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

Two days ago I arrived at our General House (Headquarters) in Rome to meet with 5 other members of an international De La Mennais Brothers commission for Communication + Information (4 Bros. + 2 lay people from France, Uganda, Canada, Uruguay, Spain + me from England). The other five members of our team and a Brother (2nd left) from the General house community that has welcomed us for these 5 days of meetings. On the agenda: - looking at what initiatives are already being undertaken by Provinces and/or individual Bros. as regards web sites, blogs, social networking, publications of all types... - learning from initiatives outside of the congregation (other congregations, secular or church-based organisations...) - imagining the future of the congregation and what needs to be put in place to respond to future needs in relation to our charism of working with young people - all sorts of other related topics, including training for those who may wish to set up a blog or a web site, or who ...

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...