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

Trump, Brexit, terrorism + extremism… enough to get you worried about the year ahead. But, what can we do? Well, we can start by showing a little bit more love to those around us. We can show more gratitude for the good things in life (maybe even give a little hat tip in prayer to God) and we can bring a little light into the lives of those in darkness by our simple presence next to them, by our smiles, by little acts of kindness. I think this video (which I’ve shared before) says it better than I can. The song is performed by children from around the world, some of whom have learning difficulties, one girl (the lead singer) is blind. "Everybody's got to live together, all the people got to understand, so love your neighbour like you love your brother, come on and join the band..." Love IS all we need… with a little peace, joy + understanding thrown in for good measure! Let me resolve to making love a reality in 2017. That’s my resolution.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” - Victor Hugo. Photo by Mathieu Rivrin. Where do we go from here? There will be counter-measures, there will be further drone strikes and other retaliations and there will be further volunteers flying out to the Middle East... How do we break this cycle? It's pretty much impossible to imagine the hearts of the people ready to carry out such atrocities ever changing despite all the prayers in the world. But we must keep on praying: for ourselves and for them, for us ALL.  Are we heading towards a larger scale conflict? Is it inevitable? If it is, it will be a conflict like no other in the past and the thought of how it might pan out frightens me.