"The Eggplant Lady" Draws Us into The Agony in the Garden

As I mentioned last week, this Lent I am enjoying viewing the amazing new DVD series, The Sorrowful Manifest Mysteries from our friends at Holy Cross Family Ministries and Family Theater Productions. Today, we look together at the first movie in the series, aptly titled The Eggplant Lady. Here's the blueprint:

A heartwarming story about a family's decision to move to a bigger house in a better neighborhood and how the teen, Jamie, and the grandmother, Rosa, come together to face a situation neither can control. Rosa teaches Jamie the valuable lesson of Christ's suffering in the garden of Gethsemani. The Eggplant Lady, featuring a recipe with a secret ingredient, tears and laughter, faith and family, will inspire and touch viewers of all ages.

Again, I need to underscore the amazing job these DVDs do in drawing us into a story in a very short amount of time. The Eggplant Lady is only 29 minutes long, yet by the end of the movie I was completely drawn into this tale. Rosa is the grandmother we all desire to be one day: beautiful inside and out, witty, respected by her son and his family, and completely devoted to her weekly mission of lovingly serving her delicious (and mysterious!) eggplant parmesan to those in need in her community. When grandmother and granddaughter learn of the family's move to a bigger home in a better school district, both generations come together to conspire about how they might avoid saying goodbye to the true home. For Rosa, moving means saying goodbye to the garden she loves -- the place she grows her prize-winning eggplant, but also the place she goes to pray her Rosary and to converse with her beloved deceased husband. Jamie, a sixteen year old with almost as much spunk as her grandmother, refuses to leave her friends and school. Rosa and Jamie come together in an infectious mission that underscored the beauty of family, of service for others, and of prayer.

[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/XeOHm7ESgdc]

I'll leave you to discover the climax of this film for yourself, but I do want to share that like "Carrying On", this movie is very gentle yet effective in its ministry to families and its teaching on the benefits of the Rosary. Along with the DVD, you'll find a bilingual discussion guide that is your tool for a perfect family movie night. While The Eggplant Lady is available for individual purchase, I recommend viewing it as a part of the entire DVD series, The Sorrowful Manifest Mysteries. I hope you love it as much as I did!