(ANS – Bacău) – In this year dedicated to coming to know the life story of Don Bosco, here is an example of how even today the Turinese saint can make young people dream about and be motivated in devoting themselves to the salvation of other young people.

“I am Andrei Laslău, 23 years of age and I come from Bacău, a city in the east of Romania. I grew up no different from any of my contemporaries, but in His  plans the Lord took me where I would never have imagined going myself. I began as an altar server in my parish, then  I went to the minor seminary. Looking for something different I came across a life of Don Bosco. He was certainly someone different; he was the sort of priest I would have liked to become.”

Coming to know Don Bosco’s life story, young Laslău approached the Salesians and discovered that those priests he had only known through the  pages of a book really existed and devoted their lives to the young. “Then I began to think that their lives could also be mine.”

Laslău made his first profession as a Salesian in 2009. After his studies of philosophy at Nave, the superiors sent him back to Bacău to be in the Oratory. “Who would ever have thought that I would be sent for practical training to the place where I had grown up as a youth leader?”
 
Bacău is a complex but beautiful place. There are about 200,000 inhabitants and the Salesians are living in  a working-class area. Their house has become the focal point and a meeting place for the local youngsters, and thanks to the efforts of the religious the name and person of Don Bosco are becoming familiar to them.

Meanwhile the activities multiply “When I left the house of Bacău there was the oratory and some activities: the clowns’ group, the after-school, the sports groups, the Friends of Dominic Savio… Now the Salesian community of four confreres has the oratory, a day and after-school centre, a training centre for independent life, and a small trade school for electricity and hydraulics.”

Consequently the commitment of Baclău has increased  : “The oratory and the day centre take up my days: programming, organising, meeting the boys and leaders, the volunteers, forward planning, preparing meetings and being present in the play ground is what I have learned to do in these months.  And this just on the weekdays! Then through the year we have other projects such as the Boys’ Summer Programme which gathers more than 350 boys and 100 leaders.

Laslău gets a lot of help from the leaders. “On average they are 16-17 years old and are bursting with creativity. It often happens that I get an idea, I share it with them and together we do fantastic things, much appreciated by the boys. It is just as it was in Don Bosco’s time: a congregation of the young for the young.” .
 
Published 28/03/2012