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

The final day of our four day preliminary Chapter meetings in Ploërmel, Brothers and lay people together. Photo 1 = me and the 2 Corentins, 2 of our young adult youth movement leaders, providing musical accompaniment to a time of prayer. Four days of smiles, laughter, fellowship, productive small group and plenary discussions. I think we all left energised and renewed by the multitude of ideas and potential projects that we came up with for taking our work with young people forward as a Mennaisian Family.   

Weds. Feb. 13th was the second day of the first part of our Provincial Chapter, held at our Mother House in Ploërmel and involving 21 De La Mennais Brothers + 21 lay people, fired up by the desire to serve young people, “making Jesus Christ better known and better loved”,  inspired by the charism of our founders, Fr. Jean-Marie De La Mennais + Fr. Gabriel Deshayes. Delegates attended  a Mass for the young people of our “Foi et Prière” (“Faith and Prayer”) youth movement who happened to also be in Ploërmel.    One of our French Brothers (Frère Pierre Orain) has written a new hymn to mark our religious order’s bicentenary, in a style suitable for use at youth events. Here’s an extract of the hymn being sung at the end of Mass.                           

Sunday January 27th was Holocaust Memorial Day. when we not only remember the atrocities committed against the Jews and other groups during the 2nd World War, but also all genocides that have been carried out since then, including those in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia and Armenia. This year we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. I will never forget the years I spent in Paris during my studies in the late '90s with a Rwandan De La Mennais Brother, Bro. Léodomir Bara kagendana (see photo), a Hutu who, as Head of a secondary school near the Congolese border, had managed to save dozens of Tutsis by driving them across the border after having hidden them in his school. Léodomir had a nervous breakdown whilst in Paris and had to be taken to a psychiatric hospital for his own safety where he stayed for over a month. He was having auditory hallucinations and would wake in the middle of the night hearing the screams of those he'd witnessed being massacred by machete.

Here are some photos (in b&w and colour) taken Jan. 3rd on a visit to La Vallée des Saints between Guingamp and Morlaix in Brittany (France) with my good friend Frère Bob Léaustic. The name of the place is ironic, because the statues (over 100 of them, each representing a Celtic saint) are actually on a hillside, not in a valley. Quite a remarkable place. Although our order’s founder, Father Jean-Marie De La Mennais, hasn’t yet been proclaimed a Saint, those responsible for this outdoor exhibition are planning to install a statue of him sometime this year to mark our order’s 200th jubilee.  Here are links to 2 photos albums I’ve uploaded to Flickr (colour + b&w): https://flickr.com/photos/99384987@N00/sets/72157706260914505 https://flickr.com/photos/99384987@N00/sets/72157678269172358 Here’s the site’s official website: http://www.lavalleedessaints.com/en/ #LaValléeDesSaints