De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

My thanks to my confrère Bro. Ernest Paquet in the US of A for sending me these paraprosdokians (no, I'd never heard of the word either). Paraprosdokians  (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous. Enjoy! 1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it. 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list. 3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. 6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left. 7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. 9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 10. In filling out an application, where it says, ...

The Catholic Herald has published a summary of Pope Francis' World Communications Day message for 2014. Like his predecessor, Pope Francis sees the positive in the internet and social media as tools, most strikingly when he says, “The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.” Pretty unequivocal. The Herald goes on to say... Returning to a previous theme Pope Francis said that a “bruised” Church was preferable to self-absorbed one. He said: “As I have frequently observed, if a choice has to be made between a bruised Church which goes out to the streets and a Church suffering from self-absorption, I certainly prefer the first. Those “streets” are the world where people live and where they can be reached, both effectively and affectively. The digital highway is one of them, a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation or hope. By means of the int...

A brilliant but humble, sensitive, affectionate, funny, loyal, wonderfully engaging person whom I had the privilege to call a friend passed away during the night of Tues. to Weds.: Père Gustave Martelet s.j., a Jesuit priest whom I got to know during my studies in Paris (1995-99) and who remained a very dear friend over the subsequent years. I saw him for the last time on my way through Paris on Jan. 3rd, 2 weeks ago. He had just come out of hospital after having suffered a major heart attack after Christmas at the age of 97... and yet survived!! My gut feeling was that this would be the last time we would meet here on earth. I think he knew it too, though he asked (as he always did) when I would be coming back to see him. Here's a link to a blog post I wrote about him 4 years ago.  And here are a couple of photos from the last few years... Lunch with Gustave in his retirement community in 2011. Early January 2012. He was writing up until his fina...

One of my all-time favourite album closers, "Where I Belong" from Switchfoot's last album, "Vice Verses" (their new one "Fading West" is out in a few days). This is a wonderfully uplifting song and it's all done on 2 chords (except a short bridge towards the end). Love it to bits, and the final verses never fails to make me well up Chorus: "Until I die I'll sing these songs On the shores of Babylon Still looking for a home In a world where I belong Where the weak are finally strong Where the righteous right the wrongs Still looking for a home In a world where I belong." Final verse: "On the final day I die I want to hold my head up high I want to tell you that I tried To live it like a song And when I reach the other side I want to look you in the eye And know that I've arrived In a world where I belong."

I'm sitting here in our Paris community where I lived for 4 years whilst studying back in the 1990s. I'm on my way back from a few days in Brittany at our annual study session, followed by a Provincial Council meeting and a couple of days break afterwards. As is always the case at this time of year various websites magazines produce their top 10 lists for the year that has just finished. I received one such email from a Christian music site today  (New Release Tuesday)  and I have started exploring some of the bands mentioned in it that are unfamiliar to me, starting with the number one choice of this website for 2013 ,an album by a young Christian pop band called Royal Tailor. They sound very much like a cross between OneRepublic and Michael Jackson, not normally a style that would immediately attract me. However the first song that I have just listened to from their latest album kind of blew me away. Yes the chord progression in the chorus is that familiar 1-5-6-4 we all kno...