There’s a scene early in The Mission that I’ve never forgotten: Fr Gabriel climbs above the falls and walks alone into Guaraní territory. Carrying no weapon, he sits down, takes out an oboe and begins to play. The tribesmen emerge from the trees, unsure whether to kill him or listen. It is one of the great images of missionary courage put on film: a priest entering the unknown armed with nothing but an oboe and the conviction that Christ had sent him.
I saw it as a boy, and it made me want to become a Jesuit – not just a priest, specifically a Jesuit. Black robes, discipline, adventure, a readiness to go wherever needed: this was Catholicism at its most heroic. I didn’t become one, for what it’s worth, despite attending a Jesuit school, though the pull of it never quite left.
