Of God’s and Men Reflection

Of God’s and Men is a film about faith. Faith is a powerful thing, and that makes it dangerous at the same time. Believing in one idea allows you to change lives; however, believing just as strongly in another allows you to devote yourself in taking them. In the film, members of the monastery face the difficult decision of putting one’s spiritual principles before one’s physical life.

The group of brothers in the monastery lives a simple self-sufficient life of farming and dispensing medicine and comfort to their Muslim neighbors living in poverty. However, armed Islam extremist terrorizes the modest countryside as they start killing Christians in the region. The brothers of the monastery were torn between their calling to live here with the people, and the safety of their life. At first many might think this is simply a conflict of faith between the two religions. Yet the film shows many similarities among the Christian and Muslim faith. We frequently see the brothers in the monastery at prayer. In one scene, Brother Christian hears the calling of the Muslim to recite the Koran prayers five times a day. Both Catholic and Muslim are faithful to their faith and in that regards they are brothers living with the same passion and vocation of carrying out their religious belief and practices.

Besides the commonality we see in faith, the Muslim village and monastery are actually inseparable and had developed a deep relationship over the years. The monks, who are scared for the safety of their lives, visited the leader of the villagers to express their concerns and considerations of fleeing the region. But they soon found themselves as an integral part of the villagers. One villager commented, “We are the birds and the monastery is the branch, without you we will have no anchor.” The monks had an obligation to their friends in the village, and the villagers will be vulnerable without them.

The movie offered subtle hints of the greater power or god himself at work....