Flame Youth Event at Wembley

On Saturday, myself, Mrs O’ Driscoll and Miss Baker accompanied 13 students to FLAME, a Catholic Youth event with over 8000 young people from the UK in attendance at Wembley. The theme of the day was ‘Rise Up’ an echo of the scripture passage describing how Mary, after her visitation by an angel, “arose and went with haste.”

In a pivotal message to the conference, Pope Francis encouraged young people to be empathetic to those around us:
“Be known for prayer, pursuit of justice and common good, love for the poor and social friendship and dare to be different,” he said.

Flame was a vibrant event, with young people cheering and clapping motivational speakers and waving scarves and lights in time to lively music from Adeniké, Guvna B, Faith Child and One Hope Project. Our students were up dancing to all of these acts and were thriving with seeing the Church well and truly alive with Jesus at the centre of it all.

We even had a special guest, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth who urged the young people to build bridges not walls and to be involved in the Church and our world.

He shared his personal story on how angels such as his grandparents and parents guided his faith and gave him the power to rise up. He then asked us to think about the important people in our life by pondering:
“Who were the angels sent to me?”

Fr Dermot Donnelly, a priest of Hexham and Newcastle who died last July, was remembered in a video message from Ant and Dec, speaking from the Saturday Night Takeaway studio.
“He was passionate about young people,” said his brother, Declan Donnelly. Fr Dermott was a key player in the development of CYMFed. We are fortunate enough that his Vocation and hard work lives on through FLAME.

A special moment of the day was having a time of Adoration with all 8,000 people inside the OVO arena. Adeniké led us in the song ‘Jesus we adore you’ by having each side of the room singing different parts in harmony. This was incredibly powerful, as you heard soo many people coming together in praise and worship to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Everyone left the event in high spirits and even had chance to have a chat with Cardinal Vincent Nichols. Students were a credit to themselves and the school, well done!

Miss Farrell
Lay Chaplain