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

The Telegraph website is in early with a review and plot summary article about a film I've been looking forward to for some time: "The Way". Here's their "logline" of the plot: "Martin Sheen plays an American doctor who decides to walk the the 500-mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route after his son is killed there. The film is directed by Sheen's son Emilio Estevez." St. James' statue at the "Glory Door" entrance to Santiago Cathedral. Having been to Santiago de Compostella 3 times as a pilgrim (twice cycling - from Brittany + from Liverpool - and once hiking) it is a place and a journey that is very close to my heart and to the hearts of fellow Camino pilgrims in my congregation. The film is being released in the UK on May 13th. Click here for an article page that includes the film's trailer. Here's the start of another Telegraph article by columnist and author Christopher Howse that is certainly encouraging and gets ...

The Basilica steps and the new mosaics commissioned for the Jubilee year, illustrating the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. Lourdes parish church up the hill in the town where Bernadette was baptised. Pictures of Bernadette and her parents. Looking at them again after many years (though I've been to Lourdes about 16 times, it's about 15 years since I visited the Boly Mill, the cachot, etc...) I was struck by the directness and strength of character shown in each of the faces. Surely not coincidental... The Boly Mill, Bernadette's birthplace. Bro. Henri in the one room "cachot" prison where the family lived after the mill went bankrupt.

Whilst in our Bordères community in the Pyrénées over New Year, Bro. Henri (community Superior there) and myself took the opportunity to drive to Lourdes for the day, having lunch in our community there. We undertook the Jubilee Year pilgrimage (150 yrs. since the apparitions), following the route marked out around the town that takes you to places of importance in the life of St. Bernadette (the Boly Mill, the "cachot" ex-prison cell where her poverty-stricken family were forced to live at one point, the Grotto, of course, etc...). One of the Jubilee pilgrimage symbols painted onto the pavements of Lourdes. Bro. Bernard Joliveau (one of our crowd) with a nun working in the Mass office in Lourdes. Bro. Bernard spent 6 months with us in Liverpool back in the late 1980s whilst I was a University student there. The grotto, on a cold winter's day. The Brothers' secondary school, St. Joseph's College, in the old town near the parish church where Bernadette Soubirous ...

In no particular order, I'm going to start posting some of my fave pics that I've taken over the years with a little commentary to explain why in each case. First up, a photo from the Santiago de Compostella pilgrimage that I undertook in 1998 with my good friend Bro. Henri Rivoalen. That summer, I was leading an annual, itinerant, 3-week summer cycling camp around France that Brothers from my order had been involved with for over 20 years. I was due to come up to Bro. Henri's community in Landerneau, Brittany, after the camp and then go hiking with him in the Pyrénées. Whilst I was doing my camp, Henri was cycling to Santiago de Compostella, N.W. Spain with 5 friends from his cycling club in Landerneau. Two days riding from Santiago a member of Henri's group and good friend of his, André, was killed in a collision. Henri was the only one of the group with him. André died in his arms on the side of the road. The body was repatriated to Landerneau, Brittany for the funer...