On Saturday 2nd March, a group of us from St Gregory’s joined up with St Brendan’s and St Augustine’s Colleges to travel together to the biggest Catholic Youth Event of the year at Wembley Arena – ‘Flame’. We arrived at 11:30am and were very excited to experience what it had to offer. None of us had ever been before and couldn’t wait to learn about this year’s theme ‘significance’.
When we found our seats, we were amazed that there were another 8332 people there with us. The day kicked off with some rap music by famous Christian rap artist, Guvna B, which was greatly enjoyed by Ewan, Kaylum and Atticus. We then had a brilliant sing-along led by the worship singer Tim Hughes, and listened to talks from Guvna B, blogger Emma B and the inpiring Jean Vanier.
Emma B discussed how she found her faith and how Jesus had helped her through her life time. Afterwards, Maddy, Nancy and myself (Nicole) found Emma and spoke to her about her blog which is called ‘Girl got faith’. We spoke about the pressures within social media and how it can have a negative impact on our self esteem and distract us from faith.
The talk from Jean Vanier particularly resonated with Nancy as “he shared the message that young people can be the change we want to see in the world if we just ‘unlock the promise in our hearts'”. Another particular special part of the day was when a letter was read out to everyone that Pope Francis had written especially for us on the occasion of Flame. After lunch there were more talks including from an American preacher called Robert Madu who was hugely popular and had everyone laughing.
The final part of the day was a short period of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and a final liturgy led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols and a Gospel choir. It was followed by another musical performance from Tim Hughes which got us all sing and dancing along so much! It was a brilliant day and one which we hugely enjoyed and would recommend to anyone interested in the future.
Nancy and Nicole
