The Mission

Mendoza arrives at the mission carrying something he cannot fix, and is forgiven anyway. The Jesuits and the Guaraní build something real together, and men in other countries decide it cannot stay. Father Gabriel meets the attack with prayer and the sacrament. Mendoza picks up a sword to defend people he would once have sold. Both die with the mission, and the children who survive leave by canoe with what is left.

Grace arrives before a man deserves it

Mendoza's conversion starts after the thing he cannot undo. He killed his brother. No amount of being sorry makes Rodrigo alive again. That is the point. Grace reaches him at exactly the spot where getting better is useless as payment. He can become a different man. The dead stay dead.

Penance cannot purchase what mercy gives

Mendoza drags his armour up the cliffs because suffering is the one thing he can still control. Joffé makes it hurt to watch: the metal catching on rocks, the rope going tight, Mendoza falling and getting up and pulling again. Then a Guaraní man cuts the rope and the whole weight goes over the edge.

Mendoza breaks down. He had been ready to suffer for much longer. Being forgiven is harder than paying, because he did not do it himself.

Love becomes costly when protection divides

The coming attack asks Gabriel and Mendoza the same question and they answer it differently. Gabriel thinks picking up a sword would contradict everything he brought here. Mendoza cannot stand still while people he loves are killed. Neither of them is protecting himself, which is what makes it hard to watch. One carries the Eucharist. The other carries a weapon. The bullets do not distinguish between them.

Martyrdom cannot make defeat disappear

They die and the mission still burns. The Guaraní are killed or scattered. Mendoza's fighting wins nothing and Gabriel's procession stops nobody. The children pulling a violin out of the wreckage keep the ending from being empty without turning it into a victory. Grace changed people. Violence still destroyed things that should have lived.

Institutions can betray without hatred

Cardinal Altamirano does not have to hate the Guaraní to abandon them. He knows what the missions are, he knows what is coming, and he signs the deal anyway because bigger interests want it. Power gets dangerous when decent men can call surrender necessary. He saves the institution and knows exactly who paid for it.

Obedience does not silence conscience

Altamirano has the authority to make the call. It does not get him any peace. What he understands at the end matters because conscience outlives the arguments used to overrule it.

• What are you still trying to pay for after being forgiven?
• Who would you stand next to if it actually cost you something?
• When someone in charge gets it wrong, what do you do with that?
• Is there anything you would refuse to do, even to protect someone you love?