One of these days (maybe) I will run out of references to my Ph.D. dissertation, “The Costumed Catholic: Catholics, Whiteness, and the Movies, 1928-1973.”  Perhaps there is a little pride in me trying to connect it to my work for The Legionnaire, and I will have to pray about that matter.  In the meantime, when I encounter Come to the Stable (1949), I cannot help but think of the tome that brought me my terminal degree in American History.  At any rate, sometimes it is good to be reminded that I have a little authority on these topics.  Having said that, I must admit that I did not watch it during my research and writing phase.  I read a lot about it, including what others had to say about the film, but did not take the time to view it as I did most of the others I discussed.  Thus, when I came across it on Retro Reels, I knew it was time to correct that mistake.  God has been putting some interesting things in my path lately, and I am happy to respond to His promptings.  I am also pleased to tell you about this remarkable piece of cinema.

In a part of New England where the towns all seem to have Biblical names, Sister Margaret (Loretta Young) and Sister Scholastica (Celeste Holm) Come to the Stable on a snowy night.  The structure in question is home to artist Amelia Potts (Elsa Lanchester), and it is her work that has brought these two French nuns to this part of the world.  Actually, Sister Margaret is from Chicago, but she had seen some of Amelia’s religious paintings and wanted to meet her.  The two female religious arrive at Amelia’s barn turned studio as she is finishing a piece on the Nativity of Jesus, and she is delighted by the company.  Sister Margaret explains that her order had run a hospital in France during World War II.  She had made a promise to God that if her facility was spared, she would open a new one in America.  God will use people who give Him their word, and she has come to fulfill it.  The nuns do not see their lack of funds as a hinderance, either.  As they get settled into their new surroundings, it is time to go about the project of building their hospital.  This requires learning their neighbors.  The first they meet is Amelia’s landlord and the one living next door, musician Robert Masen (Hugh Marlowe).  They encounter him, and his dog, as they are scouting the nearby hill pointed out to them by Amelia, which would make for a construction site similar to the one they left in France.  He is friendly, but the one they really needed to see is the Bishop (Basil Ruysdael).  Though he is somewhat hesitant, particularly given their lack of means, when the sisters mention Pontifical approval for their endeavor, he gives them his blessing.  When he asks what they need, Sister Margaret narrows it down to two things: land and money.  Regarding property, she indicates that their perspective mound is owned by Luigi Rossi (Thomas Gomez), a name of some repute, though not necessarily of the good kind.  All Sisters Margaret and Scholastica know about him is that he has an office in New York City.  Borrowing Robert’s jeep, they go into town to find Luigi, a man who is obviously involved in organized crime, obvious to everyone but the nuns.  All the same, they manage to get past his henchman and ask for the land on which they want to build.  He is about to say no until he realizes that his son who fought during World War II likely died near where their order had been ministering.  With a promise that they will dedicate a stained-glass window to his memory in their chapel, he agrees to give them their plot.  In their travels, they had also accrued a little over three hundred dollars.  They use a portion of this to buy a structure adjacent to their property that they intend for their future domicile.  The real estate agent, Claude Jarman (Walter Baldwin), takes fifty dollars as down payment for a sort of lease agreement, with an additional $5,000 due in three months.  The sisters believe they have settled on that amount for the entire transaction until they show the contract to the Bishop.  In it, he notices that the nuns have actually agreed to a $30,000 purchase price, to be split into six equal payments.  In other words, they have gotten into something beyond their means.  He is about to send them home when he hears a bus pull up outside of Amelia’s stable.  This is a number of their order, including their spiritual father, Father Barraud (Henri Letondal).  Not wanting to appear inhospitable, the Bishop gives them three months to raise the proper amount of funds.  During that time, Robert goes to California to conclude scoring a movie.  Upon returning, he finds that his renter has turned the barn into a veritable convent, and none of it is to his liking.  Hoping to prevent the female religious from being permanent residents, Robert goes to see Claude about the real estate in question.  Robert offers to buy it for more than $30,000, but Claude says there is no need because unless they produce the first $5,000 in a couple of hours, the deal will expire.  Satisfied, Robert comes home to find Sister Scholastica playing tennis with his friends.  She had once been an athlete of some skill, and had been offered $500 if she could help one set of doubles win a match.  Not coincidentally, this is the amount by which the nuns are short of their goal.  This endears her to everyone but Robert, who is visibly relieved when she and her partner lose.  He takes a nervousness into his dinner party with his guests, who do little to ease his mind.  Thus, he ends up going down to Amelia’s stable while the sisters are praying and telling Sister Margaret that he will cover the remainder of their expenses.  The final scene sees him and everyone else in the area celebrating Mass on the site of the nuns’ new home.

One of the aspects of Come to the Stable’s story that shines is God’s Providence.  If we allow Him, God puts us where He needs us, and always gives us what we need to accomplish His will.  It takes more than simple trust in Him, though that is the easiest way of describing what is needed.  What does it more justice is a total abandonment of our desires to His, giving everything over to His guidance.  That better speaks to the attitude Sisters Margaret and Scholastica adopt in going about their project.  Where others point out the absurdity of what they propose to undertake, they handle those objections with the kind of attitude we all need to accomplish anything great (or small): that nothing is impossible with God.  It also helps that nobody seems inclined to say no to a nun, which is heartwarming.  In any case, to do what the sisters do, and what I have described in this paragraph, one needs courage.  Total reliance on God as we see in the movie is no easy task.  So many are sadly defeated by a given undertaking because of fear.  This emotion is brought up to Sister Margaret, who reminds us that God is the only answer to our insecurity.  Even those who have the most ardent heart ablaze for love of God can look upon something to which the Divine calls them with trepidation.  We get a hint of this in Jesus’ human nature when He asks that His Father take this Cup from His hands, meaning the Passion He was about to endure.  Still, His next set of words speak to the level of trust that is the theme of this paragraph, for He responds in Luke 22:42 by saying that it is not His will but that of His Heavenly Father that needs to be accomplished.  Though the Bishop sometimes acts as an impediment to the sisters accomplishing their goal, he summarizes these feelings by depicting the nuns as having blind faith, which he calls “sublime.”  That is an excellent word for all this because it means “of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.”  When we see humble people accomplishing what the sisters do in the movie, we should have those feelings when it comes to how God works in our lives.

Speaking of performing remarkable deeds, Come to the Stable is loosely based on a true story.  The abbey founded by the sisters in Bethlehem, Connecticut, is still going, called the Abbey of Regina Laudis.  Like in the movie, they sell goods they make by hand.  You can go there yourself, or save yourself some money (if you do not live in New England) and watch this movie.