The Hallmark Channel on Palm Sunday will be showing Reluctant
Saint based on a biography written by Donald
Spoto on the life of St. Francis. I don’t know about the general accuracy
of this biography, the author asserts that Francis’s stigmata was in fact
leprosy.
Relatedly, as a child I remember my father telling me that
the H in Jesus H. Christ stood for Hallmark, since God cared enough to send
the very best. This was not told to me based on any religious sentiment, he
still describes himself as an agnostic or retired christian. When we were living
in Salt Lake City, Utah for a time while he was working in the drama department
at the university, he would take the prop of the head of John the Baptist and
place it outside our door on Easter Sunday. He also taught me the ditty "Jesus
loves me yes I know, Charleston Heston told me so."
