Anime Lectio: Luce's Crusade

                                                             1. Why do Anime Lectio? 

Anime Lectio is a time for us to stop and take a breath. Between work, activities, family life, and social media, our minds are always moving. We rarely take time to contemplate and ask, why am I watching this anime? What’s the point of all this? And, how is this making me feel? 

2. Put away all distractions 

(phones, work, etc.)

We are so enslaved to things that stimulate our minds. Let this be a moment for us to free our minds, look inside of ourselves, and be at peace.

3. Deep Breathing

Take several deep breaths. Let your mind relax. If you’ve had any questions, desires, or struggles that you’ve been hiding or stuffing away, let them rise up to the surface. 

4. Open yourself to God’s Presence

Remember God places all our thoughts and desires inside of us, and He uses them to draw us closer to Himself. God gives us a community to help us understand who we are and what He is calling us to do. The faces of other people you know and don't know are like signs of God’s presence.  

5. Think About What’s on Your Mind in Relation to the Anime

Think about what’s been on your mind in relation to the anime.  The following is an example of such thoughts written by me. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8MnsnaLj4I

The above link to the intro song to the possible anime about Luce, the anime mascot created by the Vatican recently for the 2025 Jubilee Year, is a song I've been listening to a lot recently ever since I found out about it.  The creator of this song, as well as the youtube channel that it's on, is actually working on some animations to go along with the song, so that's something that I'm looking forward to seeing whenever that comes out.  This isn't the first fan-made anime that I'm interested in.  There's also another youtube channel (Narmak) that's working on a Spongebob anime, which actually started about four years ago.  However, as of this writing, there's also one episode of that anime now.  As I mention in the anime book that I am working on now, which I should take more seriously, creativity takes times and should be encouraged, so it doesn't, or at least shouldn't, matter how long it takes to make more of something.  The important thing is that it happens.

6. Brief and written explanation of the anime

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the anime seen on this blog, or seeing the anime for yourself since that's better than any explanation, might “speak” to you or shed light on the things that have been on your minds.

Luce fights demons and prays the Rosary with the power of God and anime on her side as she journeys through the Jubilee Year (description based on video since I'm going with that).

7.  Reflect on the anime

Has this brief and written explanation of the anime shed any light on what's been on your minds?  The following is an example of a reflection on the anime from me.

So the brief and written explanation of the anime given here really is brief since I don't really know what else to say about it other than what's given. What I do know is that I keep thinking about this and as I have done before with another anime series, praying about it helps (see my post about the second season of The Dangers in My Heart). While I still think about that other anime series a lot, I don't think it's a bad thing as long as I think about it a lot in a good way. This also includes writing about it a lot, which I'm doing now. While I also have ideas about what can happen in this series with Luce (like fighting demons with the Rosary - also, as I mentioned in the videos comments already, ora in Latin means prayer, so Luce's Ora Ora could be praying a lot in order to become more powerful: teaming up with other religions could also happen), it's important to let these things happen.

I also wrote more about this in the following reflection for a website that a friend of mine invited me to recently (www.substack.com):

Having the power of God and Anime on your side was actually considered a joke in the recent past. However, after the Vatican’s recent announcement of an anime mascot for the 2025 Jubilee Year named Luce, which means “light” in Italian, anime fans have taken notice of the fact that the power of God and Anime can be taken more seriously. This includes the channel that has published the video that I have included in the beginning of this post - a video that I obsessively listen to and have already written about on my anime blog (and am listening to as I write this post, which I also did when writing my anime blog post). While I do like reflecting on different kinds of anime that are appropriate for me to watch, this one is obviously more of an anime to reflect on and pray about, as well as see as clearly Catholic. There are other examples of Catholic anime out there. One of them is one of the new anime this season called Orb about the heresy of heliocentrism and the Catholic Church’s role in fighting that heresy and heretics in the past (more about that on my anime blog after the series/first season is complete). However, the one about Luce, which will get more animations over time according to the channel that published the video in this post, is one that I think about a lot. Specifically, this thinking is of how it can help the future of the Catholic Church, as well as Catholic monasteries and monks like me. Anyway, writing my thoughts about this is something that I hope can help not just me, but others who read these thoughts and apply them to their own lives.

8. Final Prayer

Please voice any prayer intentions for friends, family, or people around the world that relate to this anime.  The following is an example written by me.

Let us pray that we can encourage the creativity of others and understand that this creativity takes time in order for the result of it to happen, as well as apply what you think about Luce's Crusade to your own lives.