(ANS – Turin) –“You are not the young people of the Salesian environment only to receive, but also to GIVE and to GIVE YOURSELVES”. With these words the Rector Major, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, encouraged the young present at SYM DON BOSCO 2015 to live their being members of the Salesian Youth Movement (MGS) as a commitment and service “for the Young”.

by Gian Francesco Romano

The words of the Rector Major, in the form of an interview, have been the central formative moment of the third day; and the Rector Major addressed the young above all to make them understand how essential they are to the Salesian Family and how great are their potentialities. “It is possible to imagine to celebrate Don Bosco’s birthday only WITH THE YOUNG, AMONG THE YOUNG”, said the Rector Major commenting on the event SYM DON BOSCO, which he defined “a wonderful celebration of the Bicentenary”.

He also exhorted them to insist with Salesians and Daughters of Mary Help of Christians that they devote themselves ever more to the young, so as to spend all their lives for them, so as to be ever more like Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello.

And he entrusted to them with what he thought could be the “”commitments” Don Bosco would give to the young today: always keeping God and Mary Help of Christians at the centre of their hearts, being the leading characters of their own lives and being the sign of a possible alternative in society, feeling for the immigrants, the poor, the needy: “being counter-cultural in what is important and necessary to go against the mainstream (…), WE MUST FEEL UNEASY AS LONG AS the poor are beside us, or even far way from us, (…). Our policy of life must be the Gospel.”

Previously, during the activities animated by the MGS youth of Southern Italy, there had been significant witnesses of commitment for the young. The Spanish Salesian Rubén Escribano Caro recounted the origin of his vocation: through his service in a youth centre, after being born to a family of Jehovah witnesses and having lived an adolescence without feeling the need of God.

Two Italian Cooperatresses instead explained how their knowledge of Don Bosco and their taking part in the activities of the Oratory had given a meaning to their lives and hope to those of many other young people.

A married couple of Salesian Cooperators from Portugal witnessed on their choice “to share everything by halves” in their lives, by devoting themselves to the education of the young, (who were) “their first thought in the morning and the last theme of their conversation in the evening”.

The morning activities ended with the Eucharist that was presided over by the Rector Major in PalaRuffini. “We are all bearers of Don Bosco’s dream”, emphasized the Rector Major in his homily.  

Published 13/08/2015