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

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...

Now four weeks into the new school year at my new school, the last few days I've felt as if I was running on empty. But I think the worst is over, especially now that we have actually had our impending Ofsted (school inspection). It took place 2 weeks ago and is always a very stressful experience, but nowadays as much, if not more so for the school administration as it is for the teachers themselves, what with all the hoops a school has to jump through in terms of documentation. I'd like to take a moment to look back briefly at my summer travels in France. When I was there for our Provincial celebration towards the end of August I had the chance to come back via Paris and visit my old friend Fr. Gustave Martelet s.j., a 92 year-old Jesuit theologian and "expert" at Vatican II with whom I had the privilege to work during my 4 years of study in Paris. As well as having become a spiritual mentor/director, I am immensely honoured to say he has also become a close f...