A video and a press release from CBCEW:



In a video message released ahead of the anniversary of the Papal Visit and Home Mission Sunday (18 September) Archbishop Vincent Nichols has invited Catholics to participate in a special weekend of celebration.

He said: "I hope that you will find time as a family or as a group of friends or as a group of youngsters, to get together, to remember the stories of that weekend. Find your photographs, have another look at the DVD. Maybe you made home recordings of episodes of the Papal Visit? Maybe some of you went and travelled to these events? On this anniversary Saturday could I please ask you to delve into that memory bank and bring out those treasured memories again and enjoy them. Sit down together and have a Pope Benedict party on Saturday 17 September."

The anniversary weekend is made up of three parts: Friday 16 September is the re-establishment of the practice of Friday penance, on the Saturday families and parishes are encouraged to gather for a special celebration and Sunday is Home Mission Sunday which is an annual day of prayer and affirmation of the mission of the Church. The Archbishop said:

"I think this Home Mission Sunday on the anniversary of the Papal Visit is a huge opportunity for us to remember again the graces and the energy that surrounded the visit of Pope Benedict and to take fresh encouragement from that.... We need confidence, we need a renewed wind of the Holy Spirit in our backs so that we don't look down, we don't look backwards, we face the future, we face forward confident in the message that the Lord gives us, that the Holy Father affirmed within us. Now that message is essentially about our search for holiness through service of Christ, and the service of Christ and the search for holiness finds an important expression in the role that we play in our everyday lives outside of Church, in our homes, in our places of work, where with confidence we put forward the vision of faith in practice. We might not say very much a lot of the time, but we put it forward in action and when we're asked, we're ready to speak about our faith sensitively and carefully. So ‘Fresh Wind in Our Sails’ for home mission, that's our theme."

On the afternoon of 18 September the Bishops will gather in Westminster Cathedral for a Mass of thanksgiving. The Archbishop invited Catholics to read again what Pope Benedict said during his visit as a guide for their next steps:

"I hope that over this weekend you will dwell on some of the key themes that he called us to be - witnesses in the good work of education, calling us to a sanctity of life, to holiness from a young age, encouraging young people to play their part in the life of the Church, reminding us of the great dignity of being a priestly people called to consecrate the world to God, and of course, all the attention that he brought to the elderly, to the vulnerable, to those who have suffered abuse in our midst and, of course, to Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman."

"So study, prayer, joyful remembrance of the events of the visit, for all of these things you'll find help and support, so let's do that and make this Home Mission Sunday, this anniversary of the Holy Father's visit really very special."

The Archbishop's comments echoed those made by Bishop Kieran Conry, the bishop who has national responsibility for mission: http://www.catholicchurch.org.uk/Catholic-Church/Media-Centre/Press-Releases/Press-Releases-2011/Fresh-Wind-In-Our-Sails-Call-to-celebrate-and-share-testimonies-of-grace-to-mark-the-Papal-Visit-anniversary

The Archbishop's video message is available from:

Archbishop Nichols Papal Visit Anniversary Message

For more information about Home Mission Sunday and the anniversary celebrations please see: http://www.thepapalvisit.co.uk/Anniversary-2011. If you'd like to know more about the work of home mission in England and Wales see: www.catholicchurch.org.uk/homemission. Parishes are invited to have a second collection to support the work of mission on 18 September.

I thought it would be fun to have a thread where we share examples of silly things we have done while on pilgrimage/ group outings/ evenings etc etc.

To get the ball rolling, here is a video I took on Monday of some of our WYD group doing the Sprinkler Dance on a BA flight from Madrid to London!!

It would be great to share our experiences of English speaking Catechesis sessions - either here or on Twitter.

We went to Palacia de Deportes this morning - the English Speaking hub - for Catechesis given by the Sisters for the Gospel of Life and Cardinal Pell from Australia. The former were fantastic. The latter was a bit dry and intellectual for a lot of our YP, but I personally really enjoyed his talk. But, hey... it's not about me, and the YP found him difficult.

Mass followed. It was nice, but the music was quite traditional and it left a lot of our YP cold. ('Are we going to have any lively Masses this week?')

All in all a good experience. Very popular too. I think a variation might be good though.

Our Bishop (+Kieran) gave a catechesis at another location which was apparently a bit more lively liturgy-wise. He is doing another tomorrow, but I'm not sure where.

So yeah... any thoughts on catechesis from those on the ground would be super-awesome. You can tweet me too @RCYouthWorker

We've arrived in Madrid, settled in to our Hotel, felt thoroughly roasted and had a great day.

Looking forward to the opening Mass tomorrow and the Catechesis coming up. Also looking forward to seeing the other pilgrims.

Here are some photos from the A&B youth service site, which I am helping to update:

This is a photo I took as I got up on the stage to play the guitar at the festival of nations in Salamanca. Very very awesome indeed...


This morning we said a sad goodbye to the people of the Montemayor region who have looked after us so well...


Enough said... Sadly I had to return my awesome hire car to Madrid airport. Covered almost 1,000km visiting our groups and moving around the diocese.


We arrived in Madrid to be met by our Bishop. Here are some pilgrims looking through their bags!


More will follow...

Whenever young people are in the news - which they kind of are right now! - I get all sorts of contacts and questions about my take on it all.

Well, I run a web site. That doesn't mean I have all the answers - or even a lot of them. There are no easy solutions to all this and there are certainly no easy explanations. Since people keep asking though, here are some views and perspectives:

1. This isn't Paris or Cairo. It's just people who want Plasma TVs. Armchair social commentary is largely spurious. This is just Good vs. Evil. End of.

2. The massive cuts to youth services didn't cause this by itself, but well, it can't have helped.

3. Expect a massive injection of cash into youth work in the coming months and years! Think about Albermarle and the 1870s (for those who know their history of youth work). Youth work is only funded when there is a problem and this is certainly that. I am not rubbing my hands together here and trying to see a silver lining. I'm just making the point that it's coming and we need to prepare.

4. I sincerely hope that people don't blame this on young people as a whole. The vast, vast majority are lovely and amazing people.


I would write more, but I'm off to Spain tomorrow.

Let's keep it in our prayers. My prayers are with the police today especially.

One of the best things I have been involved in over the last few years in Lourdes has been leading L'Animation at the baths. (Small picture of me to the right together with a load of Redshirts!)

There's always a queue of people waiting at the baths, and groups take turns to lead them in prayer. The Rosary is normally part of it, often interspersed with traditional music, contemporary music or any number of other reflections and prayers. It really is a great showcase of different ways of expressing faith.

Usually we do worship music, but we are normally there with another group doing something else, so we alternate with them. One song, then one decade of the rosary etc. Sometimes we find ourselves leading the rosary too.

Anyway, I've prepared a sheet for our groups giving some key phrases for singing, as well as the key prayers of the Roasry in the common languages you encounter. See below. It doesn't give the whole of the rosary in those languages but just the main prayers. In Lourdes, people usually get the idea of what's going on anyway. If you're surrounded by a group of Italians (you usually are!) you just have to start the Rosary in Italian and they pick it up easily enough.

It's a very basic resource, but hopefully useful. Thanks to Lucy in the A&B Youth Office who helped me prepare it.

A study being carried by BBC News today is telling us that binge drinking can harm the brains of teenage girls. My first thought when I read that was one of apathy. It's an obvious conclusion - even if the research is new - and it's an issue in youth work which is a old as just about any other.

Somehow though, it got me thinking. Maybe it's just because it's Sunday morning and I'm a little bored. Or maybe it's because I really detest the idea of an unsolvable problem.

Th prevailing wisdom (read: apathy) seems to be that drugs and alcohol are just something we'll always have to deal with. There is no strategy that works 100% and there are some young people who are just going to get far too involved in both.

If anyone else is finding their Sunday going a little slowly, then their thoughts would be interesting...

I have just been reading a rather amusing post on MoreThanDodgeball.com featuring a few funny posters with rules for summer camp. Like this one:


This all got me thinking about rules.

When running projects, we have to have rules. Things fall to pieces without them. But the challenge is not to get so OCD about it all that you kill all the fun.

So, I was wondering what sensible rules you make for your projects and how you enforce them...

Has anybody seen the national symbol on it's recent tour?

Personally, I have spotted it twice. I saw it in Bristol last month when I went to do some workshops on the Clifton Diocesan family day.

And just today, I had a rather good spotting when Ray (our DYO) delivered it to my school!! It's in our Chapel now and will be with us for Mass in the morning. Our weekly Friday Mass will be great tomorrow. As well as the symbol being there, it's also the feast of the dedication of the Chapel...


Let me know if you see it anywhere...

I am currently part of a Catholic Young Adults group, and at 33, one of the running jokes in the group is that I won't be a member of it for that much longer! There is, of course, a disagreement as to where young adult ministry ends, but that's not really the point. The point is that in the Church, we tend to focus too much on a narrow idea of age group ministry. We have childrens' groups which end at, say 11. Then we have junior youth groups, senior groups, YA groups and so on and so forth. Each with a cut-off age and, often, a set programme and set leadership team.

I don't have a problem with 'streaming' or 'groups'. I think that taking a subset away from the congregation at various times, and for various needs can enrich the congregation massively. But a friend of mine recently suggested to me that there is a better way to work with young people. That being, that we look at our parishes and tailor our approach to each particular group of friends, rather than think in terms of 'well, they are now senior age group age, so we need to set up a group.'

At present, parishes with good effective youth ministries (yeah, okay - but that's another discussion!) shift YP between groups as they get older, but the friend I was speaking to last week said that she has always prefered to take a group as they are and to journey with them and meet their needs all the way through. Once they come of age (whatever that really means) they then simply look at the next group and reinvent the wheel. Programmes will change over the years, as will leaders, but the point is that whatever is thrown at that group, is thrown at them because they are that group, rather than because they are at a certain age.

And, of course, there can be multiple things running at the same time.

For an OCD brain like mine (not literally) this seems a little disorganised, but really I think that if this approach can be perfected then it would be far better. For one thing, it means that our young people get a bespoke ministry and not a package, and for another it would mean that those working with them would need to work hard, before and during, to discern their needs and where they fitted in to the parish community.

When my young adult group all grow up and are no longer young adults, I hope that we remain a group. Of course, we won't be 'the young adults group' anymore. We'll probably just be us. But then, that's probably how God sees us, so why not?

[just a thought]

Well, it's that time of year again... Trinity Sunday is only a few days away, and with it comes the task of explaining the concept of the Holy Trinity in a way which is both accessible and theologically accurate. Doing either of these things is relatively easy. But doing both together is one of those things which really serves to measure how good we are as youth ministers.

So, it would be interesting to hear people's ideas, thoughts and tricks.

I always tell YP that the trinity is best described as three ways in which the one God acts. This doesn't work so well for the theologians though

The intro blurb from the Wikipedia article, for instance, is fascinating for us but probably not so great for teens:

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons (Greek: ὑποστάσεις) — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — distinctly coexisting in unity as co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial (Greek: ὁμοούσιοι), or of one being (Greek: οὐσία). The Trinity itself is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith.

According to this doctrine, God exists as three persons but is one God, meaning that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have exactly the same nature or being as God the Father in every way.[4] Whatever attributes and power God the Father has, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have as well.[4] "Thus, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are also eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely loving, omniscient."

The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and took substantially its present form by the end of the 4th century as a result of controversies concerning the proper sense in which to apply to God and Christ terms such as "person", "nature", "essence", and "substance"


Photo: Flicks.com user LivingOS