A USELESS LIFE-CHARLES DE FOUCAULD.

A USELESS LIFE-CHARLES DE FOUCAULD

“You ask me what my life is about?
It is the life of a missionary monk founded on three principles:
the imitation of the hidden life of Jesus of Nazareth, the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament,
a life lived among the most unwanted people.”
Charles de Foucauld

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916): a pioneer whose message has lost nothing of its force and relevance today. We have to get away from those pious caricatures which present him as a rich, dissolute young man who was suddenly overwhelmed by the Grace of God and then became a hermit in the Sahara (which he never did). Our film reveals him as our universal brother hesitatingly stepping out into the great unknown where each of us can try and go further towards the strange and the stranger - ourselves included - as we seek to follow Jesus.

At this time of increasing exchange between different cultures and religions, the message and life
of Charles de Foucauld - as told here by John-François Six, a French priest and a recognised specialist who is head of the Charles de Foucauld Association - provide a striking illustration of some of his favourite words from the writings of St John of the Cross: “Show love where there is none and you will harvest love”. That is why Foucauld wanted to be one of the first to visit the last.

“Charles de Foucauld's spirituality", writes Father John François Six, shows a particular tenderness, in this, the third millennium, when the wind is driving groups and individuals to take up arms,
to become impregnable - a tenderness that reaches out to all who have been wounded, to both men and women.”
Ever since then, this message has brought life, and continues to bring life, to hundreds of men and women throughout the world - be they priests, nuns, monks or lay men and women.