Campus Ecclesia-National Catholic Retreat in Rennes, France

Salut à tous !

So I lied, this blog is not going to be about my adventure in Paris last weekend, but it'll be about this past weekend in Rennes at the National Catholic Student Retreat called Campus Ecclesia. Hopefully I'll have time to write one on Paris soon. School's just been keeping me busy.

But first, Grenoble had it's first snowfall! Wooohoooo!

From my res

The mountain with my res

So! Friday night, I prepared myself for an 8.5 hour drive to Rennes “par car” (which means by bus?) according to google maps. We left Grenoble (a bus of about 30 students from Grenoble) at 7 PM and arrived in Rennes TWELVE HOURS LATER at 7am for the beginning of the retreat!

Le car?

My "sleeping bag"

About 2500 students and a bunch of priests and nuns came, basically a giant, Catholic party or a mini World Youth Day. 

Rennes (the city) is located in a region called Bretagne, which is similar to Acadian Canada, so there was traditional music and dancing from the area to greet us when we got there. It was neat! Plus baguettes with butter and caramel...yummmm! 

French streets are so pretty!

There was a talk given by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin which was AWESOME (or at least, what I could understand of it with my level of French and tired-ness). Then he celebrated Mass with about 30 other priests and 2 other bishops! Pretty sweet!

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin

This was followed by our flashmob outside (official video to come later!) It was huuuuuuuge!

On the right: a priest practicing for the flashmob

I met up with Siobhain from Peterborough! She's studying at Nantes (an hour and a half from Rennes) through Trent. It was great to see her!

We had our ateliers, which are basically smaller workshops. I chose one for exchange students. It was amazing listening to people from all over the world talk about their experience in France. A common theme was racism, which unfortunately still exists in France and has affected many of the students. It was definitely a culturally enriching afternoon. Particularly interesting: hearing talks by a Masters Psychology student from Haiti and a Dental student from Peru. Something that shocked a guy from Africa: seeing white people living in poverty in the metro.

Catholic exchange students at our atelier

There was all different kinds of prayer throughout the city. We had access to all the buses and metro system, so the transit was a lot like World Youth Day (praise and worship everywhere). On my way to adoration, I obviously got lost, so I ended up going to the Cathedral where there was Taizé music. It’s really popular with the youth right now, it was beautiful.

For dinner that night, we had crepes, wrapped around a sausage. Might sound gross, but it was actually not so bad. These are some of the students from Isèreanybody, the Catholic group from Grenoble, who I ate with that night.

Side note: before I came to France, when I thought of crepes I’d often picture them covered with fruit and sweet stuff, but they also have crepes salées, which are like “savoury crepes”. You can eat them with meat and vegetables and all sorts of things. Last Thursday was La Chandeleur (A feast day for the Presentation of Christ in the temple) where French people all eat crepes (I haven’t figured out the connection yet, but any reason is good enough for me to eat crepes!) Sophie from Germany and I made crepes with vegetables and ham this week. They were delicious!

Les crepes salées with ham and vegetables

My German friend Sophie!

That night, there was a huge concert with EssentCiel and Glorious. I hung out with Siobhain and her friends from Trent. What a party!

Anyone who was at WYD in Spain will like this clip…

The Cardinal at the Concert!

Adoration was cancelled that night because it snowed… ?

We slept on the floor in a classroom at McMaster University that night...just kidding, but doesn’t this high school look like Mac? It was the best sleep on the floor I’ve ever had. I was exhausted.

McMaster?

The next day, we began all together in the Cathedral with prayer, then divided up into 5 groups to listen to some more talks. I was too tired to understand. But Im sure they were good talks.

Talks by Brother Maxime, Laurent Gay and Fr. Jean-Michel Amouriaux

We had lunch after that, and again, another huge party. Man, if you want to see my jealous face, you should have seen me watch these dancers. Looked like so much fun! I miss my dance partner

Finally, the Messe d'envoi, which is roughly the "sending-off" Mass, which was at the Cathedral. Beautiful. One thing that so cool about the Catholic Church is the unity. No matter where you are, Canada or France or anywhere in the world, it's the same Mass everywhere! 

It was great meeting more Catholic students from Grenoble!

Our 12 hour drive this time ended up being a 14 hour drive because a student had some minor medical problems (he was fine) and we were behind the salt trucks for a few hours, but I was able to sleep for part of the trip. We left at 5PM and arrived at 7AM Monday morning, just on time for class. What an amazing weekend!

This Friday, I’m heading to IRELAND for the week! I’m flying into Dublin and hoping to see Cork (where my family came from) and Galway. I’ll also be staying with a couple that Maureen (Frank’s sister) lived with for a few months last summer, on their farm. Going to be a fantastic week! I’ll let you know how it goes when I’m back.

À bientôt !




A few months later, at the diocesan house, I found this magazine:

Oh Canada!