I don't know if it's just me, but it always seemed to me that that movie was a bit condescending towards the catholic clergy. The nun Mother is a bit of witch (and looks to be lacking charity, like when the baptist brings food, she insults him), and the other nuns are reduced to a bunch of giggling girls, and the priest has dreams of grandiosity and gets humbled at the end of the movie.
I've heard a lot of people talk highly of this movie, though. Is there something I'm missing?
I didn't take it that she lacked charity. I totally saw what she was trying to do. She wanted him to recognize that GOD WAS USING HIM AS AN INSTRUMENT, rather than something he was doing completely on his own. She acted like she believed she was doing him a favor by not letting him get "big headed" about what he was doing, and she ended up being right too.
I might have been inclined to share that view, if not for the ending of the movie, where the Baptist tricks the mother nun into saying "thank you." The camera takes plenty of healthy shots of the mother nun looking (at least to me) quite guilty and remorseful for having not treated him better. The Baptist, of course, goes along his merry way, singing his own song, with the sisters joining in. Also, she seems to treat him like a trophy throughout the movie, more of an object than anything else ("Smile to the people, but don't talk." "Sit in the front where everyone can see you."). I just thought the movie made the Catholic Clergy look bad.
I think if a movie that many Catholics are going to see is to have clergymen in it, it should represent them as they should be ideally. Clergy should never be corrected by the laity, but by fellow clergy, and the clergy should be shown to be the guides and counselors that they are. Two movies that I think does a good job of this is Bells of Saint Mary's and Boy's Town (I know that there are a few problems with these movies, such as the freedom of religion undertones that Boy's Town has, but I think they did a good job of representing the clergy as the spiritual parents that they should be).
Lilies in the field, to me, at least, just seemed to put Catholic clergy in there all dressed up nice but not really serving their functions. What the Mother's message was, about relying on God and not on man and not getting a big head like you said, would have worked if the movie itself had actually been on her side.