The poster in our church for National Youth Sunday in our diocese lists three workshops. Prayer with Jane Cook, Drama with David Barwick and something to do with CAFOD.

The diocesan website also lists three workshops but something is different. David Barwick is gone, replaced with somebody called Daniel Boyes.

Then the reality dawns.

Could it be that they don't know the names of their own employees?

The National Youth Sunday materials this year are a lot better than last year but there are still some low points. I don't know about you, but every time I see a sight like this my heart sinks...

Yes. Very clever. I see what you did there. You got some bread and you broke it. Now all we need is a bottle of Jacob's Creek and we're all set.

My heart sinks even more when I see novelty experimental prayer suggestions...

1. Eat and pray

Based on part of the WYD theme: “...the living God” (1 Tim 4:10)

You will need

• Lectionary open at Christ the King (B), or a Bible open at John’s Gospel, chapter 18
• Bread, grapes, chocolate, jelly babies etc.

Preparation

Place the book and the food close to each other.

Explanation

Simply ask the young people to eat slowly whilst reading the word of God. This is a good way to form an association - each time they eat that food again they will remember the word of God.

If there are no allergy issues in your group, chocolate is a good choice because it melts slowly in the mouth.

[pdf]

What bothers me about this is the attitude that prayer with young people has to take the form of a novelty activity that somehow hints in the direction of a religious experience but doesn't explicitly consist of, you know, actually praying.

It should really be called "Eat and read" because nowhere in the instructions does it say anything about prayer. Yes, I know, reading the scriptures can be a form of prayer but that in itself needs to be explained and it isn't.

How does it make things inclusive and straight forward to encourage young people to pray in such a way that they will only understand it as prayer if they already know about it beforehand?

National Youth Sunday last year...

National Youth Sunday this year...

Score one for the blogs!

The write up for the Diocesan National Youth Sunday is now up on the Diocesan website.

For the first time in a number of years, the Diocesan National Youth Sunday celebrations took place at a central point and brought young people from all over the Diocese together.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the one in Hull was cancelled and a few of us are very unhappy about it.

The theme of this year’s National Youth Sunday was Reclaim The Future. It was a day about relationships; relationships with God, with the earth and with one another. We were invited, by the resources that the Bishops of England and Wales had provided to reflect on the fact that “I am because we are”.

"I am because we are"... Sounds nice doesn't it. It's an English translation of Ubuntu which apart from being an operating system is also described Wikipedia describes as being a 'a humanist philosophy'.

So, to translate. They were invited by the Bishops of England and Wales to reflect on a humanist philosophy.

What they should have reflected on is "I am because He is" - but that might have been a bit religious.

Young people joined Planet Pulse a live game show with CAFOD finding out how green their lifestyles were and the impact they have on the planet. As the game show cards shot up in response to statements about lifestyle and action, the bigger picture of the small steps of many, was visibly striking.

You mean this Planet Pulse game? The one that says "OUR emissions are causing the changes and they're happening QUICKER!" (even though the scientific consensus says no such thing) and that "we need to keep the temperature rises below 2 degrees C max" (which is a figure somebody pulled out of their bottom.)

In CAFOD’s live Sustainably Studios young people saw an advert created by a young Costa Rican campaigner and listened to a message from Elisa Manuel de Magaia in Mozambique explaining how climate change is affecting her community and why she believes passionately that we all need to focus on the environment and take this message out.

Climate change again... cuz, that's gonna matter when we're all dead.

The young people shared bidding prayers that they had written with help from Jane Cook. Then an extraordinary thing happened. Fr Simon prepared the group for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by explaining what was going to happen and then he left the room to return with Our Lord. The silence that filled the room was inspiring. We sat in silence and darkness, the room was lit only by candles offering our prayer intentions, for ten minutes. This was a new experience for some of the young people who told me afterwards that it was “so cool” and yet something totally different to anything they had experienced before.

Wow! That was extraordinary. Adoration happened - I can scarcely believe it. Well, sincerely, that's really good. Well done whoever made that happen. I hope it will become a more regular feature of youth events.

At the end, Fiona mentions that people had suggested that events like NYS are good for the Diocese and should happen more often. She writes...

That is my intent. I am working currently with different groups of people to make different things happen around the Diocese to ensure that all young people who want to can come and experience God in a way that may be different from the usual ways they do this.

"Different groups of people"... I wonder if any of them don't work in Schools.

[You can read the full writeup here...]

It began with a log fire.

Snow outside, a dining room table pushed out of the way and sitting around on the floor beside a real log fire. That's how it began.

"Do you know why are you here?" Fr Massie asked. I thought that was a bit deep, but it turned out he was checking they knew what Sunday it was. Hands went up, somebody knew that it was the feast of Christ the King and Fr Massie explained that it is also Youth Sunday and that for this occasion the Bishop has recorded a special message.

We sat by the fire and listened to Bishop Drainey's Message to Young People to Mark Youth Sunday 2008 which was maybe a bit high brow in places for some of the younger kids. I thought Fr Massie did a good job afterwards of explaining it. He asked them what they remembered and one girl said "God loved us in to existence".

He made sure they understood three points. That God loved us in to existence and wants us to search for Him, That God has given us gifts and He wants us to use them and finally that the Bishop wants us to meet with him this Lent and it will change our lives.

Next, Fr Massie gave a short talk on two saints who made Christ king of their lives. Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio and Maria Goretti. I had never heard of the former but he is a good Saint. Fr Massie had to tell the latter's story very carefully because some of the children present were quite young so he said only that she was attacked and forgave her attacker (the forgiveness part is the most important part anyway).

After that we went over to the hall for a fun bit of cutting and sticking. The kids made (well, decorated) candles. A good time was had with PVA glue, glitter and shiny shapes.

After the candle making they processed over to the Church, four of them carrying a statue of Christ on one of those, um, statue carrying things - the very same one I once carried Mary on when I were a lad. Here's some of the candles they made...

Lovely. The atmosphere in the church was great as they knelt down for Adoration and Benediction. For me, this is the most important part of the day - when we come before the Lord himself and adore him.

After Benediction we gathered back in the hall for some of Michelle's excellent Chi Rho Cakes...

All in all a great day with a great bunch of kids. Let's end with a wonderful quote from Pope Benedict...

Dear brothers and sisters, this is what interests God. The kingship of history is of no importance to him -- he wants to reign in people's hearts, and from these, in the world: He is the king of the entire universe, but the crucial point, the place where his reign is at risk, is our heart, for there God finds himself encountering our freedom. We, and only we, can block his reign over us, and so we put obstacles to his kingship in the world: in our families, in society, in history. We men and women have the ability to choose which we wish to side ourselves with: either with Christ and his angels or with the devil and his followers, to use the Gospel's exact language. It remains with us to decide whether to practice justice or iniquity, to embrace love and pardon or vendetta and the hatred that kills oneself. From this our personal salvation depends, but so, too, does the salvation of the world. Because here Jesus wants us to associate ourselves with his kingship; because here he invites us to work together for the coming of his Kingdom of love, of justice and of peace. It remains with us to respond to him, not with words, but with deeds: choosing the way of active love and generosity toward our neighbor, we ourselves allow Him to extend his dominion in time and space.... Let us renew with courage our decision to belong to Christ, to bring about in service his Kingdom of justice, of peace and of love.

[link]

I haven't time to blog about the celebrations of Christ the King, National Youth Sunday here in Hull (watch this space). I know that Mulier Fortis didn't have a very good time of it at Blackfen...

I was expecting something a little special for National Youth Sunday...

Alas! I was to be very disappointed. Not only did Fr. Tim say the Mass with his back to the people (thus preventing me from checking whether he had donned a red clown nose for the event) but he also omitted to do the comedy skit after the sermon on the subject of sheep and goats.

Of course, the last straw for me was the fact that I didn't get given any chocolate (Fairtrade or otherwise) ... not even a sniff of a cocoa bean appeared after Communion. Think of the loss of opportunities to exhort the congregation to avoid over-filling kettles and to use low-energy lightbulbs...

So now I'm sulking...

In the meantime, one of the young people who attended the Diocesan gathering in York sent me this clip they recorded on their mobile phone...

Okay... only joking.