(ANS – Turin) –The message of commitment and service, deepened yesterday with the reflection on the theme “for the Young”, was welcomed and made their own by the young participating in SYM DON BOSCO 2015. Many are the testimonies of boys and girls wishing to accompany their coetaneous in journeys of growth and integral development. 

by Gian Francesco Romano

In the small group of boys coming from Western Anglophone Africa there is Ama Boatemaa. Among the things he learned on these first days of SYM DON BOSCO there is the awareness of the importance of staying with the young, “to help them and make them always feel welcome and important, wherever they may be”.

Also Tadeusz, a sixteen-year-old boy from Lublin, in Poland, recounts that the example of Don Bosco made him stronger and more confident in the future and he now feels motivated “to donate his smile” to the people he meets in his way, whether they be relatives, friends or acquaintances.  

Take, a young man coming from Japan, participated in several missionary expeditions of voluntary work in Tetere, in Solomon Islands. Through this experience and thanks to his knowledge   of the Salesian, a few months ago he decided to receive baptism. “Don Bosco spent all his life for the young, and we are here to celebrate his birthday. My gift to him is to bring his message of joy to many other young people”.

In order to transmit once again, in a moving and involving way, Don Bosco’s message, yesterday evening, Thursday August 13^th, the young coming from Spain presented in PalaRuffini the musical “Gracias Don Bosco”. The performance, based on choral scenes of great impact and on high-level individual interpretations, lasted two hours and could represent Don Bosco’s life through all its fundamental stages. In the end, while all the 5000 present in PalaRuffini applauded, there was also a symbolic embrace between the Tenth Successor of Don Bosco and the main actor of the musical.

Published 14/08/2015