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

Being outside of my community and my daily routine of prayer and the Eucharist for most of the past month, and being on my own in community for the previous two weeks while Bro. Francis was away has made me realise just how precious it is for me to live in a religious community, especially one where my confrère(s) know me and my story pretty well, know my weaknesses, and yet seem to love me for who I am. As I write this, I am on my own in an otherwise empty presbytery in Weymouth where I have been for most of the past month, working as a Chaplain in the Olympic Sailing Village. I have driven back to Southampton for my days off as much as possible to try and have at least an occasional connection with my normal daily routine. It has taken a lot out of me, but it has been important to make that effort, I feel. I've discovered here, more than at any other time in the last 22 years of religious life, that I most certainly do not have the vocation to be a hermit. I am very bad at ...

Here's part of a very interesting article from the Thinking Faith  website by Frank Cottrell Boyce: screenwriter, author + long-time collaborator of Danny Boyle, who worked with Boyle in putting together the Opening Ceremony. From my own perspective of having been a GamesMaker volunteer Chaplain down in Weymouth I understand completely his point that the most important thing about the Opening Ceremony - and indeed the whole Games - was the idea of bringing people together. More about my own experiences a little later...  Click here for the full article.   Writing History: The Opening Ceremony in its Author’s Words I am still having flashbacks to some of the best moments of working on the Olympic Opening Ceremony. One evening,  some months ago : I was alone on the platform at Bromley-by-Bow when it was invaded suddenly by hundreds of volunteers heading home from their rehearsal for the Olympic Opening Ceremony: Londoners of every shape, size, age, race and ability, each carryi...

Here's a terrific slideshow from our Togo trip put together by Rolo to the sound of "History Maker" by Delirious, one of our favourite Team Win! tunes.  

It's about time I got round to finishing these Togo articles... so, Day 11. The next day saw us take a drive with Fr. François along the coast to Togo's former capital, Aného, to visit our De La Mennais Brothers school, the Lycée Saints Pierre + Paul which I first visited with a group back in 2007. This was actually the first place I ever stayed at in Africa with a group in back and was probably the most challenging of all the places we have stayed in over our 4 Afican adventures due to the difficult sleeping conditions in the tiny rooms of the boys' boarding wing where we slept. I'll never forget that first night there, sharing a room with our Br. Francis. It was a credit to those in our group back then that nobody complained, just taking it in their stride. This time we weren't sleeping there, though we did take our group round for them to see for themselves. We had put aside some of the funds raised prior to the trip so that we could make a donation to a dese...

In the wonderful 1981 film "Chariots Of Fire" which tells the story of two real-life British sprinters who ran at the 1924 Olympics - Harold Abrahams (a Jew) and Eric Liddell (a Christian) - the latter character says at one point  “I believe God made me for a purpose (to be a missionary in China) . But He also made me fast! And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give that up would be to hold Him in contempt. …to win is to honour Him…"   Personally, I have always taken great pleasure from watching sport events (athletics, cycling, football, swimming, etc…) - as well as taking part in sport myself - and my memories are marked by particular sporting moments that have been exhilarating, dramatic, triumphant, tragic or even moving. As I have got older I have come to truly appreciate the words said by Eric Liddell's character in "Chariots Of Fire" in relation to the talents that each of us are given and it gives me great pleasure to help young people di...

A very good article about human creativity. For the full text click on the article heading just below. Make God Look Great. Create. Desiring God Blog Creativity. You've either got it, or you don't, right? You're right-brained or left-brained, into art or into computer science, a painter or a mathematician. Creative folks do creative things, like paint, write, and walk barefoot through the woods. Non-creative folks do non-creative things, like make spreadsheets and money. Wrong. Everyone is creative. Creativity is hardwired into our DNA by God himself. All of us were made to be creative people. Creative juices run hot through our veins. All of us have an irresistible, divinely-inspired impulse to create, organize, and fashion. We see this clearly in Genesis 1:27, which says: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ........... But creativity is hard work. It takes work to create a poem o...

On Day 10 Frère François gave us the opportunity to visit 2 different types of market in Lomé: first, a massive, sprawling market for the local Togolese people with narrow passageways between a riotous collection of multi-coloured stalls selling pretty much everything, from all types of food + drink to household goods, electrical equipment, clothing, etc... Secondly, a smaller tourist neighbourhood market designed to entice foreign clients such as ourselves into buying locally made souvenirs. Understandably, we spent more time at the latter. It gave the Team a chance to use up some of the spending money they had brought with get and buy souvenirs to take home. I recommended to the group that they didn't go around taking photos in either market, as I didn't want them (+ their cameras) to be vulnerable to the local criminal element. As well as to the markets, Fr. François took us on a drive around other areas of Lomé: the university complex, the government/admini...