This month we hear from Matt
from Hertfordshire, aged 14

Likes?
Football, TV, computers, music

Dislikes?
Ballet and marmite

Listening to?
U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Muse

What helps your faith?
Discussing my faith with people my age

Top tips for Yfaith boys:
Just be yourself, and don’t worry what people think of you.

Remember, there are millions of other young Catholics and Christians your age, who face the same situations as you.

And our random fact about Matthew:
I had 4 ancestors in WWI and WWII

Wow, that’s some family history! Thanks for sharing Matt :-)

This Month we talk about...Bullying

Bullies can make going to school a really horrible thing. They turn the playground into a place of fear and everyone seems to be watching their back. Bullies can be individuals or a few people who gang up on 1. Angry people pick on people weaker than them most of the time, because they want to feel better about themselves, and they pick up on others faults to increase their own self esteem. But the sad thing is that their reasons for this are often pain from their own life, expressed as hate for others: trying to put the blame on others.

Truth Share Talk Think Sometimes it’s hard for bullies words not to have an effect on our lives. But their words aren’t truth because there is only one Truth: that God won’t stop loving you no matter what happens. Often we think that telling someone that we’re being bullied will make it all worse, by making us look weak, but if others know, it helps take some of the weight off our shoulders. Going through bullying on our own is tough especially because we’ve done nothing wrong! Talking to teachers or parents is a really good place to start, because they’ll be able to do something about it. Bullying is sometimes something that is done without thinking. Any comment or action that makes someone feel stupid or unloved can be bullying, and we are often more guilty of it ourselves than we might think.

Jesus stuck up for the helpless and the sick when other people made fun of them and bullied them. We have a responsibility to show God’s love to all people. Jesus called us to “love our neighbours as ourselves.” Think about how much love you show to yourself, then try to love everyone with that amount of love. If we all did this, then the people feeling unloved and bullied might begin to know the Truth: that they are lovable, and that God loves them and will never leave them! By Joe Wells- (Find out more about Joe)