The abandonment of «Los Domingos».»

One of the most striking scenes of Alauda Ruiz de Azúa's impressive film, “Los Domingos”,  is when the protagonist prays, in a church, the prayer of abandonmenteciar of Charles de Foucauld. I will say no more, because it is undoubtedly one of the turning points of a film that deserves to be seen more than once. 

The scene is not neutral within the film. It requires positioning: either she is crazy, or here is God.

The scene requires a response, and a life-changing response at that. That of the protagonist and, to a certain extent, that of the spectator.

To say «There is God» is to accept that this God is not us, that there is an «other», a real Other whom we can truly love, and give him our life: the one of blood and sweat, the one of laughter and itchy feet.

“Los Domingos” draws today's society as it is, with its lights and its noise, with its shadows and darkness, with the incomprehension it shows in the face of “silence”, the freely chosen concealment. 

“Los Domingos” thus speaks of filial abandonment. An attitude that we have forgotten even within the Church itself. The film approaches the experience of faith, the relationship with God “like a husband, like a boyfriend”, that is to say, real. And it does so from the outside, but with a delicacy, dignity, respect -and perhaps, a bit of astonishment-, which gives it complete verisimilitude. 

Every Christian has his Gethsemane; that moment in which you can fall asleep and hide the responsibility, draw the sword and attack it in an unconscious and hurtful way, or say, like Christ, “Thy will be done”: abandoning yourself to a God who is a father.

Our society lacks parents and has too many “tips”. We have confused being adults with “having everything under control” or having everything done “as planned”.

Total surrender to God, in a convent, in the lay life, in marriage, is today a revolutionary cry that changes the “Do it!” for “Do me! A cry so loud that it is not heard, but which shakes the cracked and wounded clay foundations of a society that longs to discover the Lord of ”Sundays“. 

Oration of abandonment of Charles de Foucauld

My Father,
I abandon myself to You.

Make of me what you will.

Whatever you make of me I thank you,
I am ready for anything,
I accept everything.
As long as Your will be done in me
and in all your creatures,
I wish for nothing more, my God.

I place my life in Your hands.
I give it to you, my God,
with all the love in my heart,
because I love you,
and because for me to love you is to give myself to you,
to give myself into Your hands without measure,
with infinite confidence,
for You are my Father.

Amen.