matter what anyone around me thought or felt about it. What does God think about it? Does God approve? Is this his move or mine? God moved me so fast and so clearly, I knew I was meant to be there in mission and for Him. And He protected me at every level: from the wrong projects, the wrong people and the wrong places.
LA became for me one of the best places I’ve ever lived. I felt immersed in a type of “school” where I would “graduate” in a so-called Phd in all things movies, people, Hollywood and industry. Despite all the negative things that Hollywood represents, there was so much good because where sin abounds, grace abounds more. The beauty, the ethnic culture, and the Church in LA for one, has been by far one of the best experiences in all the territories I’ve ever lived. My contemporaries in Catholic leadership are some of the best in the space and Archbishop Gomez, a wonderfully faithful and tender shepherd whose hospitality and service have been a stand-out for me. I am so grateful to him for his friendship and spiritual leadership.
Countless movies later like Mully; Unplanned; Reagan; Irena’s Vow; Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist; Adore Him; He is Here; His Heart, and some massive tent poles to come-Jesus, Sheen and Hollywood matter.
In many ways good and faithful people could say that you should avoid Hollywood. But thankfully many good men and women of God have chosen to fly right into the heart of it and bring Jesus to this center of influence to bring the greatest influencer of all time to screens: Jesus.
If anyone ever told me in my teenage season when I was truly beginning to understand who Jesus was in the Blessed Sacrament, that not only would I be working in the movie business, but that I would move to Los Angeles, and that later I would be working on movies about the Eucharist, I would not have believed it. God has a sense of humor and does things more out of the box than we could ever know or understand until we are in it.
For one of our docudrama films Adore Him: He is Here, (Oct. 4-8 in U.S. movie theaters) we invited the Archdiocese of LA to partner with us and bring about an “Adore Tour” where we could process with Jesus Christ through the streets of Hollywood. Our team is working on several movies right now and everything was rather perfunctory until that night when the entire spiritual weight of this literal move of God through Hollywood hit me light a ton of bricks. Led by Archbishop Gomez; Fr. Paul Sustayta, the wonderful pastor of Blessed Sacrament; and Deacon Steve Greco, executive producer of Adore Him; Jesus was passing by every worldly icon to be the true Icon raised up in the heart of a territory that worships self, sin and the fleeting things of this world.
Imagine a thousand plus Catholic faithful of every ethnic background, age and state in life processing in prayer with Jesus Christ, singing in Spanish, reciting the Rosary and witnessing the truth of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic faith as onlookers caught a glimpse as He passed by.
While this historic Eucharistic procession was not in the name of soon to be Blessed Sheen, it would be so like him, so many years after that first thought of consecrating Hollywood under His mantle for him to flip the script and put all eyes on Jesus, processing down Sunset, to North Hollywood around the Walk of Fame and almost spiritually “wink and nod” as if to say that God’s Divine timing is perfect for such a time as this. Just under two weeks away from his Saint Louis Beatification, it’s safe to say Hollywood has been consecrated under the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ and Hollywood will never be the same.
I wish my friend could have seen this. In my heart I offered up the 105 degree walk and bloody feet for him knowing that “patience is power.’
JMJ+
Lexi
LexiCali 