Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2024 Blog #1
January 1, 2024
New Year Reflections on “The Student Prince”
I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic this holiday season. My mother has been dead for ten years now and she died just a few days after Thanksgiving. I have been having a lot of memories of her, including the movies that she loved to watch. Among her favorite movies was “The Student Prince.” I didn’t appreciate it when I was young, but now I do. I appreciate the decision that the prince in this movie makes.
For those of you not old enough to remember it, this movie is about a prince who goes to Heidelberg to study. His family desires him to have an education. He enjoys his time as a student. No one calls him “royal.” He is free to live a life like other people do. He even develops an affection toward a bar maid.
When his father dies, he faces a choice. He can stay as a student and pursue his studies and the romance or he can do what he believes God has called him to do, return home and become king. He concludes that whether he likes it or not, God wishes him to return home, and he does. The character sings the song, “I’ll Walk with God” as a pledge to go wherever God requires, whether that is what he would have chosen to do.
I hope that we can all be as dedicated to doing God’s will in this new year as the prince was in the movie. For him, God’s will was more important than his. How many of us put God in front of us in these days where most of our society is rather self-centered.
I’ve heard people who claim to be “spiritual” but not “religious” tell me that God will walk with them wherever they go? I can’t help but disagree with that. God is not going to join us if we are going somewhere we should not be going. We don’t pick the path that God will walk on. Rather, Jesus calls us to walk on certain paths with him. God chooses the paths, not us.
I remember the stories of Jesus calling his disciples, it is he who called them away from the familiar. He invited them to walk with him. He never volunteered to walk with them nor did he allow them to pick the destination that they would be traveling toward.
I guess the difference between “spiritual” and “faithful” is who makes our life’s decisions, God our ourselves. Are we willing to walk the path that Jesus tells us to walk or are we hoping that Jesus will walk with us on the paths we choose, even if they are contrary to his teachings? The “Student Prince” is a story about one man who chose to listen to God’s calling rather than living for his own desires. I hope that we all make that decision during this new year.
If you wish to hear the song that Mario Lanza sings for this movie you may hear it by using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OQ2Cc6yFz4
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