Courtesy of Disney
I’m going to talk about the Encanto movie in the homily today, but we won’t talk about Bruno, right. Bruno is the black sheep of the family; he’s the lost sheep, he’s the one who’s been in exile. I want to talk about St. Paul’s, the second reading today, about how we are all given these gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we’re all given them in different ways to be used in different ways.
This new Disney movie, Encanto, has become a big hit. They have their first song in 26 years, their most popular song in 26 years, the Bruno song. It was a delightful movie. The movie takes place in Columbia. Columbia is a Spanish country that is primarily Catholic. The movie has a lot of good Catholic strains of theology going through it, but it takes place after the Thousand Year War. This big war lasted a long time, and after the war, the movie kind of jumps in there; they’re escaping from the war and losing some of their loved ones in the war. Then they come to this new place that God gives them. This place is called The Encanto, and The Encanto is the house they live in. It’s a house that is protected from anything of war, from anything of evil, and God gives them everything they need to live together in this house. A village of people surrounds this Encanto, but the people in this family are given gifts; they’re given miracles. Those gifts and miracles given are not only for themselves but for their family, not only for their family but also for the entire community. I will talk about what that means for us as a church and the gifts God has given to you.
I want to start by talking about the different gifts given to the family. The matriarch, the Abuela, is the grandmother. She was given this gift of the Encanto, and she was given this gift to protect it and safeguard it so that her children could be raised in safety. She had three children. Julieta was the first one. Julieta had this gift of healing, and her healing came about through cooking. She would cook, make food, and anyone that was sick or injured in any way, she would just put this food before them, they would eat it, and they would be miraculously healed.
Now we go on to the grandkids, alright? There are six of them. Isabela is known for having the gift of creation. She can grow these beautiful flowers and bring things to life and just has a beauty all around her. Everything she touches turns to roses. And there’s Luisa. She is another kind of famous character on TikTok. Luisa is strong; she’s a very big, strong girl. If any heavy lifting needs to be done literally, she does it, whether it’s picking up or moving donkeys; in one scene, she carries the church. The Catholic priest has her move the church to a better location, so she picks up the church and moves it. She’s gifted with that. And Mirabel, I’ll talk about it in a moment because she’s the key player. Next is Dolores. Dolores has the gift of supernatural hearing. She can hear every conversation that goes on, even if it’s behind walls or even across town; she hears it all, and she knows everything that’s going on. The other one is Camilo; he is kind of like a chameleon. He can change into different people and make himself appear as somebody else. Then finally, the littlest boy, Antonio, is 5, and Antonio has the gift of, he was always afraid of being alone, so he was then given the gift of being able to talk to animals. Animals love him, he’s like a St. Francis, so the animals talk to him, and he can talk to them. He does that. Each of them is given a gift on their 5th birthday; on their 5th birthday, they get to go to their room. They have their door, and there’s a door handle that they touch, and when they feel the door handle in the door frame, it shows them what their gift will be. Whatever their gift is, when they open their room, the room is filled with that gift. For the little boy, his room was filled with animals. For Isabella, her room was filled with creation and beauty.
The movie’s whole premise is this Mirabel goes to the door on her 5th birthday, and she touches the door, and nothing happens. And so, the entire rest of the movie is her struggling with not having a gift. She can’t understand why she wasn’t given this gift on her 5th birthday. And everybody kind of looks down on her as well, like there’s something wrong with her; she’s cursed. As she continues throughout the movie, she is the one that holds the family together. She loves unconditionally, she’s able to deal with people when they’re moody, she’s able to deal with people when they’re overwhelmed, and she’s constantly the encourager. It’s not until the end of the movie, and I won’t reveal what happens, but we come to discover that her gift is not miraculous; it’s not even visible, but her gift, I believe, was the gift of faith, hope, and love. You see, for those of us that have faith, we think, even though we can’t see. For those that have hope, we continue to have hope, even when times are difficult and seem like they’re never going to end or we’re never going to get through it. We have loved when we all ultimately love people unconditionally.
This movie illustrates what we hear about in the second reading today. St. Paul says, “As a body is one, though it has many parts, all of the body and all of the parts make one body in Christ.” I want you to think about gifts and talents, and I want you to think about your gift? But I also want you to realize the dynamic of family reality. The movie deals with sibling rivalry; it deals with jealousy when one person has a gift, and the other doesn’t. It deals with envy. It deals with all of that. Sometimes we carry that on into our adulthood. Sometimes we never grow out of that sibling rivalry or jealousy or envy dynamic. Maybe you experienced that, or perhaps that’s been projected on you. But St. Paul is so profound and powerful and helped us see and realize that we are one body. We can’t get rid of any one of us, so you can’t get rid of your family members. I’m sorry, you’re always going to have them. The Holy Spirit still gifts even the people not with us here in church today. When they’re not here, that affects us because we have members of our family, our faith community, that are not here sharing their gifts.
St. Paul says that the gifts that we have are different, and we can’t just say to the eye, “we don’t need you,” or to the hand, “I don’t need you.” He says, “If any member suffers, all members suffer,” and he says to the weakest parts of the body, “they’re all the more necessary.” We’re all the more necessary because of our weakness for those of us who may not have miraculous gifts, gifts that are seen, and wondrous gifts. He says, “To those places, we give greater honor and greater protection.” Finally, at the end of the reading, he says, “The body is Christ. He is our body, and individually we are parts of it.” He says, “Some people God has designated in the church,” so I’m just going to list some of the gifts I want you to think about what yours may be: some to be apostles to go out and to preach the good news, some to be prophets to be countercultural, to be genuinely prophetic in what God teaches, some to be teachers, some to do mighty deeds, so there are those of you and ourselves that are called to do mighty deeds, some that have the gift of healing, some the gift of assistance, to be an assistant, some to administrate, to be an administrator, some are given a variety of tongues. Then he goes on to say, “Are all apostles, no; are all profits, no; are all teachers, no; do all do mighty works, no; do all have the gift of healing, no.” He goes on and on to express that we each have our gifts.
