CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN A Universal Picture

THEME:  The lesson of the pea E-mail to a friend

The movie opens with Dr. Iannis removing an impediment from the ear of Stamatis.  He had been deaf in that ear for as long as he could remember.  Pain now necessitates the removal of the impediment. With his  hearing restored, a whole new world rushes in and an entirely new dimension is added to his life.  The impediment is a pea!

Insights:

Pelagia's life on the small island of Cephallonia is sealed off.  She knows nothing of the outside world; i.e. the other dimension.  She convinces herself that she is in love with Mandras because that is what young girls do on this island.  It is tradition; and so in a traditional ceremony, she obligates herself to him.  Tradition, however, is never enough to sustain a separation.

Her father, the voice of wisdom, knows all of this.  He has always said she should marry a foreigner from Norway, meaning another world.  He wants no part of the box of tradition.  This is why he says he is not religious.  Religion and tradition are confined to the same box, the same small world.

The pain of the war brings Captain Corelli from another  world to Cephallonia.  He is love personified (1 John 4:7-8), and love simply flows from him.  Everyone is touched and transformed by him: his men and their song, Carlo and his sacrifice, Gunter who can't kill him, and Pelagia who learns what true love is.  Now the real battle begins, the battle for her heart -- tradition vs. love.

Corelli goes through a "death".  He rises and then must leave her. Pelagia has been changed forever. She cannot go back to that small confined story in which she once lived; she cannot go back to tradition.  Love has transformed her, and love will sustain her no matter how long the separation.  In the end, she is rewarded, for he does return for her.

The movie ends with Dr. Iannis instructing Stamatis on how to adjust to the new world of hearing his wife.......he must learn to love.

Spiritual Lessons:

• The pain in our lives is often telling us of a "pea"  (sin) that needs to be removed.

• We can live in this small world ruled by tradition or in God's Kingdom ruled by love.

• Religion is no substitute for a relationship with God.
  

Scripture:  1 John 4:19