Missonaries in the Movies

When you think of people that are Missionaries, certain images come to mind about these people and their works. We sometimes fail to realize in their humanity to care for other people, they exposed themselves to illness, failures, and all kinds of hurts, in the end they become recognized, sometimes their works don't hit headlines at all and are discovered in other ways, through other people sometimes. Sometimes Missionaries also are labelled as Ambassadors through causes and charities. When it comes to films, these people show us that through the most difficult of times and situations we can over come feats we never thought, they even show us that people in the world still care about us and what we think about, how we feel and what is close to us.

The stars often put themselves on the line to bring out the best in biographical versions of people who made a difference in real life and people that just wanted to reach out and help. In real life they sometimes continued good works, even became ambassadors to causes close to the heart whether we agreed with it or not, Anything from poverty to illness and diseases. The stars spend some of their lives while working to begin causes or continue to support the causes. Amazing even the humanity from behind the Cinema Screen.

Audrey Hepburn in A Nun's Story

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Audrey Hepburn became a beloved star in America portraying a number of characters. A Nun's Story portrays a young girl who becomes a Nun,  after taking her vows she is sent from the convent to parts of the world on a Mission, encountering all kinds of people, cultures, learning what life means to people from all over the world, caring for children and sick people. eventually exposing herself to illness to help others, before she decides to leave the convent for good, the lesson in supposedly is risking it all to help others, we should always strive to do better.

Audrey Hepburn Ambassador for UNICEF

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Audrey was to a lot of a people a star of all stars, after her career as an actress gave her all it could she turned to real life Missions as an Ambassador helping and aiding UNICEF and their efforts, to help the starving and the poor. She became much more than a pretty face on a Cinema Screen.

Spencer Tracy as Father Flannigan in Boys Town

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Spencer Tracy gave us a side of him unlike any other in a biographical portrayal of a real life priest named Father Flannigan. Boys Town in 1938 most likely brought some disapproval trying to spread the message of boys from broken and no homes, finding them shelter and helping them learn the basics of life, understanding responsibility and learning from their mistakes not always wanting to take the easy way out. Mickey Rooney played a tough character named Whitey Marsh, thinking that he would live the high life of a gangster while his brother was imprisoned. Breaking the mold of a typical priest, Flannigan went above and beyond to teach all the boys including Marsh, helping them along with his very own struggles to understand his mission in helping these boys. They relied on him for help and guidance, in the toughest of times. Flannigan, raised funds to build housing firstly creating a place called "Boys Town". During the filming, Tracy collaborated with the real Father Flannigan, understanding the difficulties and challenges and portraying a priest on screen. In the end the message was clear, we have to be willing to sometimes rely on help to get on the straight and narrow, even if we again risk it all, to help someone else.

Spencer Tracy as Father Doonan in The Devil at 4 O'Clock

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Tracy again comes back years later in 1961 to portray one more time a priest, this time on a different mission, helping a colony of lepers who pose no danger to other people. being assisted to the village by a local, known in this film as Father Doonan, it is almost difficult, to understand the depth of Father Doonan, but he himself struggles with something much deeper while attending to the people surrounding the church and the arrival of convicts who assist him in building up the leper colony on the mountain. He puts himself of the line to pull the character portrayed by Frank Sinatra from a man hole, and the traveling of a lepers in the village when the volcano erupts in The Devil at 4 O Clock.  In the process giving a convict last rites who died before end of the journey.

William Holden as Father O'Bannion in Satan Never Sleeps

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Continuing with Missions, If you are big fan of William Holden like me, we get to see him portray a Mission priest in a film called "Satan Never Sleeps" playing Father O Bannion. This film might have to grow on you to understand it, but it begins with the traveling O Bannion, to Mission with a young girl whom he is leaving at a village before continuing to another, It is during the period of China, Dictatorship, sending the message of hate and persecuting Christians. Father O Bannion in the process encounters the young girl  after the other and older priest attempts to leave but is made to stay, hiring her to cook in the kitchen, adding her fascination and crushing on a man whom she can marry because he is married to his faith and cant be married. The young girl is soon raped by an advisory taunting the mission, suffering from a stab wound, the two priests are soon tortured into finding medicine, dealing again down the road with the young girl expecting a child, the advisory in the end, realizes his ways, taking the young girl and baby, along with the two priests out of China.

Gregory Peck as Father Chisholm in Keys of The Kingdom

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If you have caught on by now to some of my posts you find Gregory Peck to be one of my favorite actors as well, above is a picture from the film Keys of the Kingdom, playing the part of Father Chisholm, A young missionary priest, keeping together a small village of believers, helping them in their quest to be good Christians and serve others, we watch the fictional priest age the longer he stays taking with him what he learned from the village of people, learning about forgiveness himself and teaching others to do the same. 

Gregory Peck as Monsignor O'Flaherty in The Scarlet and the Black

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Mr. Peck, returns in the 1980's to give us a taste of a Missionary priest, forced to take a stance and a line in the film The Scarlet and the Black, hard to see him in a film such as this since it seems to point at his characters mission to help those struggling in war time, with Nazis influence. Christopher Plummer's character doesn't make it easy, he pushes and pulls to get his way and to keep the priest at bay, Monsignor O' Flaherty, safe guarding, people such as POW's, Jews, in a underground system protecting them as they find a way out.

In short, you don't have to be a priest or a nun to support causes close to your heart, doing it to help others because you want to is the best gift to someone who needs help, we can all be ambassadors. The naysayers may have given Cinema goers strife, but I think the message is clear to us and it should be to them that we are all called to do something great, big or small. Helping your neighbor is a good start as well, you never know what someone is going through. Thank you to the stars that showed us what humanity was all about. Restoring our faith even if we are not in a situation needing help, but to reach out to others.