"Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains...and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor...and though I give my body to be burned...and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. When I was a child, I spake as a child...I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. But now abideth faith, hope, love...These three. But the greatest of these is love" (The Mission).

Rodrigo was reading from 1 Corinthians at this point in the movie. This theme of love stuck out strongly to me throughout the whole movie. Rodrigo progressively learned more and more about what love truly is. It started out with more of a lustful love. He is in love with a woman who no longer loves him but loves another man. Rodrigo ends up killing the guy in a dual because of the pain of lost love he felt. He thought he knew love and it ran away from him.

He then becomes a Jesuit and studies about what love is in the Bible. As he does this he puts this study into action and helps the Indian tribe build their new town. He begins to understand how much more to life there really is and how filling your life with that kind of love is worth more than anything else.

Then comes the test; when the people are ordered to leave he decides to fight with them, renouncing his vows as a Jesuit. Now, at first this seems like he is putting his love for these people above his love for God. Father Gabriel has made the choice that his love for God will come first and he will die keeping his vows to Him. This made me question if Rodrigo had actually learned what love really was and how God always should come first. But as I thought about it, God has given us our freedom and lets us protect that right. So, did Rodrigo do right by having such pure love for the Indians that he died fighting with them? Had he learned what true love was? Or would it have been better for him to die as Father Gabriel, faithful in his vows to the end, showing God his love and devotion to Him? Would that have been a more correct form of love? Honestly, I feel both demonstrated love in its purest form as they died. There is no wrong way to express true love such as this.