A Colombian girl dies and her family brings her body to Rome for burial. Before she can be interred, the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints must investigate whether she performed a miracle. The investigation requires that her coffin remain in Rome — which means the family must remain in Rome — which means the film must find a way to be both about Catholic bureaucracy and about grief, without getting lost in either. It succeeds completely, which is itself something of a miracle.
For Spanish students, the film offers Colombian Spanish in a Roman setting — a cross-cultural encounter that is played with warmth and gentle comedy. The vocabulary of Catholicism, bureaucracy, family grief, and the specific way Colombian families navigate official institutions runs throughout. Students also encounter the formal Spanish of Church proceedings alongside the intimate, informal Spanish of family conversation.
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Key Themes for the Classroom
- Faith and evidence — The Church requires proof of a miracle. Ask: ¿Qué es un milagro? And: Who gets to decide whether one has occurred? The distinction between faith and bureaucracy is the film's central comic engine.
- Grief and hope — The family is grieving. The possibility of canonization adds a complicating layer. Ask: ¿Cómo afecta la investigación al proceso de duelo de la familia?
- Catholic culture in Latin America — The family's relationship to the Church is warm, intimate, and completely unironic. Ask: ¿Cómo habla la familia de su fe? What specific language do they use for religious belief?
Scene to use: The first meeting with the Vatican investigator — the family and the monsignor navigating different assumptions about what constitutes evidence, expressed across a formal-informal divide that is also a Colombian-Italian cultural divide. Ask: ¿Qué entiende el monseñor por "prueba"? ¿Y la familia? Why are they talking past each other?
Low-prep classroom activity: Students write a brief testimony in Spanish — as a member of the family, describing the miracle to the Vatican investigator. They must use formal address (usted), past tense, and at least one expression of religious certainty alongside one honest acknowledgment of what they don't know. The constraint produces formal Spanish with emotional weight.
📅 Teach it when it counts: November — Día de los Muertos and All Saints Day — is the perfect time for Milagro en Roma. The film connects grief, faith, and the formal processes through which communities honor the dead, linking directly to Mexican and Colombian Catholic traditions students study in November. Holy Week units also work well — the vocabulary of canonization and miraculous intervention appears naturally in those cultural contexts.
📅 Teach it when it counts: November — Día de los Muertos and All Saints Day — is the perfect time for Milagro en Roma. The film connects grief, faith, and the formal processes through which communities honor the dead, linking directly to Mexican and Colombian Catholic traditions students study in November. Holy Week units also work well — the vocabulary of canonization and miraculous intervention appears naturally in those cultural contexts.
The full Spanish lesson plan for Milagro en Roma is ready at filmarobics.com/products/milagro-en-roma — $29.95.
Students walk away from Milagro en Roma having heard Colombian Spanish carry faith, grief, and the specific humor of a family dealing with Catholic bureaucracy on behalf of a dead child — and having thought seriously about what evidence is actually required before something counts as miraculous.
The full Spanish lesson plan for Milagro en Roma is ready at filmarobics.com/products/milagro-en-roma — $29.95.
📥 Want a free lesson plan? Get a complete FilmArobics sample — pick your language. Subscribe for your free lesson →
Students walk away from Milagro en Roma having heard Colombian Spanish carry faith, grief, and the specific humor of a family dealing with Catholic bureaucracy on behalf of a dead child — and having thought seriously about what evidence is actually required before something counts as miraculous.
