For the love of God: on Ave Maryam

"In a way that neither you nor I can understand, that man was a saint"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude

Spoilers for Ave Maryam. Ave Maryam is directed and written by Ertanto Robby Soediskam.

If dedication is a sign of love, routine is a love letter written with clear types. Suster Maryam's (Maudy Koesnaedi) daily schedule in the convent consisted of caring for the more elderly nuns: waking them up, bathing them, washing their clothes, keeping them company, and helping them with their night medicine.

In her service, she's not only a manifestation of God's grace-- she also found God's grace in it and she felt wholesome. That is, until Romo Yosef (Chicco Jerikho) was assigned to help around for Christmas.

Her heart had been complete but somehow it got even more so. She watched from afar as he breathed new life into the community she's familiar with. But what captivated her the most was that he could connect with Suster Monic (Tutie Kirana).

It's hard to guess what's inside Suster Monic's mind. Suster Maryam might took care for her around the clock but her old age made it anyone's guess whether she was being passively hostile to her or just inadvertently insensitive. It did seem clear, however, that she had a fixation on her past.

It goes without saying that history keeps repeating itself. Suster Maryam took care of her more senior peers with full knowledge that later on she'd be the one taken care of. Now, with her forties approaching, two starkly different futures loomed ahead: one reflected by the lively Romo Yosef, one by the reclusive Suster Monic.

After much anticipation, the day finally arrived. Suster Maryam sported a bright red dress for her secret escapade with Romo Yosef. To the soft sound of the beach, Suster Maryam saw as Romo Yosef be the first person to welcome her into the brand new chapter of her life, cake in hand, candle flickering.

But as she later found out, although so long has she dreamt of the wave, when she finally arrived at the sea, she still felt miserable. It turned out, that wasn't it for Suster Maryam. 

When she arrived back at her dorm, her fellow sisters surprised her with the second birthday cake of the day. In both times getting surprised she sobbed by the end of it, but this time, the guilt made it more painful.

And at her lowest point, Suster Monic embraced her and made an admission, "If of my heaven I don't have any certainty, what do I have to do of your hell?" It's beside the point to question the two nuns' understanding of heaven and hell; both of them knew perfectly well each of those things as well as their associations.

So when Suster Monic made the proclamation, it wasn't a moral statement as much as it was an understanding of a shared human condition. These two sisters, one hardened by age and one by pain, were there for each other.

God's love and human love happening in parallel is a privilege. Some people have to make the hard choice between the two. For these people, love is not a balancing act, at least not in the sense of balancing between the two types. Rather, it's walking the tight rope between regret and content, or between shame and acceptance.

Here, tolerance in its highest form lies not only in respecting what one chooses, but also, and maybe more importantly, as Suster Monic had shown, in understanding what one forgoes.

In the end, Suster Maryam made her choice. Inside the confession booth, she spoke of her journey in finding God and His love and how in the process she found someone in the same journey as hers and that person's love. Her voice broke when she admit her weakness and in His name, she asked for strength. Over the screen, a priest oversaw this confession. The priest was Romo Yosef.

The priest over the screen accepted her confession and prayed for her, maybe as much for himself as it was for her.

The priest over the screen weeped with her. Maybe so did God.