Marcelino Pan y Vino is the title of an old old movie. It was my sister Helen’s (May her soul Rest In Peace) and mine first miraculously, kind of religious movie. We were very young and we watched it at the Lyric theater, a walking distance cinema that played English films in Cotabato City. This movie house had long been gone since we were teens. It think it was razed by a big fire. But young though we were, the movie made a very strong impression on us. We never forgot the title of the film, nor the little boy who secretly gave bread and wine daily to a poor pitiful suffering man, whom he uncovered in the monastery church attic. I even remembered the boy died at the end of the story. However many of the film’s other scenarios and circumstances I forgot already.
Some three or four years ago, my late sister Helen acquired a television gadget for old movies. She invited us siblings to watch old movies with her. We had date dinner and old movie nights at her home. We tried at times searching for this particular film, but sadly we were not able to do so. Maybe it was just too old, or wasn’t really that popular.
Anyway, yesterday November 12, I happened to see on Facebook, an offering to watch a movie presentation of Marcelino Pan y Vino in U tube. I did not let this chance passed. I had to watch this. Maybe my guardian Angel was helping me, or Helen was helping me too since I still continue to grieve for her. The movie however was in full Spanish, with no English translation. But I had to see this again. So I did. This was a movie taken in Mexico. The baby Marcelino was left at the doorstep of the monastery. He grew up with the priests along side with his neighbors the Mexicans rebels or bandidos. There are other scenarios of other people’s lives in the story but I just wanted to watch the miraculous part where he met Jesus. To make a long story short, Marcelino was such a precocious child at five. He was loved by everybody. He and his friend Iluterio were forbidden to go to the monastery attic because it was a run down place and storage of many church’s old and unused things. Then Iluterio died, from gunshot wound during a raid by the Mexican troops. Long after, Marcelino playfully, imagining himself playing with his friend, he went up to the attic by himself and accidentally uncovered the crucified statue of Jesus Christ. He got scared but went back again. He thought the man was a poor hungry stranger, and so offered him bread from the dining hall and wine from the sacristy. The man thanked him and talked to him. Lastly, to end the story, Marcelino began saving his own bread from his own meal, and also the left over wine from the priests’ meal in the dining hall. At the end, the priests with much curiosity, secretly followed him. They heard and saw Jesus talking to him. Jesus asked what Marcelino wanted, his answer was to see his mother. Jesus took him up. Then both of them vanished into thin air.
After watching this movie, it made me think. Miracles do not happened like this. What man wishes to happen, is not how God works. God ways are different from man’s ways.
On the other hand, it made me think about my sister Helen. I think God has taken my sister Helen up into heaven. We had not seen each other since the pandemic began. She was okay by then. Then It was like God took her away from us and she just disappeared into thin air like Marcelino. We did not get to see her again. God took her away and she just vanished from this life into eternal light. I was thinking, maybe my sister Helen wanted to comfort me by letting me watch this old old movie. It was such a coincidence that I chance to see this old film from U tube through Facebook. Thank you my guardian Angel for guiding me and thank you Helen for consoling me.
