wof: light princess review

The phrase that kept coming to mind as I read the conclusion was “felix culpa.”

The Princess was too “light-hearted” to feel the blessed weight of suffering and sacrifice that Love requires; her “inability TO fall” was ironically her greatest problem.

The water changed her because it brought her “lower” than she ever could go on her own-- a symbol of humility, of hidden grace. It held her in itself, and only there was she “more like her true self” as it were. But she could not stay, and the ideal was not realized.

The Prince was the only one that was willing to meet the Princess in the water, where she was. Everyone else stayed in their boats or on shore, keeping a distance, unwilling to “get wet” and get involved. But the Prince JUMPED into the water, with her in his very arms. This was total self-giving in a sense, holding nothing back on her behalf. In like manner, Christ went “all the way down” for us in His Incarnation, not into sinfulness, but into our “fallen” state, which is broken yet good and absolutely redeemable. His entering into our humanity was a loving choice. The Prince, likewise, although “falling” with the Princess, did not “fall” as we did, but “jumped in”. He did not lose his nobility in the act, but instead became the sole human being willing and capable of meeting the Princess exactly where she was and wanted to be found. But his action gave her a new experience, something she could never have alone, but only with him. He gave her a hidden hope for something greater even than the water-- the double-meaning of “falling in love” was lost on her, who did not yet comprehend it, but it defined the very act of the Prince, as it does for Christ.

When the waters drained from the lake, and the Princess forgot everything but her cares for what “earthly goods” she was losing, however truly good they were-- unaware of their true merit being the supernatural effect that very water had on her-- even then, no one but the Prince was willing to help her, to relieve her misery, to restore her hope and will to live. Even when the fate of the world was arguably at risk, with the very mountain streams ceasing to flow, no one but the Prince was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the many-- a sacrifice possible only through selfless love, for both the Princess and the world, even if neither recognized or remembered His sacrifice. This is what Christ does for us, in dying for each of us individually, as members of His Bride the Church-- He saves the world as a people, even as He gives Himself in the most striking intimacy for the individual.

The Prince sacrificed Himself to bring the waters back, by “plugging the hole” with his body-- just as Christ “fills the void” original sin made in our hearts, with His Own Body on the Cross, in that most “uncomfortable position” from which He could not, would not, move. As the waters returned and the Princess, with them, began to suddenly realize what the Prince meant to her, what he was doing. This, to me, signifies the huge shift in our lives that the Cruficixion effects for us. Where the lake had once been her only beloved thing, but then she was utterly stripped of it, it was only in the wake of that great absence that she was able to suddenly discern her true Beloved in the very means of the old one’s return. Suddenly, all the water on earth would have been meaningless to her without the Prince. Why this change? It is because she could not feel such “gravity” of feeling without the water, which was only returned to her by means of the Prince’s sacrifice. But why did she not feel this about him as she was in the water before? Because loss was first required to recognize the reality of both.

We all experience loss, and it will feel unbearable if we are clinging to what we have lost for selfish reasons, for its own sake. We will all eventually be stripped of our earthly loves, however slowly, and it can be utterly devastating. But this is what Christ transmutes when we meet Him at the Cross, like when the Princess meets the Prince in the riverbed. Slowly but surely, through Him, every good thing we have lost in life is restored to us with new beauty and meaning.

And only then, when we realize that Christ has been the sweetest thing to us through it all, and still is, even in His death-- the one who treats US as His Beloved, in such a total way as no earthly treasure can ever do-- then our eyes are opened by grace, by the “waters” of grace (the Holy Spirit) now outpoured as never before from His Heart of Love, IN His death. This is our baptism, the water that fills our void of original sin, that gives us tears of charity, that makes us into new people, as our old selves also “die with Him” in the now-blessed flood. Thus only when the lake was “redefined” by self-sacrificial love did the water gain the efficacious means, so to speak, to flow into the heart of the Princess and change it, even as it flowed into the lungs of the Prince. The “gravity” of His loving death was the transformative event. So too it is for us.

Lastly I just want to point out the Eucharistic significance in the Princess feeding the Prince with biscuits and wine as He died. There are unplumbed depths to that imagery which my heart yearns to explore further as I continue to reflect on this precious tale.

I apologize if my words are somewhat convoluted. I was deeply moved by this story and cannot possibly express the extent of that in words, but here is my effort, in gratitude to the Good Lord Who yet speaks to us through it.