Stunned by Providence…

In the French movie “Les Innocentes” there is a very dramatic moment centered on the providence of God. The whole movie is very intense because of its subject: a monastery of nuns in Poland in 1945 experienced a few days of horror when Russian soldiers entered it and raped them all repeatedly. The movie starts months after the events, dealing with the consequences of these rapes, and it is, overall, handled in a pretty fair and restraint manner, as truthful and respectful of the faith as possible.

I should add that I watched it in an Air France flight from Paris to San Francisco, so I cannot say that I understood clearly every word being said, lucky for me, there were subtitles in English! But since I don’t usually go to the movies, and since I had heard about this particular one and was curious to see how such a story could be played out, I was happy to be able to watch it.

Transatlantic flights are long and I watched a second one “Of Gods and Men” next. So although I was in a cramped seat in Economy and the surroundings were not technically the best ones, I felt fortunate to be able to watch TWO GOOD MOVIES where the Catholic faith is at the core of the story. Two exceptional movies, with a fascinating narrative, beautifully shot, unfolding as an adventure, intense and weighty, loaded with emotional ups and downs, because the story in each case is a very powerful and tragic one. I completely understand that these movies would not appeal to everyone, although “Gods and Men” has a much more general appeal. It won the Grand Prize in Cannes, it manages to be a very courageous Christian witness moment on one hand AND a shining example of Christians and Muslims living peacefully side by side on the other hand. In today’s context, there is an amazing message of hope in the monks of Tibherine and if you have not read yet Christian de Cherge’s testament, please do google it.

But Les Innocentes is a little gem too, or so it turned out for me. I must admit I found a certain humor in the fact that my own faith in Divine Providence was deepened in that particular flight! I have known for some times now, since my own return to the Church almost twenty years ago, that the essence of the Christian message is love and hope, mercy and trust. No matter what. For myself, I am well aware that I came to this realization rather late in life (in my mid forties) and this awareness keeps me humble (most of the time…). For others, I often wonder how to communicate it to them, how or what could help them see the truth of this message. So in many ways I thought I already knew about Divine Providence and I was surprised to learn the limits of my understanding and to suddenly see it expended so clearly. On that day, in that particular plane, I understood it much more than ever before because of one specific sentence in the movie.

In a nutshell, after the Russians are gone, some of the nuns slowly realized that they are pregnant, some of the very young ones do not even understand what is going on, while others have to face syphilis, and all of them have to live with the traumas of rape. A young Red Cross doctor ends up helping them, reluctantly first, and the story unfolds as she delivers their babies again and again. Since this is happening in winter, in a country ravaged by war and famine for years and which is now brutally annexed by the Soviet, the question in the convent of what to do with the babies is a huge challenge. Apparently, the mother Superior said earlier that she gave the babies to neighboring farm families who took care of them. But at one point in the movie, more than half-way through it, we see her going through the forest, holding the little bundle in her arms, then following a dirt road, next to various fields, and depositing the baby in the snow, at the foot of a country cross. Later on, back in the convent, another nun (the second in command if I understood correctly) grills the Mother Superior to say exactly what she has been doing with the babies.

This is where the Mother Superior speaks of God’s providence very dramatically. This is the sentence that stuck in my mind long after the movie was finished. She says very vehemently: “Don’t you believe in God’s providence?” The stark juxtaposition of these words and the reality of a small bundle left in the snow stunned me first and I was immediately pulled in two opposite directions: one voice in me was horrified at the idea of abandoning an infant in the snow just as the other voice, at the very same moment, understood what the Mother Superior said and what she meant and trusted it completely! This second voice got louder and louder ever since my return to California. We are told to trust in God, from the very beginning, the Psalms, the Proverbs, from the story of Job. Romans 8:28 spells it out. Jesus himself tells us in Mat 6:31 “Do not be anxious … Your heavenly Father knows what you need. Seek first His kingdom”. Many saints have repeated it. And it is especially in the bleakest of conditions that we need to do it. Even when God seems silent (St John of the Cross, Mother Teresa).

As the credits of the movie were rolling in from of my eyes, I thought that if the following lines had been added ”In those difficult and troubled times, more than one baby was found at the foot of a Cross in a country road in that region, but because of the turmoil of those days, there is no way to know if they came from the Monastery”….It would have made it easier, right? But what’s the point of rewriting the ending? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed”. I was given the opportunity to grasp much more fully one key point of the faith and I needed to concentrate on that.

The truth is that I have not used the word “providence” as much as “trust” or “mercy”, which are two words I use all the time! In the Jesus prayer and in this year of mercy. For that matter, I have specifically begged for growth in trust in the last 2 or 3 Lents. So it finally occurred to me my requests were answered in a most unusual way…

Looking back on the movie, I can now see that providence was at work in the very first scene. A very young nun comes to the Red Cross Quarters and begs the female Doctor to come with her and help. But when pressed to answer questions and give details, she stays silent. She refuses to say more, she is not saying why or where… So the female Doctor brushes her off and tells her to leave, they already have so many patients to attend to right there and then. The Doctor goes back to her work. Then during her break, she lights up a cigarette and goes by the window and sees the young nun outside kneeling and praying in the snow, waiting for her… So the Doctor hesitates a few minutes then grabs her coat and steps outside, motioning for her to climb in the jeep with her. That was a moment of divine providence in action through prayers from one and action from the other!

There is much more than this happening in the movie and it ends up on a positive note, which is hard to believe from what I have said so far but trust me it is true.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says about Divine Providence (§307): “God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings”.

Actions, prayers and sufferings? My own previous understanding was too superficial. In our world today were priests can have their throats slit during Mass, when waves after waves of thousands of emigrants are risking it all to come to our shores, when the grotesque gesticulating of our politicians fills the news as violence and terror invades our daily lives, I am extremely grateful for the wakeup call I received.

To reflect on Divine Providence has made me ponder the visible world and the invisible one, the mystery of evil, and our own freedom. Divine Providence does not destroy our human freedom, on the contrary, it is what allows us to use our freedom in the most just manner.

So I tell myself: keep your eyes on Christ, put yourself in the hands of the Most Holy Trinity, practice compassion and gratefulness, patience and trust in the smallest things and the largest events.

And share it…

Signature Michele Szekely@September 2016