Um Himmels Willen - Das Wunder von Fatima (2014)

Shortly before Christmas, the wealthy widow Sonja Berger spots a photograph in the newspaper and recognizes her childhood sweetheart, Thomas, whom she had completely lost touch with. According to an article about a pilgrimage, he works as a tour guide in Fátima, so she asks Sister Hanna, the head of the local convent, to accompany her to the Portuguese pilgrimage site. Hanna is hesitant at first, but Wolfgang Wöller, the mayor of the fictional Lower Bavarian town of Kaltenthal, encourages her to make the trip. He even wants to go along himself. Naturally, he has an ulterior motive once again: he believes the wealthy widow is the legendary “Angel of Kaltenthal,” who has only just showered homeless people with anonymous cash donations. For electoral reasons, Wöller redirected €50,000 in donations intended for war orphans to the local marksmen’s club, and now he urgently needs to make up the shortfall. He hopes the widow will be generous. When they arrive in Fátima, Sonja Berger eagerly anticipates seeing Thomas Breitner again, whom she can finally meet after more than 50 years. But the encounter disappoints her: Thomas has never forgiven her for marrying another man back then. He also has personal problems to deal with and shows no interest in talking with Sonja any further. The mission seems to have failed, but Sister Hanna is not ready to give up so easily, even though Wöller is pressing to leave. While Hanna confronts Wöller, Sonja meets with Thomas once more. This time they talk for a little longer, and Sonja learns that since his wife’s death, Thomas has fallen out with his only son, Paulo. Paulo is a fisherman and needs money to pay for his sick son’s treatment. But because he has not told his father what he needs the money for, Thomas thinks he is a failure and no longer wants to support him. This saddens Sonja; after all, she had children of her own, and Hanna encourages her to try to reconcile the two. Hanna feels this is the real reason the Lord has brought her to Fátima. Back home in Germany, Mother Superior Baroness Louise von Beilheim has planned a Christmas concert featuring a famous tenor. But various irregularities lead the municipal regulatory office to close the venue, and the Mother Superior urgently needs a replacement. She quickly decides to move the concert to the Kaltenthal convent, leaving Sister Hanna desperately short of time to get back in time. Sister Hanna speaks with Thomas Breitner’s daughter-in-law and learns more about the rift between father and son. For some time, Paolo has been ignoring fishing quotas to earn more money from fishing, thereby putting his livelihood at risk. As if that were not enough, he steals his mother’s jewelry from his father, prompting Thomas Breitner to file a report with the police. Sister Hanna is determined to persuade Paolo to return the jewelry, and eventually succeeds. She plans to take it back to his father for him. However, during a traffic stop, Hanna and Mayor Wöller are caught with the stolen goods, and both end up in jail. Sonja Berger and Thomas Breitner get them out of this predicament: after Breitner learns that his son did everything out of desperation, not selfishness, he withdraws his complaint. As a small act of reparation, Sonja offers to pay for the child’s costly treatment, which finally brings father and son back together. She decides to stay in Fátima and spend her remaining years with Thomas. This scuppers Wöller’s plan to receive a generous donation from the widow. As a small reward for his efforts, she gives him only an old letter that she wrote to Thomas 50 years ago but never sent because she did not know his address. She tells him to read it and learn something about love and charity. His only consolation is a mystical apparition that he experiences and takes to be the “Miracle of Fátima.” Back in Kaltenthal just in time, Hanna has to enjoy the planned concert alone with her fellow nuns, because the 100 guests invited by the Mother Superior are stranded in a traffic jam and snowstorm. Only a few homeless people join them, and one of them notices that the letter Mayor Wöller has carelessly left beside him bears a very valuable stamp. Without a postmark, it is probably worth almost €50,000—the real Miracle of Kaltenthal for Wöller.