I recently watched a film solo. One thing I love about watching films this way is that you get the chance to really listen to what is being said, pausing and rewinding as often as you need to take in the dialogue. One part of this film really got to me, as I am sure is the case for others who watched it. I have since recorded this in my commonplace notebook.
The film is Conclave, released in 2024, starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci, to name a few. Directed by Edward Berger and based on Robert Harris's 2016 novel, it follows the cardinals of the Catholic Church as they gather behind closed doors to elect a new Pope, and the quiet tensions that surface once the doors are sealed.
"Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on."
Regardless of your beliefs, this quote seems to rip the filter off humanity and present us as we are: beautifully flawed, sometimes misunderstood, and more often than not unsure of our beliefs and decisions. I do not agree or disagree with this quote, but it demands consideration each time I read it.
Not a new thought, but one worth keeping close: that greatness, however we crown it, is only ever ordinary humanity that carried on.
This is precisely what a commonplace notebook is for. To simply write down whatever you hear or read that gives you pause, to return to later.
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