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

Here’s an article written for our termly school newsletter/magazine about the first of the 2 "Living Joyfully" days: This day was organised by a group of female and male religious made up of Sisters, Brothers and religious order priests, and including Bro. James (SFX) as part of a weekend of events at the Cathedral celebrating the Catholic Church’s “Year Of Consecrated Life”. The organising team. On the Friday nearly 300 school children from Yrs. 9 - 13 took part in a series of workshops and other activities involving over 100 religious/consecrated lay people from different congregations and lay associations... Here are some reactions to the day from 3 of the SFX participants: "The “Living Joyfully” day at the Cathedral was very insightful and gave us the opportunity to ask members of different religious congregations questions about their vocations. It was also great fun especially the identity parade. The whole day made us think about these people and...

“Whiplash” is a stunning film... a gripping roller coaster ride, part Full Metal Jacket, part boxing movie, with a central relationship between student and teacher that is extreme, but also built on an authentic and believable musical foundation. The final 10 minutes contains cinema of the highest quality. This film and “Boyhood” were my personal favourites at the Oscars, and although I did enjoy “Birdman” very much I was disappointed that neither “Whiplash” nor “Boyhood" got Best Film or Best Director. The latter film is the least showy of the 3 but also the most profound and deeply human. The Jesuit website “Thinking Faith” puts it best when it says: " Boyhood  is a triumph, a masterpiece of filmmaking. It captures the essence of the Western world at the start of this new millennium through the prism of a small, struggling Texas family. We experience with them all the bright hopes dashed, lies exposed and faith renewed... Boyhood ’s narrative focuses on a boy grow...

I've been using this video with my Yr. 13 students while discussing the whole question of is there life after death. I think Prof. Lennox does a wonderful job of respecting the intellectual problems that both non-Christians and Christians may have with the question of suffering and death, whilst bearing witness to his faith in God made man, Jesus, who died and rose again.