'Radiating Joy: The Michelle Duppong Story' Review

New documentary highlights redemptive suffering and the universal call to holiness through the life of an extraordinary woman

Believe it or not, there are still saints among us today. Often, we fallen humans look around us and are more inclined to see the faults in others rather than find the saints in our midst. However, we must sometimes pause and remember that the call to holiness is universal and there are indeed people among us who are living that call to a heroic degree. Radiating Joy: The Michelle Duppong Story narrates the life of one such person, a woman who touched many lives by living an ordinary life to an extraordinary degree.

Michelle Duppong was a North Dakota woman who became a FOCUS missionary and evangelized at colleges all across the Midwest. Her “radiant joy” and love for God touched the lives of many people whom she came into contact with, and everyone recognized her radical commitment to Christ. Tragically, she began a battle with cancer in 2014 that would take her life on Christmas Day, 2015. She suffered heroically throughout this difficult season of life, still spreading that joy to all those around her in the hospital and in her family even as she endured excruciating pain. Her example of joyful evangelization and heroic suffering caused her bishop to open a cause for canonization for Michelle, and she is now officially a Servant of God and moving through the process to be declared a saint.

As I watched this film, I was struck by how familiar Michelle seemed to me. We often get the idea that saints live in a sort of stained-glass window world, far removed from our everyday lives. Even our more modern saints, like St. John Paul II, Mother Theresa, or Padre Pio, were world-famous media figures in their time. But Michelle seemed like many of the women I went to college with: devout, joyful, on fire for Jesus, but also goofy and fun to be around. As I saw videos or pictures from her life play on the screen, I remembered these friends constantly. It reminded me that the universal call to holiness is not only real, but achieveable. Saints are indeed among us, and it’s a call that each and every one of us is meant to follow. Michelle Duppong was an extremely ordinary woman from North Dakota, the kind you might get lunch with in the Student Union or have over to your house for a game night. However, she lived her love for Jesus every single day, and through her example I felt inspired and hopeful that the sort of life she lived is actually doable.

The section of the film about her redemptive suffering is also beautiful, and I believe it is this part of her life that elevates her from being a holy person to being worthy of canonization. Rather than focus on the suffering (which was intense) the film focuses on Michelle’s impact on everyone around her. She continued to radiate joy and Christ-like love in a situation which would tempt all of us to bitterness and despair. The impact that this example of suffering had on those close to her, and now potentially to all those who watch the film, is immense. May God grant us all the grace to suffer in such a dignified and loving way.

I found this film to be incredibly inspiring and spiritually rich. Michelle’s story is beautifully told by her friends, family, and co-workers and you can tell the film was a labor of love by those who made it. There are some rough edges, technically speaking, but they never distracted from the powerful story on screen. I do not know when or if this film will be released for rental or purchase, but when it is I highly encourage our readers to seek it out. The story of this beautiful soul should be spread across our nation to inspire those of us who see holiness as unachievable to once more reach out and try to be saints.