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

This is totally charming... Tom Fletcher (McFly) singing to his pregnant wife. 9 months of daily photos, then a little miracle.

Just read this on the back of a bookmark that I was given sometime back. It eloquently expresses some thing that I was trying to say during a discussion on Sat. at the Living Joyfully vocations event in Liverpool as regards to calling, discernment and trust in God: "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me,  and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

One of my favourite Christian bands (Bangor, N. Ireland's Rend Collective) released their new album,  The Art Of Celebration,  on Monday and it got straight into the iTunes Top 10 album. I had pre-ordered the cd so it came on the Monday itself. On first listen I fell  madly in love with one track in particular, to the point where I sang it with 2 other musicians during communion at a vocations event  Mass on Sat.  (5 days after release) = "Living Joyfully", at St. Anne’s Parish, Liverpool (see here ). I think I will also be singing it in school at our forthcoming Reconciliation services. Here's the lyric video for the track: Strength Of My Heart This song got me through a couple of very tough days due to a tragic past event being shared with me by someone, the reverberations of which are going to be felt for sometime to come, I fear. I've really made this song my own since then and sung the words with total conviction during the Mass on Sat. Judging

Is God perhaps calling you to a particular vocation within the Church? If you would like to meet other young adults asking themselves the same question and have the opportunity to spend some time with a few priests and members of different congregations, female and male in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, come along tomorrow to St. Anne's Church, Overbury Street, Liverpool from 1pm to 7pm (finishing with Sat. evening Mass at 5.30pm) For more details click here .

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a YouTube video which puts together black & white cartoon-style drawings of Jesus going into the desert for 40 days to prepare for his mission by British artist Si Smith, and the song "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan in an excellent cover version by Eddie Kirkland (it's been covered by numerous artists in the last few years, most notably by David Crowder Band). I've played it to all my RE classes who have responded positively, some asking to see it again in subsequent lessons. The combination of visuals and music in particular during the last minute of the video is especially powerful. You get a real sense of Jesus in his weakened physical state being more susceptible to experience (but not giving in to) temptation, expressed rather interestingly through the Devil as a mirror image form of Jesus himself, but in red. There's also some nice foreshadowing of events in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Passion story itself.

This track from Islandic band Sigur Ros is just so achingly beautiful and peaceful. The visuals, filmed as part of a full dvd version of the album Valtari complement the music wonderfully. ↵ Use original player Sigur Rós - Dauðalogn By SigurRosVEVO YouTube 720p 360p ← Replay X i