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

I am indeed proud to be a De La Mennais Brother and I want the whole world to know it :-) I'm proud of what we stand for - helping young people to grow as individuals and in particular helping them to come to know and love Jesus Christ. I'm proud of the individuals in our congregation and the marvellous work they do. I'm proud of their dynamism, their dedication, their enthusiasm (even when they are no longer young), their warmth, their prayerfulness, their hopefulness.... I'm proud of our Brothers' communities and the fraternal atmosphere that reigns in them. I'm proud, and I want our congregation to be able to carry on doing it's work which I feel in today's society is ever more relevant and necessary. To give but one example... I know many Brothers who after having reached the end of their professional careers in France at the age of 60 decided to commit themselves to the missions and spend their "retirement" teaching in our missions in, for...

At last, the complete article with more photos. This was the first time that our group of 13 young people met the 70 or so French participants and our last training event before setting off for Togo on July 9th. We'll be meeting amongst ourselves in Liverpool after Easter to clarify which activities we want to use with Togolese children we'll be working with in 2 different places during the trip (a secondary school and the nursery attached to a village agricultural centre). And we'll also be undertaking some fund-raising events to buy equipment that we'll be bringing out (eg. sports, audio-visual...)and leaving with our hosts for them to keep. Our adventure started with a mini-bus journey from Liverpool to Southampton, arriving in time for a buffet supper with our Brothers in Southampton (= where I went to school... aahh, bless! :-). Supper with the Brothers. Bro. Francis, former Head Teacher of our Liverpool school on the far right. Next up, the overnight ferry from Po...

This particular Gospel passage is one of my favourites. I've always been very fond of Peter's story and in particular this part, the culmination of the Gospel story and the prelude to his mission as an apostle or messenger of Jesus. In that sense it is also a pivotal moment in his life and in hindsight, the life of the Church. Jesus carries out a wonderful act of mercy that brings inner healing to Peter and sends him to "Feed my lambs" and "Follow me" (the healing coming through the threefold question "Do you love me?" in response to Peter's threefold denial of Jesus in the Temple). But let's start at the beginning. Jesus has already appeared to the disciples in the upper room, but they are probably still reeling from the joyous shock of that event and the subsequent spiritual gifts bestowed upon them. We hear Peter say to a group of disciples who were with him, "I'm going fishing". I love this blunt statement of his. Notice a...