Back in Australia

Sorry for being so long in forwarding this blog.

Now I am back in Australia in my community. My details are:

Br John Moylan

Christian Brothers' Community

62 Northern Avenue

West Beach 5024

SA

Australia

Phone: +62 (0) 88 355 3299

E-Mail: johnhmoylan@hotmail.com

It is true that it is great to be back in my community at West Beach, a beachside suburb of Adelaide. I am a native of Adelaide, and I have lived in Adelaide the vast majority of years since 1965 although I have had two years in WA (Aquinas and CBC, Fremantle), six months in Rome, one and a half years at Fordham University, New York City, studying in the Graduate School of Education there and living in the Christian Brothers' Community at All Hallows Institute in the South Bronx, most of two years in the 1990s studying at the St Mary's Strathfield Campus, Sydney, and, finally until June 6th of this year for five and two thirds of the last seven years at Chavagnes International College in France.

It is just as true that I miss as greatly Chavagnes International College as I enjoy being back in Australia. I miss the pupils Mr McDermott and the staff, very much the wonderful Catholic, happy spirit which dominates life at the school there. It is an exceptional Catholic school, centred on daily Mass. Our Lord's command to love God with all one's heart, mind and strength, and one's neighbours as oneself are the bread and butter of life there.

It is truly a great Catholic college where the liturgy, traditional Catholic practices (eg dailyMass, Gregorian chant, beautifully inspiring Catholic choral pieces and hymns, wonderfully inspiring Mass serving, Benediction, the honouring of the Liturgical seasons and saints' feast days, devotion to Our Lady etc are highlighted in the way they should be. Far from turning boys away God and the Church, the boys are brought together. Surely there could hardly be a school in the world where boys are closer to one another or closer to Our Lord and His Blessed Mother than they are at Chavagnes.

I hope to be able to return to Chavagnes in January for another period of service after renewing my batteries, and celebrating my Diamond Jubilee of my entrance to the Christian Brothers Juniorate at Strathfield in NSW at the beginning of 1950. Until then I hope to write for publication as I was when I received an invitation to be a guest of the school in the School year commencing in 2002 for a year or a term or two, a year or two which turned into being of serice to the school for the period mentioned above.

The topics I am mulling over at this stage are:

Catholic Schools and the Year of the Priest

Catholic Schools and Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life

The document of the recently retired Bishop of Lancaster, Bishop ODonohue entitled: Fit For Mission? Schools

Catholc School and Legitimate Expectations of parents if the Catholic School if it is to effectively train its students to live out their Baptismal Calling

Chavagnes International College and its liturgical and Prayer Life.

The Place of the Liturgical Year, day to day feast days of Our Lord, Our Lady, the Angels and Saints in a Catholic School

The Importance of Caring for Others, especially the Most in Need, for truly Catholic Education

Listening to the successor of St Peter and its Importance for the Church's Divine Mission

I am still finding my way here in my community at West Beach which is comprised of Brs Pat Guidera, John McGee and myself. Brs Pat and John are wonderfully kind, good, holy men with a sense of humour. Both are older than I and have various health problems, but their happy, thoughtful, patient, uncomplaining manner and courage are wonderful gifts to bring to our little community. They give me something to live up to. I am trying to get into a routine after the highly structured life at Chavagnes. We are in a suburban house with a room reserved as a chapel, and with the Blessed Sacrament only five steps from my room. There is housework, shopping to be done, letters and emails to be written, Mass and Confession some distance away, community prayers to be said, TV to be watched, various meetings, funerals to attend, recreation with the other brothers to be enjoyed, mainly watching TV together and chatting, my walking (an hour a da) or half an hour of running and physical exercises every third day. It is a quiet life after Chavagnes, and needs to be managed in a balanced way. It is much more satisfying now I have myself more organised, but being in the same small house is very different from the vibrant life enriched by having many happy young peoplea round as at Chavagnes.

Thank you to my friends in the Norther Hemisphere who have sent me emails. One from Alex Morrison, a Foundation Student at Chavagnes, reminded me that even though we are searated by distance we are united with Our Lord, especially in the Mass, and in that union we are very much united with one despite the tyranny of distance. by the way, Alex has just completed a brilliant course at Oxford and is entering the Norbertines in England any day now.

Near the end of the school year

I haven't entered any blogs for a while, and I have had plenty to blog about. unfortunately I will not have time towrite much.

First of all, I will mention how proud I have been to be responsible for the preparation of our seven Year 8 for the UK Junior Mathematics Challenge. They did themselves proud by winning three Gold Certificates and two Silver Certificates. Over 240,000 Year 8 students enter the challenge sponsored by over 3,500 schools overwhelmingly from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The challenge is aimed at the top third of Year 8 students from these countries, and many schools enter a best third or less of their mathematics students.

A Gold Certificate is awarded to the top 6% scorers, a Silver Certicate to the next 13%, and the next 21% win a Bronze Certificate. That 42% of our students won Gold, awarded to the top 6% of the entrants, and 71% won Gold or Silver, which are awarded to the top 19% of all those sitting, is an outstanding result.

Congratulations to Maximilian Micallef-Eynaud, Jean-Baptiste Suchet and Marc de Menibus our Gold Certificate winners, and Jacques de Guibert and Pierre-Antoine Argouarc'h, our Silver Certicate winners on doing so magnificently. Maximilian is from Malta, and the other four boys are from France. The French boys had only a few words of English when they came to the college between eight and twenty months before sitting for the challenge, so their results are even more marvellous when it is realised that the challenge, in part, calls for a high degree comprehension of English even for native English speakers.

Just a year older than the boys mentioned above is another French boy who came to the college only in September 2008, and who is a brilliant mathematics student. He likes mathematics so much that when possible he worked on past papers of past maths challenges, and very much helped in the preparation of the boys for the challenge. We are very grateful then to Antoine Haentjens for this.

Indeed, I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to do my best to help the boys here in the maths challenge and in other ways, especially, of course, in their formation of strong, committed Followers of Christ devoted to the Church.

We are in the last week of term now. Last week, the boys and some staff spent two nights at the Benedictine Abbey of Fontgambau. Seventy monks are there, the great majority, young and middle-aged. A few years ago a group of 18 monks from Fontgambeau left together to make a daughter house in the USA. It makes a great impression on the boys to see so many fit, happy and peaceful-looking men spending hours each day in prayer, knowing they are doing this day after day, week aftr week and year after year. I didn't go this time because I needed the time to organise several things before leaving Chavagnes International College on July 6th.

This week we have our sports day, a much looked-forwarded to event, and on Friday at 4pm we have our speech afternoon followed by the girls' school production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, a buffet meal and the college's first ball. It will be great to see on this occasion some past students, including Anna Andrews from Wagga Wagga from the girls school who will be here with her parents.

There are some busy and exciting days ahead. Sad ones too when I will be once again saying goodbye to students whom I will miss very much.

Thomas Tallis

Today after Communion , the college choir, sang in several parts, "If You Love Me" by Thomas Tallis. It was glorious. The boys will be hummming or singing it informally for some considerable time, and will remember it for the rest of their lives. From the considerable number of the lovely classical, liturgical works which they learn and then sing at their Sunday Mass over the year their lives are greatly enriched. They are rightly proud and grateful for this wonderful opportunity to be immersed in some of the glories of their Catholic heritage.

The Latin Gregorian chant for the Mass, "Cum Jubile", was also well done. Every boy in for the weekend actively participate either as a server or chorister, as is the case Sunday after Sunday at the college's 11 am High Mass unless Father Talbot, the college's Chaplain is ill or away. The boys also assist at daily Mass, which like the Sunday Mass, is in the Ordinary Form but is not a High Mass.

There is normally singing of the Kyrie, Sanctus etc during the week also and a hymn or two.

On Saturday we experience Mass in the Extraordinary Form (the Latin rite used for centuries before Vatican II) because some of our parents, staff and boys for a variety of good reasons prefer this form. It is deemed by the school something good for the boys to experience a form of the Mass, which was loved and esteemed by numerous saints and ordinary Catholics for centuries. On Saturday this form of Mass is sometimes said as a Low Mass and other times as a High Mass. There are boys who can act as a Master of Ceremonies for High Masses in the old or new rite, and on the three occasions Bishops have said High Mass Form here there have been differnt boys who act as Master of Ceremonies perfectly with impeccable decorum.

Every boy learns how to serve Mass, and has his turn in doing so. Several boys can look after the sacristy perfectly. This might sound to be too good to be true, but such is the case. And the boys are perfectly natural and very good Catholic boys. Interested parents, educators and others for appropriate reasons are able to come and see. I have no dount Chavagnes is a really unique school.

Many a modern Catholic boy would imagine that such an immersion into the life of the Church would be boring and overdone. Nobody complains here. To the contrary boys here realise how fortunate they are. The practice of daily Mass was the cornerstone of the institutions for boys run by St John Bosco, and also a requirement of Catholic boarding schools for centuries with normally great results.

Boys

Today I had the pleasure of looking in on Mr Joe Aldridge's Year 8 maths class when he was teaching them above the level required of his age group of boys turning 12 or 13 in this school year.

It was an absolute pleasure to see boys so alive, enthusiastic about learning nets, the volume and other measures about cones after, in one lesson, having learned about pyramids, cubes and other shapes. They did not need to be given the formulae to help them do this as they were able to work them out themselves by dissecting various shapes in the cones.

I was enthralled by the concentration and clear thnking etc involved in this. They enjoyed themselves in doing this, and I was thrilled to see in operation one of the keenest classes I can remember. There were six boys in the class today, not one of them with English as their first language, but the lesson was perfectly well understood in English with much involvement with the teacher. These boys are excitedly waiting for the UK maths challenge cut off points which will be announced with three boys expecting to obtain gold certificates, Max (Malta), John-Baptiste and Marc (France) Two other French boys, Jacques and Pierre-Antoine, are expecting a silver or bronze, depending on the cut-off points, as is as another French boy who is also doing well, Matthieu, as is Maxime (Russian his first language and also Spanish as he lives on Majorca).

It is a joy to see these boys so keen, alive and whole-hearted about their schoolwork in Mr Nicholas Lloyd's Biology also, the other class I am also sometimes invited into as an observer. I cannot get over the enthusiasm of these boys. I am unsure how much they realise how fortunate they are to be in such an environment so supportive of their learning, and in classes where they get so much indvidual attention.

I am approaching the end of my Easter holidays now and it is only Holy Saturday. On Tuesday I return to Chavagnes via liverpool, Nantes andand Ryanair.

I have had a wonderful holiday tempered a little in that I combined the holday with Lent, a time of penance. Nevertheless, God in His Providence allowed the holidays at this time, amd I made the most f them within the parameters mentioned.

I am attending all the liturgical celebrations of the Easter Triduum at St Mary's University College, which is less than 200 yards from where I stay during breaks at the Christian Brothers' community at Twickenham. The singing is good, but quite obviously the lovely little choir there has not the time to practise several part singing as does the choir at Chavagnes.

Yesterday I saw and heard on TV the singing at the state Church funeral of those poor people who lost their lives in the terrible eartquake in Italy. The lovely Gregorian Kyrie Eleison repeated there would be well known to the boys at Chavagnes. The Gregorian Chant sung in part at daily Mass and more fully on sunday Masses, and the glorious rendition of Compline o Monday nights are just two features of the singing accomplished there by the boys, all of whom are involved.

Please excuse the speed with which I write these blogs. I want to let my friends and others know about some of my experiences at the unique school in which I serve in a voluntary capacity, thanks to the kindness of Mr McDermott and the Christian Brothers who have given me the opportunity to serve as a Christian Brother there. I am concerned because I have had published in Australia and the United Kingdom several articles drawing on my wide, long experience and the academic qualifications obtained at four universities, including Cardinal Avery Dulles' university, namely the Jesuit Fordham University in New York City. I do not want my blogs which are not crafted with all the time and care which I put into published articles to spoil my reputation as a writer. I do want people to know what an excellent school Chavagnes in it educational programme which gives such an opportunity for truly all-round, Catholic education. It by any measure is really outstanding at that.

There is a Christian Brother, who has spent several years in Brother's Schools in Africa, staying at Twickenham for a few days on his way back to his native Gilbraltar. He remembers Archbishop Nicholls when he was at his old school, a Christian Brothers' School, St Mary's in Crosby. The number of past students from that college who have made a great contribution to Brtitish life is very large. One such is the current president of Trinity College, Oxford, according to either The Tablet or The Catholic Herald.

Archbishop Nicholls, the new Archbishop of Westmisnter, is like the present Archbishop, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, a past student of the Christian Brothers.

I have much more to say but no time at present to stay them. I wanted to speak about an article about British education in The Daily telegraph recently and an article by Archbishop Nicholls, in which he comments about Catholic education Au revoir! A Bientot! More to come.

Language, dear oh dear.

Part of my time on holiday at Twickenham has been spent reading Le Monde, Le Figaro and the readings for Lenten Masses in French. There was never any doubt that I would pass my New South Wales HSC exam (then called the Leaving Certificate) in French. I was helped that oral French was not required in this state in 1952, at least.

However, when I came to France in 2002 I realsied how much Frech I did not know. I certainly know much more now and can often enough carry on some conversations in French. On quite a few topics, there is much too-ing and fro-ing. One of my problems is picking up the French sounds, but I also have problems picking up English sounds the waysome English, Irish and Scottish people use them. If only thery spoke with an Aussie accent!

The medium of communication and teaching is overwhelmingly English, and the main examination we head for is the most challenging and most highly-regarded English examination, the International Cambridge A levels, and on the way the International Cambridge GCSE and AS levels. We have had some great results at these exams. For example, two sons of teachers, boys who had just a few months before turning ten years obtained A stars. They were a litle too young to be taught at the college, attended the local Catholic French school, and studied English at the college on Wednesdays.

French primary schools do not have school on Wednesdays, their middle schools have either no school on Wednesday or a half-day, and high schools have no school on Wednesday afternoons.

I would say perhaps, 90% of our pupils have obtained A stars in French. I can remember only one boy not obtaining at least a B at French, and there were good reasons why this happened. One of the students at our sister school of La Bonne Nouvelle, came for only one term before returning as arranged when she was enroled for highly regarded Geelong Grammar School, Prince Charles, old school in Australia, and is topping her class in French, the last I heard.

It is a puzzle to me why more English-speaking students, who are looking for a Catholic education where their faith will be protected and strengthened by the example of staff and students, and want to have a second, and even a third language, do not give Chavagnes a try for at least a year or two or preferably much more. Researchers, professionals in many fields, business people and those seeking a wider perspective in life, are enormously enriched by a really good knowlege of another language.

Some of the boys were 12 years of age amd others who sat, with great success for the French examinations well before the usual age for doing so. We have other boys, not natives of the countries in question, who can speak Spanish and German fluently, and sat for examination in these subjects well before time with great success. I have travelled from Stansted to Liverpool Street enjoying hearing one of our 12 year-old past English students speaking fluently in Spanish to a Spanish family. He did not know any Spanish before he came to Chavagnes less than two years before.

As for the French boys who come to the college they learn to speak and write English in a year, and one can talk to them about anything in English as easily as speaking to the Englsih boys. At the end of two years these boys, who are as young as 11 when they arrive, they are delightedt to be speaking English fluently. One Spanish boys obtined a high grade, in A level English, and graduated to be now studying International Law at a prestigious Spanish university near his home in Pamplona now.

Of course, the students mentioned above and all the students at the college benefit immeasurably in other ways through their immersion in a number of languages and acqaintance with other European Catholic cultures.

St Patrick's Day

There is an article in this morning about Trappatoni, the Italian manager of the Irish soccer team for the World Cup. Everything has been going well for him and Irealnd so far. His birthday is St Patrick's Day.

We had a very enjoyable celebration for St Patrick's Day on March 17th. Chavagnes, no doubt is the place to be to celebrate feast days. St David's Day, St Andrew's Day, St Geroge's Day, St Cecilia's Day (the Patroness of music) are just some of the celebrations which are celebrated by a party with music, concert, party games etc as appropriate for the feast.

On St Patrick's Day, the dining room and tables had plenty of green, Irish flags etc. Hail Glorious St Patrick, the Breasplate of St patrick, and numerous Irish songs resounded around the college with the usual joy and pride found throughout Ireland and the English-speaking world on that day. "The Wild Colonial Boy", an Australian Irish song, was one of the songs which rent the air.

My father was Irish and I am very proud of having dual citizenship. You know year after year the weather on St patrick's Day, to the very best of my memory, has been glorious wherever I have been and has matched my joy on this wonderful day.

I love many things about St Patrick and I have always felt very close to him, the saint whose name I took at Confirmation. One of the great reasons I love him is because of his great love for souls. He wanted to work and pray to save souls, and dedicated his life to doing so. He was kidnapped from probably Wales as a boy of about 12, These Irish pirates sold him into a life of slavery. The souls of the people who were responsible for this cruelty were so appreciated by him, he escaped, was ordained bishop returned to Ireland. He recognised the value of each soul and left no stone unturned to save as many souls as he could there with wonderful results which have lasted, not only in Ireland, right up to the present day.

St Patrick thank you and please please for Ireland and for souls throughout the world. Please say a special prayer for Chavagnes International College