I love stories like the one I am about to tell you.

It  is incredible how life unfolds when Christ was involved. The introduction to Timothy Schmalz, a talented sculptor came through a priest, Fr. Antoine Emmanuel Prior at the Badia Fiorentina. He mentioned Timothy was coming to town and thought we could work together. Timothy needed some footage shot and I am always interested in meeting new artists and helping to represent them, their craft and their work well with my craft. I had a brief and very easy call with Timothy and we set a time to meet and do some filming in the Badia Fiorentina, a place where I often attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It was one of those cases where I just showed up and put everything in God’s hands.

Timothy and I were fluid as the filming occurred, we prayed together beforehand and everything cooperated on our behalf. We had enough time to have a lovely interview and what was just supposed to be some footage turned into the beginnings of what may be a wonderful longer film.

Timothy is the first sculptor in history to sculpt all of the 100 cantos of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The pieces, which are designed for a sculpture garden, are from all three cantos; Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.

The resulting film is, I hope you will agree, a real gift from God.