Lilies of the Field

While traveling through the American southwest in moving from job to job as an itinerant laborer, Homer Smith, a black man, makes a stop in rural Arizona solely for water for his overheating radiator. He is initially unaware that where he has stopped is a convent, the five Caucasian women tending the land and living in the building Catholic nuns originally from Central Europe - most German who solely speak German - who emigrated during the war at great expense when the property was donated to them. They exist on a subsistence living, meaning that in this arid climate they generally have little food for the table. Regardless, Mother Maria, who speaks the most English, feigning not understanding when it suits her purpose, believes big, strong Homer, a Baptist, was sent to them from God. While she is able to convince him to fix their roof - he initially unaware that they have no money to pay him beyond that meager amount of food and board - she, via God, has a grander design for him: to build them a chapel. He learns that Father Murphy, the traveling Irish priest who presides over their services, holds mass outdoors adjacent to a nearby rural truck stop. Even in learning the situation in its entirety, Homer, if he is to help them build the chapel, has to earn a living somehow, and while he is able to provide them his labor - and willingly his services as an English teacher to the five collectively - he cannot provide the materials which is up to Mother Maria to source with no money. While obstinate Mother Maria solely has her faith in God, Homer, still dealing in human terms, may have little patience for her if she is unable to keep her end of their unspoken bargain and if she doesn't show him a little human appreciation directly and not just through her prayers to and faith in God.