Interesting stuff from Busted Halo on the latest take on the great classic. Here's a slice...

The Great Gatsby has been touted as many things: one of the contenders for the title of "The Great American Novel," a flash game, and now, a summer blockbuster. But for all the things that The Great Gatsby has been, a good example certainly is not one of them. The way that the story's characters embrace the wild lifestyle of the 1920s seems almost like a "how not to" guide for living your life. In fact, there's a character or situation in Gatsby for practically all of the seven deadly sins that humanity is to avoid. Let's take a look at some of those sins, the characters and actions behind them, and what we can do to avoid falling into the same snares in our own lives.

Gluttony

One of the basic facts about Jay Gatsby is that he throws amazing parties at his house every weekend. Alcohol flows, dancing abounds, and people aren't even invited — they just show up. These partygoers, it would seem, exhibit the sin of gluttony, in that they eat and drink and dance and party to excess, and take extreme advantage of the offerings of a man they don't even know.

How to avoid it: Well, first of all, if you know of someone throwing free, extravagant house parties every weekend, let me know. Following that (and the more realistic notion that you probably don't know someone who's got an open house and an open bar in a mansion on the water), the best thing to do would be to avoid excess. You don't have to avoid the party scene altogether if that's how you have fun, but be mindful that too much of anything can be bad for you.

Greed

In Gatsby, we see many characters who are a bit more than well-off. Both Gatsby and the Buchanans (Tom and Daisy) live in lavish waterfront homes, yet they still yearn for more. It seems that no one in The Great Gatsby is truly content with their current status — everyone is constantly on the lookout for what they can grab hold of next.

Go, read the rest...

CatholicYouthMinistry.com has an interesting piece on how to make the best of summer. Have a look...

The things being discussed in this video could have fascinating youth ministry implications...

You might have heard of Chris Hadfield if you read the news in the last few days. He was the charismatic Canadian commander of the International Space Station, who has just returned to earth. He got famous while he was in space for his regular broadcasts and also for being the first person to record a music video in space - David Bowie's Space Oddity.

Anyway... here is Hadfield from a few weeks back talking about how to achieve your objectives and find happiness in life. It's a good resource.

The Catholic Herald has an interesting piece about St. Pancras, whose feast the Church celebrated a few days back. Well, actually it didn't because the feast fell on a Sunday. But usually, May 12th is all about Pancras!

We don't normally re-post pieces about saints. For one things, there are tonnes of them on the web, but this piece about Pancras caught my eye. He was beheaded at the age of just 14 for refusing to renounce his faith. In an age where young people often struggle to even make it to Mass, that's quite an impressive. Maybe even something to mention to your young people next time you meet. Check it out...

Often, when something isn't that good, the reason is because nobody actually knows what good looks like. If a ship has no idea where it's meant to be heading then of course it's going to be permanently lost, and it's the same with any form of youth ministry. If we don't know what we're trying to do, then we're very unlikely to do it.

That's one problem: that we don't know what good or what success look like. An alternative, yet very connected, problem is that we think we do know what it looks like but that we're woefully wrong.

With reference to the last post in this series, I think this is why I don't like the whole 'sowing seeds' thing. Sure, seeds may well get sown and they may well grow, but all too often we allow ourselves to see 'sowing seeds' as our aim and our mark of success when in fact it is nothing more than a vague, unrealised hope. Add to that the armies of youth ministers who see success as an event going well or as having some positive conversations and you start to build up a picture. Not a picture of failure as much as a picture of excuses which permit us not to even contemplate failure.

So, what are we trying to do in Catholic Youth Ministry? What does success look like?

To put it simply, success looks like committed young Catholics. Catholics who practice their faith by receiving the Sacraments, who have a lively prayer-life, who make their faith the key part of their decision-making, who live by the Church's teachings, and who are willing to say both to themselves and to the world that their faith is the centre of their lives.

That's what success looks like. And if your ministry is successful, then it is taking apathetic, lapsed Catholics, or even complete unbelievers, and turning them into nothing less than that.

Of course, we all know that. But then, we allow ourselves to swallow excuses along the way. We allow ourselves to settle for half of that or for the hope that we have sown a seed that might, maybe, perhaps, one day, turn into something vaguely approaching that.

One of my favourite parts of the Gospels is the story of the seventy two from Luke's Gospel. Jesus sends them out to preach and they return saying 'we saw Satan fall.' I just love that line. The excitement and the joy of the encounters they had must have been amazing. They trusted the Gospel to do it's job and they saw amazing things. It's a great model for ministry. What they didn't say when they returned was, 'well, we had some good conversations and ran some good sessions, and we really think that when they've got married and had kids some of them might come to back!'. No. They ministered, and they saw results!

At this point there are two distinct dangers. The first is to be frustrated when we don't always see immediate results. After all, even Jesus couldn't convince everybody. He and his apostles had to shake the dust from their feet more than a few times. So, the first danger is to think that we always have to see immediate results. The second is to use that as an excuse for never seeing immediate results.

It can be done. If you don't believe it can then you're in the wrong job!

More to follow...

About a year ago, I wrote a piece arguing that this summer's World Youth Day is going to be unpopular in the West. It got a lot of attention at the time, as I recall. Most people seemed to agree, with only a small contingent of the World-Youth-Day-is-the-only-thing-that-matters crowd burning me in effigy!

Anyway, I was interested this morning to read that the German Bishops are apparently now actively discouraging minors from going to Rio. Apparently the safety concerns have made them just a little too squeamish to go through with backing it!

While it doesn't actually change anything in terms of what we already knew about this year's event (there won't be many Westeners there, and those who do go will come back with stories of crime!) the fact that a Bishops' Conference is actively telling it's under-18s not to go to World Youth Day is an interesting. More than that, it's likely to raise questions for the future. Questions about the wisdom of holding the event in cities which so much of the world are fearful of, and perhaps even questions about the future of World Youth Day as a huge, single event.

For a while now, we have been one of many voices pushing the Vatican to take a serious look at the satellite model of World Youth Day, with lots of linked events in different cities around the world. It's an idea that really could work!