What amazement came over me one recent morning while listening to the voice of a young woman auscultated by Louis Daufresne in his program, The Great Witness , on Radio Notre-Dame. I was going to learn that this young woman's name is Cheyenne Carron. Christian, she directed a film, The Apostle ¹ , the story of a Muslim touched by grace who decides to convert to Catholicism and has to suffer the outrages of his relatives.

Far removed from what the media force us to endure all day, rumor and commentary, the clear and calm voice of Cheyenne Carron grabs you. She answers questions if they are smart. She keeps an Olympian calm in all circumstances. She leads a fight without violence. So few young women display such faith these days. At a time when violence has become commonplace. Where violence replaces struggle. We hear this voice which does not impose itself, but which imposes it, nothing arrogant, nothing indecisive, a calm voice, reassured. It is true that the magic of the radio thickens the plot. Cheyenne Carron's voice is based on a corpus, she never puts it forward , but, when necessary, she delivers it without frills. She holds this corpus from her life, short and intense, she elaborated it almost unwittingly. A miserable childhood before being old enough to understand what misery is forged a reading of life before being aware of life. When you listen to Cheyenne Carron, it's an open book. Accepting to make an open book of oneself gives the indication of having overcome fear. How do we overcome fear? I've often talked about fear on this blog… But we seem to quickly go around in circles when we talk about fear. Talking about fear is not scary. Talking about fear is comforting. There is fear and Fear. How far did God allow Job to be hit so that he felt fear, real Fear? For Ernest Hello, fear exists in the Garden of Olives. For Bernanos too: “In a sense, you see, Fear is all the same the daughter of God, redeemed on Good Friday night. She is not pretty to look at — no! — sometimes mocked, sometimes cursed, renounced by all. And yet, make no mistake about it: she is at the bedside of every agony, she intercedes for man”. Grace is never far from fear. One is crouched while the other abounds. And vice versa. True fear cannot be seen. True fear cannot be shared. Real fear is intimate. She says everyone's Good Friday.

Bravery springs from Cheyenne Carron's voice. What's more, bravery has become second nature. Cheyenne Carron is brave because she wants to exist since she was abandoned shortly after birth. She was then placed in the care of a foster family who turned out to be holy; came to seek her in her misery, she showed her grace. His body. Without grace, his bravery would not be. Grace is the ally of faith, they go hand in hand and journey together to relieve the conscience of the agony of every good Christian. Cheyenne Carron films as she lives. To say his bravery is to say all the bravery of his film and his characters. In The Apostle , Fayçal Safi, the main role of the Muslim who converts to Catholicism, demonstrates an extraordinary talent ² . It demonstrates a life force. After all, living is fear par excellence, isn't it? To live is to expose oneself, to say the lack, the unaccomplished, the approximation. All this imperfection that we strive to hide. There is a stage in life, a simple and inaugural stage, which consists in no longer naming what one does not like, but only what one likes. It seems futile and almost insane: no longer to act against, but for. Acting for is another way of fighting. Acting for is tantamount to embracing fear. Because fear embraces itself… It is possible to tell her that we love her, that we are fond of her and that we don't want to be separated from her for anything in the world. Akim (Fayçal Safi) shows in the film, twice at least, that he espouses his fear: when he is summoned by a family assembly worried about his detachment from Islam and when two faithful come to beat him up. During these two episodes of the film, Akim takes his fear in his arms and hugs him affectionately; and declares his faith in Jesus Christ. An Everest. Facing him, it's silence or violence, which amounts to the same thing. Akim evolves in a different universe, entwined with his fear, he changes it into love, he becomes bravery. It is the metamorphosis of Good Friday.

What is most surprising in the film, The Apostle , written, produced, directed by a Catholic, shot with Arab-Muslim and Jewish actors, is its scale and its balance. As Cheyenne Carron puts everything of herself and transforms it into universal — isn't fear universal? Isn't bravery universal? —, it obliges everyone to make his revolution ³ . Who is Cheyenne Carron to order us to carry out our revolution in this way? A pythia? A prophetess? An apostle, exactly? His film is a punch in the stomach of Muslims, but also, perhaps even primarily, of Christians. And yet it is the film of a committed artist claiming her Catholic faith. She always seems not to take sides while proclaiming it. What a feat! This film renews the Christian ideal in our minds: it forces us to remember our shortcomings towards our neighbour. Isn't one of the most crucial questions to force ourselves to think about our fault before that of our neighbor? Even if our fault is small compared to that of the neighbor. Even though ? Especially when ! Isn't that what separates us from all other religions? Christianity is not a religion that claims. Christianity is at the origin of all ideas of freedom and kindness towards one's neighbour. All, without exception. Christianity invented the neighbor and embodied it through the figure of the Good Samaritan. It is the conversion that is asked of us. Conversion in the other, the neighbor, is conversion in me, now. In other words: to be and to incarnate for our neighbour, an apostle of Christ.

This conversion is that produced by the vision of the film The Apostle . A film by Cheyenne-Marie Carron.